“It was agony to look at you and know I couldn’t have you.” He undid the ties of her dress. “Showing me every perfect inch of yourself when you knew that I could do nothing about it.”
The dress was now pooled around her feet. He began to undo her stays.
“Why did you have me measured by Mrs. Warburton?”
“I want to do something for you. Let me.”
“It’s too much to accept.”
Her stays came off, just leaving her in her chemise, and so he took that off, too.
And then he turned her around to him.
“Trust me. It’s not.”
She flickered like an apparition in the candlelight, the strands of her miraculous hair playing tricks with the darkness. He wondered if somehow he was hallucinating and she wasn’t there at all.
But he knew she was real—because she reached out and touched him.
He relaxed into her touch, every nerve alive to her, uncertain of what she was going to do but desperate for it anyway. She pressed her body to him, kissing his mouth and then his neck, before undoing the buttons of his waistcoat.
“I want to see you too.” Obliging, he removed the linen shirt that separated her bare skin from his.
She pressed her exposed breasts to his bare chest for the first time and kissed him. It felt amazing, the sensation of her against him, somehow, impossibly even better than he had imagined, her skin like one of Mrs. Warburton’s bolts of fine fabric. He drank her in, knowing that he wouldn’t be able to stop himself from taking her tonight. He had resisted what felt like a thousand times before, but he didn’t have it in him anymore to stop. Maybe he shouldn’t want her but he did. He accepted it.
He pressed her back until she was sitting on the desk again.
“Now,” he said, his voice a rasp, “you have been patient.”
He reached down between her legs and found that place where he knew he could make her come apart. Already, she was wet and waiting for him, so lush and perfect. When he touched her, she gasped, digging her fingers into his shoulder.
“Shhh,” he said, “easy.”
Teasing her at her wet entrance, he started kissing her neck, adoring the fluttery moans that escaped her throat. As he did so, he kissed each breast, sucking on her blush pink nipples. She let out another series of desperate sounds at this sensation, steadying herself once more on his shoulder.
He dropped to his knees before her.
“What are you doing?” she said, her voice fogged with pleasure in a way that made him go, somehow, harder.
“Trust me.” He pressed his face into her sweetness, finding with his tongue the little bud of pleasure he knew would drive her wild.
Once more she gasped and grasped his shoulder.
“John. What are you…”
He responded with his tongue, licking her slowly, letting the pressure build, and she began to make keening sounds of pleasure that nearly undid him. He slid his finger into her, slowly, and she repeated his name. He continued, waiting until the tension built, until she was all coiled muscle, so tight around his finger.
Then, he stopped his ministrations and stood.
“John. Please, don’t stop.”
“I won’t.” He undid the falls of his breeches.
She reached out and touched him, stroking him along his hard length, her fingers lingering where he ached for her. She repeated the motion and he bit back a curse. She met him again with that wicked, mischievous smile.
“You like that,” she said, stroking him again, sending a ripple of pleasure through his entire body.
“I do,” he said, roughly, “but I can think of something I would like more.”
