He glanced up at her with interest. She made a gesture that might have indicated her bosom. He pretended not to understand. His hands were already on her outer thighs. He placed them on her hips instead. “Here?”
“Higher.”
He slid his palms up her hips to the curves at her midsection. “Here?”
“Higher.”
His hands skated lightly up her sides until the tips of his fingers grazed the underside of her bosom. “Here?”
Her voice was no louder than a breath. “Higher.”
He cupped his hands over her bosom, each plump breast larger than could fit in his hand. His fingers found her erect nipples beneath the soft muslin and gave them a light squeeze. He lowered his mouth until his lips brushed hers. “Here?”
“There,” she said, and kissed him.
Stephen needed no further invitation.
30
Elizabeth wrapped her arms around Stephen’s neck as they kissed, then immediately untwined her wrists. His mostly naked arms and chest were right above her, and there was no sense wasting a golden opportunity to run her hands over all those taut, flexing muscles.
Her back arched toward him as he stroked her breasts and teased her nipples. Her blood pulsed with desire. She yearned to wrap herself around him, to feel him surging inside of her.
And yet, when he’d offered something so simple as to rub her legs without the protective covering of her skirts, she had hesitated.
Removing her gown would feel like charging into battle without a shield.
Elizabeth had sought out and enjoyed sexual escapades before. Those had just happened to be with people she had no intention of seeing again. The hurried couplings rarely involved the removal of many items of clothing, and had never transpired with anyone who had ever glimpsed her at any less than full strength.
The only part of that description that matched Stephen was the unlikelihood of seeing each other again after this mission concluded—a detail that Elizabeth was trying dashed hard to forget. She didn’t want to think about future goodbyes. She wanted to lose herself in the moment here and now, while he was still with her.
If this was to be one of her only opportunities to be intimate withStephen, she did not wish to have any barriers between them. If his ridiculous waistcoat was an affront to her senses and she longed to fling it from his otherwise bare torso every time she glimpsed it, then she could not hide beneath layers of chemise and gown.
“Take off your waistcoat,” she murmured against his lips.
“Without delay.” He shrugged the purple silk from his wide shoulders and tossed the garment over the side of the bed.
“Now remove…”
He lowered his hand to his waistband.
“… my dress,” she finished, and held her breath.
His eyes lit up as though she’d just offered him a special delivery of all the best tinkering supplies in the world. As he eased her gown up to her waist, Stephen kissed her with hunger. He pulled them both into a sitting position so that he could untie the cords at her back and lift the gown from her body.
Unlike the waistcoat, which had been tossed ignominiously atop a pile of machinery detritus, Stephen folded her gown with care before placing it on the floor beside the bed.
“Next?” he asked huskily.
“Maybe I’m done for the night,” she teased. “Maybe you can go back to your room now.”
“And maybe I’ll give you one guess as to what I would do with my hand and my body if I were to return to my bedchamber at this moment.”
“I don’t want to guess.” Heat flushed her cheeks. “Show me.”
His eyes widened slightly at her challenge, then he leaned back and unfastened his trousers, one button at a time. The panel of his fall tumbled forward, and his shaft rose tall, tapping against the tight muscles of his lower abdomen.
Without taking his gaze from Elizabeth, Stephen curled his fingers about his shaft and began stroking it with light tugging motions that made it grow even larger.
