He nodded.
“She didn’t mention it in her letter.” Olivia curled her fingers around the bedsheets. “Why did you visit a…a doxy?”
He gestured, slowly.
“Teach?” she said, concentrating on his hands. “And… I don’t know what that means. Is it…happiness? Whose happiness?”
He gestured toward Olivia, and she caught her breath.
“The doxy was teaching you to make me happy?”
He lifted his hand and moved it from side to side as if to say she was almost, but not quite, correct.
“Oh my!” She let out a small cry as a nugget of desire pulsed in her center. “She was teasing you how to give me…pleasure?”
His eyes flared with eagerness, and he nodded. Then he unfolded the note and handed it to her. Trembling, she read the words as he touched his signet ring and rotated it.
I wish to give you pleasure but you must help me, for I’ve never tried to pleasure a woman before. You must therefore tell me when something I do is pleasurable so that I might continue. If you wish me to do anything that you feel you might enjoy, you must tell me what it is. We shall learn the art of pleasure together. Therefore, I ask that you place your trust in me, as I should have placed my trust in you from the moment we met.
Olivia’s heart fluttered at the expression in his eyes—one of a young boy embarking on a new task, eager to please someone he respected.
And loved.
She folded the note, kissed it, then set it aside. Slowly she drew back the bedsheets. His eyes darkened with desire as he ran his gaze over her body, lingering on the neckline of her nightgown before moving along her skirts. When his gaze reached the hem of her nightgown and her stockinged feet, his nostrils flared.
“As you see, husband, I’m wearing your gift.”
She grasped her skirts and pulled them up to her thighs until the tops of her stockings came into view, secured with the honey-colored garter ribbons.
He let out a low growl, the call of a beast ready to claim his mate. Primal, decadent,scandalous…
And shelovedit.
He ran his hand over the bulge at the front of his breeches and closed his eyes, inhaling sharply. Then he continued to unbutton them and stepped out to stand before her completely unclothed.
Olivia’s body tightened with apprehension as, once more, she let her gaze fall to the part of him that stood, proud and eager, waiting to claim her.
I ask you to place your trust in me.
She caught a shimmer of uncertainty in his eyes, a plea for her approval, and her consent.
She caressed the edge of her stockings, then caught the end of the garter ribbon between her fingers.
“Sh-shall I remove my stockings, husband?” she said. “Or, perhaps you’d prefer to—Oh!”
His breathing ragged, he reached forward and grasped the ribbon. Then he hesitated, his body vibrating as if he were fighting to maintain control. She shifted her thighs apart, swallowing her shame at the dampness in her center.
“It would please me very much if you removed them.”
Slowly, he tugged at the ribbon until it worked loose. He dipped his head, and she suppressed a cry as his warm lips brushed against the skin of her thigh. Then he hooked a finger under the top of her stocking and peeled it off. Her whole body seemed to hum with pleasure as the soft silk slid down her thigh, her husband’s fingertips brushing against her skin.
By the time he’d removed the other stocking, her body felt like it was on fire. Heat coursed through her veins, and the faint pulse in her center had thickened to a throbbing ache. Then he parted her thighs and looked at her body—at the secret place where she ached for him.
She ought to be ashamed at such wantonness, at revealing herself so intimately to another. But the raw need burning in his eyes made her feel beautiful…anddesired.
He reached for her nightgown, which was—wickedly—bunched around her waist, then lifted his eyebrows and met her gaze.
“Do you wish me to remove it?” she whispered.
