Perhaps she should start with the “then some.”
“Come here,” she ordered. Her pulse raced when he immediately prowled closer, his dark eyes never leaving her face.
He stopped just before the tips of his boots brushed against her toes. He gazed down at her, serious, intense, the heat in his eyes betraying barely restrained patience. It was killing him not to take charge, Evangeline realized as she stared up at him. He was the sort of man who knew what he wanted, went after what he wanted, took what he wanted. And yet he did not. He was relinquishing control forher.
Her thin cotton shift suddenly felt as thick and heavy as wool. Already she could feel her body responding to the masculine scent of his skin, the dark passion in his eyes, the power in his taut muscles.
She reached out with one hand and skated her fingertips along the width of his shoulder, down the length of his arm. He didn’t move. Holding himself in check. For her. Her body thrilled at the knowledge.
“Take off your jacket,” she commanded him.
In a trice, he shucked the offending garment and dropped it at his feet. She kicked it away. Still his gaze didn’t leave her face.
“May I divest you of your cravat?” She tugged at the snowy white cloth without waiting for a response.
He gave none; just waited, tense, letting her do as she would.
“And this waistcoat,” she said. “We must take it off.”
Fingers trembling, she fumbled with the first button. When he stood there, strong, silent, unmoving except for his heart pounding beneath her fingertips, Evangeline grew bolder. She tossed him a saucy sideways look through her lashes as she slipped the buttons from their holes. But when his waistcoat joined his jacket and cravat in an unceremonious pile on the floor, she hesitated before touching the last remaining bit of linen covering his chest.
“You…don’t have to do anything you don’t wish to,” he said softly, the words coming out gruff and strained.
“I wish,” she informed him just as softly, “to do everything.”
His lashes lowered. His nostrils flared.
Unable to wait a moment longer, Evangeline pushed up with her toes and wrapped her arms around his neck. He caught her just as she pressed her lips to his.
“Kiss me,” she whispered against his closed mouth.
When his teeth parted, she swept her tongue against his. He tasted just like she remembered. Spicy. Masculine. Potent. Leaving him tomorrow would tear her heart in two. At least she’d have tonight.
Reminded of their fleeting time together, she set to work removing his shirt as best she could between long, lingering kisses. Once unbuttoned, she slid the linen sleeves off his wide shoulders, down the hard ridges of his arms. He let go of her long enough to let the garment fall to the floor, and then he pulled her to him. He held her against his mouth, his bare chest, his thick shaft.
When a now-familiar heat began to coil between her thighs, she pulled away just far enough to look at him. Warm firelight flickered across his neck, his shoulders, his arms. Her hands slid across the warm skin of his chest, the strange wiry hairs, the tensed muscles. She rubbed one of his nipples. It hardened beneath her fingertip.
“When do I get to do that to you?” he asked gruffly.
“When I ask you.”
He frowned, as if more than half-regretting putting her in control of the evening’s activities. “Ask soon.”
“I will.” She smiled up at him, a large part of her delighting in having the power to determine what and when and how. She pushed him backward until his thighs bumped against the foot of the bed. “Sit. I want to take off your boots.”
He sat.
She knelt before him, tugged his boots from his feet, tossed them aside. Fingers curving around a carved wooden bedpost, she pulled herself upright and then slanted him a suspicious glance.
“You’re not the artist responsible for these hideous trolls, are you?”
“You don’t like them?” he asked innocently.
“Insufferable man.”
He grinned.
Once she’d stripped him of his stockings, she pushed at his chest until he fell back against the mattress.
