“Why do you think?”
Then, she leaned over, and kissed him.
Her full lips on his own were a surprise, but certainly not an unwelcome one.He responded in kind to her sweet assault, matching her taste for taste.
“I thought you would have had enough,” he said, drawing back.“After the gardens.”
She shook her head.“No, I was only beginning.”
It pleased him to see her here, smiling and preemptively undone.But anxiety also prickled over his skin at the expectation in her voice.
“And what is that you expect?”
“I thought you might like to see me.Unclothed.”
He gritted his teeth.
It had been years since he had seen a woman properly unclothed.
He usually didn’t care for it.
Or, rather, that wasn’t true.He didn’t like the expectation that it created.Of reciprocity.His mistresses, of course, would have done anything he asked, but staying clothed while they undressed—it seemed to him deeply embarrassing.
She brought her hand to the collar of her robe.
Christ, but he did want to seehernaked.
“I don’t want to undress.”
She paused.“I would love to see you,” she said.“But if you would prefer not, then I will not ask it of you.”
He was under the counterpane, but beneath that he was only wearing his nightshirt, so his body was hardly hidden.But he couldn’t tolerate the pressure of showing himself.
“I would prefer to stay clothed.But I want to see you.”
“Very well,” she said.
She stood and peeled off her robe.Then, she pulled her shift over her head.
She stood bare before him, and he felt his mouth go dry.
As it turned out, Miss Beatrice Salisbury was a vision without her clothing on.From the full, round breasts that were slightly too large for her frame to the nip of her waist and the dark curls between her thighs, she was maddeningly beautiful.Hecravedher, as if she were a particularly choice morsel that he wanted to taste.
He swelled beneath his nightshirt.
“You are beautiful.The most beautiful woman I have ever seen,” he said, unable to control the words.
She laughed.“How long has it been since you’ve seen a woman nude?”
“Not the point.”
“I’ll take the compliment.”
“Turn around.I want to see all of you.”
She obliged, turning to reveal the smooth length of her back and her large, lush arse.God, her naked form made his mind fill with indecent ideas—the kind of ideas that usually held no appeal for him.He imagined riding her from behind, feeling the clench of her quim around him in that position, which he had liked on the occasions when he had tried it when he was younger.Or, well, hehad, before he had seen, through a flash in the mirror, the absolute boredom on one of his mistress’s faces, when he was inside of her in that position.
He shook his head.
