He turned her gently, forcing her to face away from him, and leaned in to kiss the back of her neck even as he began to unfasten the buttons along the back of her dress. A thrill worked through her as his fingertips brushed her spine, her shoulders, through her fine chemise. He parted the fabric and gently pushed, gliding it down her arms until it hung around her waist. Only then did he turned her back to face him.
She blushed. She was standing in front of him and he could see her chemise. No one but her maid or her sister had ever seen her this way.
“You are shifting your weight back and forth ever so slightly,” he said with a soft smile. “Are you reconsidering your decision?”
“No,” she croaked out. “I’m just hoping you aren’t disappointed with what you see.”
His eyes widened slightly. “With you? Never.”
He took a step closer until he crowded into her space and lifted his hand. Slowly he traced the back of it over her shoulder, her collarbone, and finally over her chest. His knuckles slid back and forth over her nipples, and they immediately hardened as she hissed out a breath of unexpected pleasure.
Then he turned his hand, flattening it back against her shoulder, and slid it beneath the flimsy chemise strap. She held her breath, watching as he glided the scrap away and down her arm, bearing first one breast, then the other.
“You are,” he whispered, leaning down to brush his lips just across the top of the swell, “so exquisite.”
She took in a great gulp of air as she tangled her fingers in his crisp, short hair and held tight as his lips opened and he began to gently taste her exposed flesh. Lower and lower he swept his tongue until he brushed it over one nipple.
Electric heat flashed through her, and she found herself arching against him. He smiled against her flesh. “Since the first moment I saw you, I have longed to see you like this,” he admitted.
She drew back. “You—you wanted me from the first moment you saw me?”
He swallowed hard before he nodded. “Yes, Celia. And that had nothing to do with my case. Nothing to do with anything but you. The more I grew to know you, the worse that ache became. And no amount of distraction or self-pleasure could make it less.”
Tears suddenly stung Celia’s eyes and she blinked them away so he wouldn’t see how much his words moved her. Since his confession the afternoon before, she had been wondering how much of their connection was real and how much had been manufactured by him for the sake of his case.
Now his words freed her from the doubt that had plagued her. Slowly she hooked her fingers into her drooping chemise and gown and shimmied the entire contraption down her hips. She stepped out and stood before him in only her drawers and stockings.
“Would touching me make it less?” she asked, shocked by her own boldness and yet thrilled with how the erection hidden behind the placket of his trousers seemed to swell even larger.
“More at first,” he said, reaching out to place a hand on her hip and draw her closer. “But then your body will be the only thing that can cure the need.”
“And what of my need?” she asked, blinking up at him now that their faces were mere inches apart.
He kissed her gently. “I intend to take care of that as many times as you can bear.”
Without another word, he swept his arm beneath her knees and lifted her. He pressed a kiss to her mouth as he carried her to the bed that had so fascinated her a moment before and laid her down. Her heart was beating like hummingbird wings as he tugged her drawers away, then her slippers, then unrolled her stockings.
And then she was naked, sprawled on his bed, his gaze burning into her.
“I do not deserve this,” he muttered, she thought more to himself than to her.
She might have argued that point, but he didn’t allow it. He bent to kiss her stomach and all her thoughts emptied. His mouth moved along her skin, down her abdomen, across her hip, and she tensed. He was going to kiss her sex like he’d done at the ball a few nights before. Her body contracted at the memory of the pleasure that had rushed through her when his mouth took her.
“Aiden?” she whispered.
He lifted his head from her thigh and said, “Did you like it before?”
She nodded immediately. “Y-yes. Very much. I couldn’t stop thinking about it.”
He chuckled, a masculine, possessive sound that rumbled through her whole body and made liquid flood the very sex they were discussing so intimately.
“And that was when I was rushed, knowing we had to get back to the ball. Tonight I have endless time to…” He looked back down, leaning in until his breath steamed across her sensitive flesh. “…explore.”
She gripped the coverlet with both fists as his mouth lowered and at last he covered her in an open-mouthed kiss. Pleasure immediately burst there and she lifted into him with a wordless sound of relief and need. Unlike the last time, when he’d held her steady through his ministrations, this time he let her move and arch into his tongue.
He swept across her entrance, licking away the wetness that had gathered there and creating more through his wicked mouth. She turned her head into the pillow, gasping and groaning, but never more than when he let his tongue flick across her clitoris and a jolt of intense sensation would render her moaning and liquid.
But unlike that night in the out building, tonight he didn’t focus his attention there. Oh, he teased, yes, ratcheting her breath higher and making her tremble, but he never focused, never drove her toward release.
