She nodded. “The gown is too low in the front. All of them showed.”
He was silent for a moment and she looked over her shoulder at him. His expression was one of both excitement and frustration at her answer.
“Right now it’s only you and me,” she reminded him, hoping that this odd jealousy her decisions seemed to inspire wouldn’t keep him from the next moment they could share together.
He nodded slowly and slid his fingers beneath her dress, pushing it forward so it drooped around her elbows. She shoved it the rest of the way off and then turned as she shimmied it over her hips and stood before him, naked.
He swallowed hard, his eyes darting over her from head to toe. It had been a long time since he’d seen her like this. She knew she’d changed in that time and she hoped she wouldn’t disappoint him.
He reached out and let just his fingertips graze over her skin. Starting at her collarbone, he feathered his touch over her, then lower to her breast, flicking one naked nipple gently before he cascaded lower to her stomach, over her hip, and his hand fell away before he could cup her sex.
“I often wondered if I dreamed our night together all those years ago,” Lucien said, his voice rough. “You couldn’t have been so perfect as I imagined. But…you are more perfect. More beautiful.”
The compliment was the first gentle thing he’d said to her since his return to her life and Elise caught her breath at the power of it. Her love for him swelled from deep within her, taking over every other thing in the room. Making her want to confess dark secrets, beg for forgiveness for a past she couldn’t change.
But if she did that, this beautiful moment would pass. And she needed it, so desperately.
“I want to see you,” she whispered, motioning to his clothing. “Will you let me?”
Stenfax hesitated and she frowned. Was he so wary of revealing even his body to her, knowing that she’d taken so little care of his heart in the past? But finally he slipped his jacket off and went to work on his shirt.
When they’d been together a few days before, both had remained mostly clothed. Today she caught her breath as he peeled his shirt away.
He was so remarkably beautiful. He was muscular but not thickly built. No, his was a wiry strength, deceptive but powerful. She stepped toward him without ordering herself to do so. Her hand lifted, shaking as she pressed it to his warm, naked flesh.
He sucked in a breath when she did so and his eyes fluttered shut. She smoothed her palm over him, memorizing the lines of his body. She leaned in and pressed her lips to him next, tasting his warm skin with delicate little licks.
He groaned above her and she lifted her eyes without stopping her kisses. His eyes were open now, staring as she caressed him.
She wanted to bring him pleasure. That fact rocked through her with enormous power. She wanted to give him something without expecting anything in return.
She knew one way to do it. A thing she’d only seen in books and in the naughty paintings that hung on Vivien’s walls, had never once considered doing for her late husband. But for Lucien?
Well, for Lucien she would do anything and everything.
She reached down and unfastened his trousers. He pushed them away and his cock came loose. He was already hard as she dropped to her knees on the soft carpet before him. Hard and ready.
She shivered and looked up at him as she cupped him. His eyes were wide, his expression uncertain.
“What are you doing?” he whispered.
She didn’t answer him with words, but by guiding his thick cock to her lips and taking just the head of him inside. He let out a sound of pleasure that cracked the silence of the room and his hands came down, fingers tangling in her hair.
She took him deeper, loving the feel of him in her mouth, the taste of him. She wasn’t entirely certain what one was meant to do in this situation, so she went by instinct, taking him as deep as she could manage, then withdrawing until he almost exited her lips. She rolled her tongue around his length, she sucked gently. When he moaned, she worked harder, faster, seeking his pleasure without giving a thought to her own.
Not that she didn’t feel her own. There was an intense power to this act. An eroticism that made her wet as she took him.
She felt him getting close to the brink. She sensed his crisis and she saw it approaching as she looked up his body to watch his face.
But he didn’t allow her to steal his pleasure. With a low cry, he caught her elbows and drew her up his body, forcing her back against the billiard table once more. He balanced her on the edge of it, lifting one of her legs to hook around his back as he thrust deep and hard into her willing body.
She arched at the feel of him entering her in that swift, slick stroke, pleasure exploding in her entire body. He ground his hips against hers as he held her gaze steadily. She wound her arms around his neck and did the same, even as she lifted into his thrusts, rubbing herself against him to increase the pleasure for both of them.
The intensity of their locked stare, combined with his expert thrusts, brought her to the brink swiftly. She moved to turn her face, but he cupped her chin and held her there, making her look at him as her crisis at last hit. She jolted against him, watching how his pupils dilated as she came, feeling how his body quickened as she milked him with her pleasure.
He let out a low, needy moan as he pulled away, turning so she couldn’t watch him in his pleasure as he had watched her. It was disappointing. She gave, he never did.
And she knew why. She knewexactlyhow she’d earned his reticence.
