“Henrietta, I—” he finally said. His jaw worked. She could see the muscle there twitch. “What did Hartley offer you?” As he said the words, he brought the backs of his fingers to her cheek. “What pleasure did he offer you that you so wanted to experience?”
She swallowed hard again.
“I—I can’t say,” she gasped, as he traced down her cheek to her jawline.
Then, he kept going. He traced an invisible line down her neck to her clavicle. His finger trailed over the collar of her dress, cut in the height of fashion, and the light pressure made her shiver. When his finger hit the cloth of her bodice, he ran his finger along the hem. Even with the cloth between them, her vision swam with the delicious sensation.
It was nothing compared to how she had felt when Justin had touched her. She had felt warmth towards Justin and, in their intimacy, they had enjoyed themselves, but this breathless, heady feeling had not been what she had experienced. Trem was barely touching her and yet she could feel him everywhere. The light movement sent a pulse aching between her legs and she knew enough, even just having had the one lover, of what that meant, of what she wanted and where. She couldn’t believe that Trem was touching her in this way—when he had always been so proper with her, so reserved.
“Say it,” he said, lightly. He kept to his path, running his finger lightly along the bodice once more, over the top of one breast, and then across the valley in between, and over the other.
“I can’t,” she repeated, and she looked into his eyes, trying to convey both that she really couldn’t and that she had no idea what was happening between them now. In response, he merely continued his same lazy trajectory back up her shoulder.
Her nipples hardened almost painfully at the light touch.
Without thinking, she reached forward and placed a palm on his chest. He froze at the movement. She realized, for a sick moment, that he thought she wanted him to stop, when there was nothing she wanted less. To disabuse him of this notion, she leaned forward, so that her breasts lightly brushed against his chest.
“Bloody hell, Henrietta,” he cursed, stepping forward so that she was wedged between his body and the desk behind her. He didn’t kiss her, as she had wanted, but he put his mouth to her ear. “I still need to hear what he offered you.”
“I told you—I can’t,” she said, breathless from the heady combination of his touch and the intimacy of the conversation.
“Did he kiss you?” Trem continued.
When she didn’t respond, he prompted, “You just have to say yes or no.”
She swallowed hard and closed her eyes in embarrassment. But she found the words.
“Yes.” Her cheeks burned anew that Trem would know such detail about what she did with Justin.
But she needn’t have worried.
He ran his lips over her temple and then down to her cheek. He rested his mouth—so gently that she almost couldn’t feel it—at the corner of her own.
“Yes,” she repeated, somehow knowing that she was both merely repeating herself and telling him that she wanted him to do the same. More than she had ever wanted anything before, she wanted him to kiss her.
Finally, after what seemed an eternity but could only have been a collection of seconds, he covered her mouth with his once more, emitting a soft groan as he did. The kiss began chaste, only a delicate pressure, but when she returned it with more force, its tenor began to change. He teased her lips with his own, the stimulating sensation somehow both loosening her limbs and coiling her tighter. Just as she thought she might need to beg him for it, he stroked her bottom lip with his tongue, easing his way into her mouth. She felt herself open for him, not only there, but in her chest, between her legs and, most of all, in her mind. She knew she would do anything with him, here and now, and she had no doubt, if she did, that it would be the ideal by which she compared every other encounter she ever had.
Trem broke the kiss and a gasp of disappointment escaped her lips. He smiled at the sound, but he didn’t give in to the wordless plea.
“Did he see you here?” he said, letting his hand travel downwards from her neck once more, over the cloth of her dress.
She nodded, her face flashing crimson again, and she shut her eyes once more, unable to bear the sight of his face as she made her confession. She waited for the relief of his touch, but he didn’t reach for her. She opened her eyes to see him staring at her intently, so much desire in his gaze that it would have scared her if she didn’t feel overwhelmed with the same burn. For a moment, she was confused as to why he didn’t touch her, but then she realized that he was waiting for her to disrobe.
She swallowed hard again.
She had been unclothed with Justin.
But it had felt so much less consequential.
“Do you want that now?”
Henrietta nodded rapidly and, in an instant, Trem turned her around and was unbuttoning her dress. With the skill of a man who knew his way very well around a lady’s garments. The thought thrilled her as he pulled the dress downwards and it slipped off her body. He undid her stays and then she stepped, her back still towards him, out of the pile of clothing.
She stood there in her shift, only thin cotton, and gazed up at him. The look in his eyes—he appeared ready to consume her. She could see his jaw working as he struggled to control himself.
Moving slowly, knowing that it was torture for him, she raised her shift to her hips and pulled it over her head. She was clad only in her stockings now. The rest of her was bare before him.
“Fuck,” he said, when she finally dropped the cotton on the ground. And with that one oath, he stepped forward and lifted her onto the desk. She gasped at the quick movement, but he was already kissing her throat. At the same time, his hand grasped her breast, toying with the hard peak there, and drawing from her sounds that she had no notion she was capable of making. With Justin, she would have been ashamed to make such noise, but, with Trem, she didn’t even try to help it. He drew them from her so expertly she knew she had no hope of keeping her composure.
