And Portia, in the mirror of his eyes, felt beautiful. “I’m wicked,” she murmured, a lingering protest of her other self.
“I love your wickedness. May I see more of you?”
When she made no protest, he unfastened the front of her gown and spread it to reveal her stays and plain petticoat. She knew she should stop him, but she did not, though the last tatters of her modesty had her wishing to cover her stays at the front.
He drew her to sitting, easing the gown off her, his hands spreading hot against her bare upper back. As he kissed her shoulder, her neck, the swell of her breasts, she stared helpless at the wall, but then the flickering heat of it had her arching back against his strong arm. He brushed a hand across her already sensitive breasts.
“I touch you and you sing like a harp,” he murmured. “Let us make music….”
“Bryght, truly we should not. This is wrong. This is foolish….”
“We are as good as married.”
He standing in her shift and stays and tried to conceal herself.
He pulled her to his feet, he half-naked, she half-dressed.
In the passionate heat of his gaze the last crystals of her resistance melted. She blushed and laughed shakily. “If I’d known, I’d have worn my best underwear.”
He traced the simple linen-over-bone of her stays. “I will give you exquisite garments of silk and lace and love you in and out of them, but at this moment, these are perfect.”
He deftly unknotted the laces and pulled the strings loose so her stays, too, fell to the carpet. Portia’s frantic conscience tried to remind her that his very dexterity proved he was not a decent man, but it was drowned out by the clamor of her senses.
She wanted him. She wanted him so badly that it was a physical ache.
His hands cherished her liberated torso over the plain cotton of her shift, making the ache worse. “Now you look a little like my Hippolyta, but much prettier.”
“I’m not pretty,” she protested, grasping his wrists. “Truly I’m not!”
“Am I bewitched, then? It doesn’t matter, for I am happy with it.” He twisted free, captured her right hand and pressed it to the front of his breeches. “See.”
She tried to pull away, but he held her there.
“Men are lustful creatures,” she said weakly. “Easily stirred.”
“Some of us are more discriminating than others. My friend there doesn’t dance for just anyone, you know.”
Yes, my beautiful one. Dance for me, show me that you want the gift of Venus….
She felt him move beneath her hand and colored. But sinful woman that she was, she loved it. He moved her hand up and down the hardness. “See what you do to me. Since this will soon be your friend, too, perhaps you should christen it.”
Portia jerked her hand away.“Christenit?”
“How else are we to talk of it in public?”
Portia stepped back. “Why ever would we want to talk of such a thing in public?”
“To prepare for what we intend to do as soon as we get home?” he suggested with a grin. “Or perhaps for what we are going to do in some quiet corner of our host’s house.” He captured her and pulled her hard against him. “I am inviting you to live a very wicked life, my Amazon. Do you accept?”
“You’ll be disappointed,” she protested. “I’m not wicked. Oh, Bryght, stop and think.”
“You are wicked enough, and rash enough for me.” He released her, but only to undo his buttons so his flap fell. He captured her hand again and pressed it to him, but to hot flesh now. “Name it,” he whispered, and she felt the shudder that rippled through him.
It conquered her. This was not artifice. Perhaps he lied, perhaps he danced for anyone, but at this moment he danced for her.
“The Thames,” she whispered.
He looked at her with bemusement. “I hope you don’t think its flow can equal England’s greatest river.”
