“Don’t you dare.” Her voice was raspy, every sated muscle limp. She reached for him anyway. “I want it all.”
He fumbled for the fall of his trousers.
She shook her head. “In the nude, please. Both of us.”
His face paled. “I—I can’t.”
“You can’t disrobe without a valet? I am certain I can help you.”
“No, it’s not that. I can manage on my own. I always do. I’ve never let anyone see…”
She ran her hands over his fully clothed chest. “You think you’ll frighten me away? Nonsense. There can be no doubt in your mind that I want you.”
Indecision warred on his face, followed by firm resolve. “You first.”
She twisted to expose the ribbon lacing her gown up her spine.
He untied the bow in seconds, lifting her gown and her shift together. They sailed up over her head to land in a heap somewhere behind the chaise.
“Now you.” She reached for the buttons of his coat. “May I?”
He looked as though he were facing a firing squad, but he nodded grimly.
She unbuttoned the coat and pushed it off him, one shoulder at a time. The muslin sleeves of his white shirt billowed from his blue silk waistcoat. She unfastened that next, slipping the blue silk from his shoulders and onto the floor.
His oversized white shirt sagged down, the soft muslin brushing against her naked breasts and abdomen.
She started to raise the bottom hem. He stiffened, but did not stop her.
Every inch of exposed flesh revealed new scars. It was not just his face that had been permanently altered in the accident. His taut abdomen and wide chest also bore thick, puckered lines as if he had been lanced mercilessly with a sword.
Or dashed against the sharp rocks of a river, in the wreckage of a metal carriage.
“Oh, Titus,” she murmured softly.
He glared at her. “I don’t want your pity.”
“You don’t have it, you foolish man. Only you could think the marks of your past continue to define you in the future.” She tossed the shirt aside and spread her fingers against the warmth of his chest. “You’re still the most beautiful gentleman I’ve ever seen.”
He shook his head. “I’m—”
“Perfect,” she said firmly, trailing her fingertips down to his waistband. “Now, wasn’t there something else you wanted to show me?”
He shucked his boots and his trousers as if there were a prize to be won for breaking the record for fastest disrobing.
Matilda’s eyes widened at the sight of his shaft, but she could not ogle it for long. Soon it was hard and pulsing between her thighs, rubbing against the place where she was still wet and rapidly regaining that glorious sense of building pressure.
Titus’s mouth devoured hers. Every muscle tensed in anticipation. “You’re certain about this?”
She wrapped her legs about his hips. “Stop making me wait.”
He wasted no more time.
She gasped as he entered her. A brief sting of pain followed quickly by mounting pleasure. She clasped her arms about him and held on tight. Her hips rose to meet his. He claimed her again and again with his mouth and body.
She was his. Utterly, irrevocably his. Ruined for all others. Bound to him for eternity. Nothing could diminish the earth-shattering connection they had forged.
Not even goodbye.
