She sighed, and he absorbed the tremor that ran through her as he took a handful of her sweet-scented hair and held it back, revealing her throat. He kissed her there as well, dragged his mouth down, stopping when he reached the hollow where her pulse thudded.
The urge to see her wearing nothing but her trousers struck him. He raised his head, moving his hands to the line of buttons on the front of her smart bodice. The bodice was the color of cream today, its sole adornment the double line of shells and a tiny satin bow. Mindlessly, he worked the buttons free.
So many bloody buttons.
He lost patience and began to tear.
“Arden,” she protested on a startled gasp.
He remained unrepentant as he looked down at his progress. The halves of her bodice hung open, revealing a modified chemise beneath. No corset. Her breasts were soft and round, the hard, pink peaks taunting shadows.
“Lucien,” he reminded her, then found he could not tarry another moment.
He lowered his lips to her breast and sucked a hungry nipple into his mouth, ignoring the unwanted fabric barrier.
“Oh,” was all she said, but her fingers were in his hair now, sifting.
He loved her hands on him. They made him feel as if she was as greedy for him as he was for her. Tenderly, he bit her nipple, and he was rewarded by her sharp inhalation, the score of her nails on his scalp. This was not going to be a tender bedding. It was going to be a wild and frantic fucking.
He released her nipple, and took her mouth again. He tore the rest of her bodice from her arms, sending it falling. He would buy her a dozen to replace it. He would buy her an entiremodisteshop.Damn it, he would commission the finest dressmakers in London to make her a hundred more bodices, and twice as many trousers, as long as she would allow him to tear them all off her.
He forgot about his fantasy to see her in nothing more than the trousers, because her lips were clinging to his, and she was softening. Melting in his hands, losing all the starch and determination she carried about her like a shield. And she was touching him, her hands gliding over his dressing gown in caresses which were tentative at first, then grew bolder. His shoulders first, then his chest, and down his abdomen, until she glanced over his burgeoning cock.
He groaned into her mouth, resisting the instinct to mindlessly thrust against her. He wanted a far greater prize than her hand. And, more importantly, he wanted to last. He kissed her deeper as he found the fastening at the waistband of her trousers and opened it. The billowing fabric fell away. Her drawers came next.
She tugged at the knot on his belt, and he felt it loosening. Too soon. If he was naked, he would not be able to resist taking her to the bed and making her his. Rushing was not what he was after. Rather, a slow and thorough seduction was.
He tore his lips from hers, his breathing harsh, and stared down at her. Her cheeks were flushed, her mouth stung with his kisses, her lips parted. He had never seen a sight more glorious than Hazel half undone, clad in nothing but a short chemise, stockings, and garters, her hair a wild mass spilling down her back.
He reached for her hands, entwining their fingers. “Come.” He tugged her to the sitting area by his fireplace, and she allowed it.
Her eyes held a new question as he stopped her before one of the damask-and-gilt chairs. “What are you doing, Lucien?”
Damnation, he liked the sound of her husky drawl saying his name. Anticipation pulsed through him. “Take off your chemise for me.”
“Here?”
Of course she would question him, the stubborn woman. “Here,” he confirmed. “Please.”
He had never begged for anything in his life, but he would gladly do so, for the chance to watch Hazel strip away the last layer of fabric shielding her lithe body from him. Still watching him in that intense way she had, she gathered up fistfuls of the chemise and pulled it over her head.
“Christ,” he rasped, his voice strangled.
A violent surge of want resounded through him. In her stockings and garters and nothing else, she was a vision. A dream. More beautiful than he had imagined, and he had imagined her many times. Many nights. But never this.
Pale and curved, hips lush, her breasts tipped with hard, pink nipples he already knew loved to be sucked. He had to touch. His hands were on her, stroking, worshiping, investigating. Her delicately curved shoulders, the protrusion of her clavicle, lower, over the fullness of her breasts, down her waist, cupping her bottom. She was all smooth heat and lush femininity.
He sank to his knees before her, his gaze locked upon hers, and kissed her knee through her silk stockings. He caressed her slim ankle, then grasped it firmly and urged her to lift her leg.
“Arden,” she protested.
“Lucien,” he reminded, intent upon his prize. Her mound was hidden by a dark, silky tuft of curls. He recalled how sweet she had tasted.
“Lucien,” she said, breathless. “What are you doing?”
“Loving you.” He guided her hands to his shoulders, then hooked a hand behind her knee when she continued to stand, unmoving. He rocked forward on his knees, blowing air lightly over her. “Trust me, Hazel.”
With a jerky nod, she relented, allowing him to place her right foot upon the cushion of the chair at their side. She was open to him then, naked save for her garters and stockings, those willful blue eyes upon him, and he had the perfect view of her. Pink and pretty, glistening in the light of the gas lamps. Wet for him.
