He raised his hand and traced the line of her jaw with one finger. Then her cheekbone. The curve of her ear. He ran fingers along the tendon of her neck, and her whole body oriented toward it like a compass finding north.
“In the cottage,” he said, and his voice had dropped into the register that made her skin feel too tight, “everything was rushed. Cold floor. Ash in the fire. Your back against a narrow cot. My hands were shaking so badly I could barely unlace your stays.”
“I recall.” She gulped.
His finger traced her collarbone, dipping into the hollow at the base of her throat where her pulse hammered. “I have had five days to consider how I would have you when we were not at risk of our lives. Five days of riding and waiting and lying awake composing a very detailed list.”
“You made a list.”
“I am a man of method.”
She caught his hand. Held it against her throat where he could feel her pulse. “Then show me.”
He kissed her.
Thoroughly. His mouth moved against hers with a patience that was its own form of devastation, his hand sliding from her throat into her hair, tilting her head back so he could deepen the angle.
She opened for him. Tasted wine and warmth and the faint salt of the road. His tongue stroked hers, and her knees went weak. She gripped his shirt to steady herself and heard the low, rough sound he made against her mouth when she pulled him closer.
His hands moved to the ribbon at the neck of her nightgown. One slow pull and the bow came undone. The gown loosened around her shoulders.
“In the cottage,” she said against his mouth, “I did not get to undress you properly. I was too cold and too desperate and too busy trying not to lose my nerve.”
“And now?”
“Now I am warm. And I am not desperate.” She pulled back enough to look at him. “I am, however, going to take my time.”
She reached for the hem of his shirt and drew it upward. He raised his arms and let her strip it over his head, and the sight of his bare chest in the firelight hit her the same way it had in the cottage. The broad planes of muscle and dark hair tapering down his stomach. The way his ribs expanded with each breath, faster now than when he walked through the door.
She flattened her palms against his chest. His heart slammed beneath her hands.
“You are shaking, Mr. Darcy.”
“I am not.”
“You are. I can feel it.” She pressed her mouth to his collarbone. Kissed the hollow of his throat. Found his pulse with her tongue and felt it kick. “The great Mr. Darcy, undone by his wife's hands.”
“His wife has undone the great Mr. Darcy since the cottage. The hands are but the instrument.”
She laughed against his skin. He seized the moment. His hands gathered the nightgown and drew it over her head in one smooth motion, and then she was bare before him and the cool air raised gooseflesh across her skin and his eyes went black.
He did not look away. He looked at her the way he had in the cottage, when she had pulled her shift over her head and watched for his reaction. As though she were the most extraordinary thing he had ever seen and he could not quite believe she was real.
“Come here,” she said.
He kissed her again and this time there was nothing patient about it. His hands were on her skin. Her waist. Her hips. The curve of her back. She pressed against him and the contact of her bare breasts against his chest sent a jolt through them both. She heard his sharp inhale. Felt his fingers dig into her hips. Felt the hard length of him against her stomach through his breeches and rocked into it deliberately.
He groaned. Low and rough and wrecked. His mouth broke from hers and found her throat. Her collarbone. The upper slope of her breast, and she arched into him, wanting his mouth lower,wanting it where it had been in the cottage when she had learned what pleasure really meant.
He obliged.
His lips closed over her nipple and she gasped. The sensation was sharper than she remembered. More focused. In the cottage she had been half-frozen and frantic and the pleasure had competed with cold and fear for her attention. Here there was nothing to compete. Only warmth and candlelight and the devastating caress of his tongue.
He sucked. Softly at first, then harder when she made a sound that encouraged him. His hand found her other breast, his thumb circling the peak until it hardened under his touch, and the twin sensations sent heat pooling low in her belly. She buried her fingers in his hair and held on.
“The bed,” she managed.
He lifted her. She wrapped her arms around his neck and he carried her to the four-poster and laid her down on cool linen that was soft and fine and nothing at all like the rough wool blankets of a frozen cottage.
