Her boldness, her fearlessness, had drawn him to her then. And it was those twin attributes that drew him to her now. She didn’t retreat from him. Though her flaming cheeks gave her away for the innocent she was, she didn’t hesitate. She wanted this joining every bit as much as he.
Julian kissed her again, plucking at her responsive nipple and pressing ever deeper into her skirts before he withdrew entirely, standing back to survey her. She was as beautiful as he’d ever seen her in a lush creation of silk, her expression glazed with passion, bodice deliciously askew. It occurred to him that he was scarcely clothed while she was as properly dressed as though she awaited a bevy of callers during her receiving hours. Most unfair, that.
A dark urge rose up within him. He’d never wanted another woman with the all-consuming hunger that spurred him now. As undeniably lovely as she was in her French gown, he wanted it off her. “Disrobe for me, little dove.”
Her eyes widened, a hand fluttering to her throat, the only evidence of her unease. “My lord?”
“Julian.” He wanted to hear his name on her lips, in the mellifluous drawl she didn’t bother to mask in his presence. It soothed his soul and made his cock ache at the same time. The devil of a thing. “You heard me, love. Remove your dress.”
She hesitated, looking adorably uncertain. “Julian then. I’m…unaccustomed to disrobing myself, and this dress is rather complicated in construction. Perhaps we ought to wait until later. The evening? Another day? I do believe I saw you wince as though your head—”
“Come now,” he interrupted, equal parts charmed and amused by her nervous attempt to procrastinate. “A Virginia lady such as yourself, one who can shoot and bluster, one who can infiltrate the study of an earl at midnight, one who tramps about London on her own wielding a pistol in her reticule, surely a lady such as this can manage to remove a mere gown on her own. Yes?”
He was testing her and the spark in her eyes said she knew it. Her gaze clung to his, her chin tipping up in her trademark show of defiance. “Of course I can. But your injury. It’s too soon. You did seem to be in some pain.”
“My injury is almost fully healed, fully recovered.” A lie, but he didn’t particularly give a damn about such a minor falsehood at the moment. “Perhaps I mistook your daring, then.”
If he’d learned anything about his new wife, it was that she never wanted to be seen as weak. Long ago, he’d mastered the art of using a woman’s weaknesses against her. It was how he’d managed to carry on for so long as he had. One of the many roles he’d been forced to play.
Only, he wasn’t playing a role now. He was hers. She was his.
“Take it off me.”
Her demand, as sudden and unexpected as it was arousing, took him aback. He stared at her, just narrowly refraining from catching her up in his arms and tearing her dress away like a ravaging beast. Gentle, he reminded himself. He would be gentle. He would take the greatest care with her. For she deserved that and so much more.
But the moment he touched the remainder of the buttons fastening her bodice, his good intentions shattered. He caught the gaping vee of her dismantled décolletage in both his hands and yanked. A shower of buttons rained to the carpet, mingling with her startled gasp.
“As you wish, little dove.” Her beautiful dress hung limply apart, revealing her embroidered corset cover. The sleeves were damned tight, clinging to her shoulders in an impediment he grew impatient to banish. He pulled again, and this time the sound of rending fabric filled the air. The sleeves went down at last, revealing soft porcelain flesh. Jesus, even her arms were beautiful, curved and feminine. He fought back the absurd desire to kiss the hinge of her elbow, to lick a path all the way to her shoulder. Her scent, bright and musky, filled his senses, even more potent now that so much of her gorgeous skin was revealed to him.
He wondered if she tasted as sweet as she smelled everywhere. Behind her knee? Her belly? The roundness of her thighs? Fuck, he had to know. Blood roared through his head, a river of lust pouring over his body, threatening to engulf him.
Dimly, he registered her protest.
“Lord Ravenscroft, you’ve ruined my new gown.”
What an intriguing moment for her to once again revert to polite formality. She was nervous, his little dove, her eyes wide. Perhaps she feared he’d take her as roughly as he’d stripped away half of her dress. He ought to reassure her, but any civility he pretended to possess had utterly fled him.
“You required me to take it off you.” The damn thing was still fastened tightly at her waist. He ripped a few more buttons and hooks, locating the ties of her crinoline and undoing them with scarcely more finesse. Down went her skirts, bodice, and dress shaper, landing in a muted swoosh around her feet. But it wasn’t enough. More fabric fell to the floor until she stood before him in only her corset, chemise, drawers, and stockings. He pulled her to him, cupping her face as gently as he could manage. “And so I obliged.”
She sputtered. “I didn’t tell you to ruin it, my lord.”
Even her dudgeon sent another arrow of heat directly to his cock. “No more ‘my lord,’ love.”
He kissed her then because he couldn’t go another second without feeling her sweet, yielding mouth beneath his. She opened. He raked his teeth over the fullness of her bottom lip before sinking his tongue inside. So sweet. Sweeter than he deserved.
Every part of him hungered to take her. To tear off her drawers, drag her chemise to her waist, take her to the carpet, and sink inside her. But he wrangled his wayward impulses. His reputation and indeed his living had been built upon bed sport. His prowess was unparalleled. He took his time, made his lover’s body sing with pleasure, relished in giving her what she’d paid for—the release no man before him had known or dared to give.
What was it about Clara that dragged him to the edge? What was it that made him want to rend and tear, to rut like a beast? To fill her with his cock and after that, with his seed? In an elemental sense she was no different than any other before her. She too had bought and paid for his services, after all, with her dowry and soon her virginity.
The thought cooled some of his ardor. He dragged his mouth from hers, kissed her jaw, her ear, ran his tongue over the defined whorl that nestled against her hair. An anomalous crudeness surged to life within him then, a need to shock her and perhaps shock even himself.
“Clara, sweet, innocent Clara,” he whispered into her ear. “I’m going to fuck you. I’m going to strip every last bit of covering away from you. And then I’m going to taste you everywhere. I’m going to make you spend all over my tongue first. Then all over my cock.”
His words should have sent her spinning away from him in retreat. Should have made her run, flee the chamber through the adjoining door to the safety of her own space. She was a maid, after all. Untried and pure aside from his own attempts to sway her to the darker side.
But instead she did something he least expected, his little dove. Her busy fingers, the fingers he’d watched on countless occasions fretting on the folds of her gown, discovered the knot keeping his dressing gown in place. And undid it. Then those fingers skated beneath the plackets of his robe, gliding over his bare chest with pure, unadulterated fire. Her nails grazed one of his nipples.
“Do it then, Julian.” Her voice was deep and throaty, at once a taunt and a dare.
