“Maxwell—”
“I mean it.” A smile curved his mouth. “But if you had wished to know how I look without my shirt, you might have asked.”
Temptation had her biting her lower lip, but in an effort to keep him from knowing quite how much she had wanted—and still did—that, she teased, “Did I overestimate reality?”
He made a sound a little like a growl, and then his fingers were at his coat buttons, undoing them so quickly, she could do nothing but watch with a dropped jaw. Next came his waistcoat, then his coat, and finally he stood before her bare-chested, his eyes blazing.
“You tell me,” he said.
Skin. Hair. She did not know how to think of hair, but now it seemed ridiculous to picture him without any. The dark hair gathered on his chest and led down the center of his stomach to the waist of his breeches.
Her mouth went dry, heart pounding.
More than anything, she wanted to reach out and touch him, to see if the sculpted muscles felt as hard as they looked. As she watched, they flexed. His chest swelled as he took a deep breath, and she wondered if his heart was pounding the way hers was.
She glanced up and met his gaze, dark with heat that made her feel flushed and fluttery.
Rather than asking what she wanted, he reached out and took her hand, placing the flat of her palm against his chest. Underneath, she could feel his heartbeat, as elevated as hers.
“You may explore to your heart’s content, if you wish to.”
She drew in a sharp breath, unable to help herself from sliding her hand across his body in a proprietary gesture. “For art’s sake?”
“And yours.” He came even closer, branding her with his heat. “And for mine.”
“Yours?” The word was a whisper.
“You know how much I want you, Thalia.” He said the words as though they were nothing, as though she already knew them intimately, but the sound of them made her stomach tumble.
She felt as though she was falling. She never wanted to stop.
“Tell me,” she said. “How much?”
He groaned, one hand coming to her jaw, his thumb on her bottom lip. “You consume me. When I’m with you, I can think about nothing but kissing you. Touching you. I want to hear the way you moan in pleasure. Is it how I imagined?”
Heat sank through her. “I thought you disliked me.”
“When you came into my house to beg me to free you from the burden of my hand in marriage, I thought you were the most beautiful woman I had ever seen.” A brief, wry smile crossed his face, and she wondered what he could have thought to make him look like that. “But even then, I wanted you. I have never disliked you.”
More warmth rushed through her, and she reached out a hand to brace herself against the back of the chair. Neither of them was discussing marriage, or anything more potent than that at this moment.
Mutual desire. That was all.
Her life was unconventional already; what did a little more matter? If there was any place to give way to those sorts of thoughts, it was here.
Her hand was still on his chest; she felt every breath. Knew he was watching her intently, tracking the path of the blush across her cheeks and the intent in her eyes. Here, they were open books. There was no hiding.
Slowly, watching for his reaction, she slid her hand up to his collarbone, tracing the sharp bones, and then lowered her hand. To his sternum. Lower, reaching his stomach and that tantalizing strip of hair.
Her fingertips grazed his breeches.
His entire body tensed.
“May I?” he asked, with so much intensity that she felt the words thrum through her.
When she looked up, she saw his hand was hovering along her side, as though he longed to touch her but felt the need to ask for permission.
This warmth now was not merely the heat of lust, but something deeper. Affection. Respect.
