He took a determined step forward. In response, she stepped back. The move was as instinctive as it had been on the dance floor; her body countered his without a thought.
“If that were the case—which I promise it is not—then, because of your foolish, selfish disregard for your own well-being, you’re now trapped out here. With me. Alone.” He punctuated that remark with another step forward. The back of her slipper found the edge of the pavement with her counterstep.
“My very worst nightmare,” she shot back as she switched tactics and pressed forward, driving him back.
“It’s not mine.”
“No, of course not, you’vedreamedof seducing me for years. Tell me, do you suppose the satisfaction of destroying me, humiliating me, would have eclipsed the physical gratification?”
Benedict shifted closer, and her body betrayed her. Her foot refused the parallel step. “I would have taken no satisfaction in your ruin. I’d already decided I was incapable of it. The very idea sickened me.”
Eliza fought against the instant, agonizing wound his words caused—a knife to the heart. “The idea of touching me sickened you?” She loathed the edge of pathetic hurt she caught in the last words.
His too-large hands wrapped around her upper arms, trapping her in place as his gaze penetrated her own. “Thatis not what I said. I said the idea ofhurtingyou sickened me. Since meeting you, and not a single moment before, the idea of touching you, the memory of it, has sustained me, breathed new life into me, left me gasping your name as I spilled across my own chest.” His hips thrust into her belly, underscoring the salacious comment with the evidence of his physical reaction to her.
Eliza’s gasp echoed in the empty orangery before the exotic vegetation swallowed the sound whole.
“You wish to know how I would have seduced you?”
Her head bobbed without permission. The natural dance of their bodies betrayed her, overcame her will.
Benedict’s free hand caressed her cheek, his thumb sweeping across her lower lip, before drawing along her neck and down her shoulder to the hem of her glove. He pulled it from her hand before dragging its twin free as well. Pointedly, he ensured he had her gaze as he tucked them into a coat pocket.
“I was made to seduce you, Eliza. In your innocence, you cannot possibly imagine the ecstasy, the heights I would have brought you to. You would have relished every single second of your ruin, drowning in your own pleasure.”
Breath escaped her in a rush, an impossibly soft sound vanishing into the muggy air between them.
“I would have been so good for you, my little violet. There is nothing you could have asked of me that I wouldn’t have relinquished—even the instinctive demands of your body, the needs you don’t yet know how to give voice to—I would have metevery single desire with the devotion you deserve. And you do deserve it. You deserve to be revered. I would have knelt at your feet, worshiping your sweet center, until time ceased to have meaning.”
Benedict dropped to his knees in testimony, in supplication. His eyes were dark, blacker than the night sky. Ragged breaths scraped through parted lips, but Eliza wasn’t certain if the raspy, shredded sounds came from her chest or his.
Impossibly slowly, his long fingers caught the edge of her grey dress and tangled with the pearls dotting the hem.
“Let me.Please.” His voice cracked on the final word, and her gut clenched at the sound.
And then, precisely as he’d said, her head bobbed—her body understanding what her mind refused to comprehend.
Chapter Thirty-Four
With wide eyesand parted lips, Eliza nodded, and Benedict’s breath left him. Hope seared through his chest, desperate and delusional.
“Say yes,” he breathed, needing the verbal assurance that she wanted this as much as he did.
“Yes,” she sighed. Benedict’s groan nearly eclipsed the sound.
Permission granted, his attention turned to the glossy silk and smooth beading of her gown. He gathered the fabric up in a fist before catching her fingers with his free hand. She clutched at the silk when he pressed it into her fingers.
“You hold that. I want you to watch. Then you’ll know. You’ll see the truth.”
“The truth?”
“Just watch.” His gaze caught hers, trapping her there. “Just watch,” he repeated.
Then he returned to her skirts and tugged up a starched petticoat only to be met with a second. “How many petticoats does one dress need?”
“Three.”
“Three too many,” Benedict muttered as he gathered the third and added it to the bundle of lace and frippery in Eliza’s grasp. Then he found the frilly edge of her chemise.
