“Mm.” He nodded, guiding her toward the bed. “Very serious. Perhaps I should loosen your bodice as well.”
“So I can breathe better?”
“Of course.”
“I do feel so faint,” she whispered dramatically. “I might not make it to the bed. Oh!”
Ian swung her into his arms with a grin. “I really do feel that you should be abed, Lady Ayr.”
“Whatever you say, Lord Ayr.” She curled her fingers in his hair, tousling his locks. “Might we go to my bed, though? In truth, the idea of making love beneath that portrait makes me oddly anxious.”
Looking up at the gigantic portrait over the fireplace, he smiled. “I love that painting but I shall accommodate you only because I’ve been fantasizing about making love to you in your bed all week.”
He carried her through the attached dressing rooms and into the marchioness’s chamber. Her bed hadn’t been turned down, and the hangings were drawn back as they should be this time of year. Ian laid her down on the green counterpane. At her quizzical gaze, he continued as he plucked the pins one by one from her hair, “I imagined you here with your hair spread out over the pillows.”
She shook her head and worked her fingers through her curls. “Like this?”
He toyed with one of the long blond locks before placing it across her chest. “Aye, just like that, my love. By God, but yer a bonny lass.”
Hero’s heart pounded furiously at the emotion in his words, feeling that they said so much more. Already they had professed their love, but somehow the words did not say it all. His eyes said so much more. She felt the message to her core. Love, adoration, desire, need.
“Are you going to make love to me now?” she asked when Ian didn’t move from her side. Yet with only his dark gaze touching her, she was already throbbing with desire. Her breasts tingled and tightened, waiting for his hand, and she wasn’t even unclothed yet.
“Wi’ yer clothes still on?” he asked huskily as he took her hand and began unfastening the pearl buttons above her hand, kissing the inside of her wrist. His brogue was heavy with barely leashed passion. “Nay, there will be moments for that in the days to come.”
Hero blinked at that. “Really?”
“Aye, I might come upon ye in the Blue Drawing Room one morning while ye’re playing piano,” he began. “I’d see ye there wi’ your bonny head bowed over the ivories, the sun as bright as gold on your hair. I would pick ye up and set ye on the keys. I might push yer skirts up to yer waist and take ye right there and see what music we make together.”
Heart beating hard within her chest, she swallowed deeply. Ian finished opening her sleeves and pulled her to her feet. Turning her about, he gathered her loose hair and pushed it over her shoulder and unbuttoned her dress. “Or?” she asked hoarsely through her suddenly tight throat.
“Or.” He brushed his lips across her nape sending shivers down her spine. “I might take ye against the balustrade outside the Round Drawing Room with the crash of the waves below. I’d take ye so fiercely ye’d be forced to hang on to me tight so ye dinnae fall over.”
Her dress fell to the floor but she hardly noticed anything besides his lips against the side of her neck. Her mind filled with the images he presented, and a dull ache tightened between her legs. “Or?”
He tugged at the strings of her corset. “Or I might take ye out to our spot on the ramparts one night. But when I lift your skirts, the wind would caress ye as only I should. Would I mind, do ye think? Or would I simply bend ye over the wall and take ye wi’ all the fury of the wind and sea? We might have to find out.”
A soft thud hailed the corset’s drop to her feet, and Ian’s arms came around her to untie her pantalets. His hands smoothed them down as he knelt and untied her garters. As if he knew she was nearly speechless, he continued, “Or there’s still the pagoda to visit. Not at night, though. Our time for a surreptitious rendezvous is past. I would make love to ye on the top floor wi’ the sun’s rays on us and wi’ the birds and wildlife all welcome to watch. When ye came, yer screams would scare them away. Would ye scream, fair Hero?”
She could hardly keep a thought in her head. Aquiver from head to toe, her knees so shaky she was surprised to be upright. His palms smoothed up the back of her legs, then his lips touched the back of her knee and she cried out softly. He stood once more and she could feel him behind her before he even touched her. An arm encircled her waist, drawing her back against his chest, and he bent his head to whisper. “There are a hundred days ahead of us, wife, when I will come upon ye and be so caught by lust that I maun take ye then and there. When I will do little more than push yer skirts up so that I might ha’ ye. But no’ tonight. Tonight, I want ye naked wi’ me.”
His hands came up to cup her breasts and he rolled her nipples gently between his fingers. “I want ye bared to my hands and my lips. I want to feel yer skin against mine.” One hand dipped lower, and Hero gasped when his fingers slid between her legs, parting her. She was agonizingly damp, a testament to how thoroughly his words alone had aroused her. His fingers circled the spot he had found with his mouth the night before, petting her until she was panting desperately. Unable to touch him as she liked, she clung to his hips while he pleasured her. His teeth grazed the side of her neck and shoulder.
“Will ye come for me, my love? Will ye scream for me?”
Hero bit back a cry that became a whimper as her body tensed. She ached for him, wanted him within her. She shook her head, fighting back the orgasm building in her. “No.”
“No?” His fingers curled into her, and she threw her head back against his chest as the waves of ecstasy began to wash over her.
“I want you,” she whispered brokenly. “Come with me.”
“Find yer heaven, my love, then I will.”
Shaking her head, Hero tore away from him and turned back, throwing her arms around his shoulders and pulling his mouth to hers. She kissed him with all the frenzied passion he’d roused in her. Parting her lips, she swept her tongue across his. Tasting. Tempting. His reaction was instantaneous. Ian crushed her against him, his hands cupping her bottom and drawing her tightly against him, but the rough abrasion of his clothes against her sensitive breasts reminded her of the disparity of their attire or lack of it, and she pulled back, tugging at his cravat. “Now you.”
His eyes were dark as midnight as he looked down at her and helped her by shrugging off his jacket and unbuttoning his waistcoat. “Is that how it’s going to be then, my love? Are ye thinking to take charge of every situation?”
“No,” she murmured. “I’m just thinking that what we do, we do together.”
