“Turn around,” he whispered, his voice a plea and an order and a prayer all at once.
She clenched her fists before she did it, screwing up her courage as best she could. Her experiences in the past, the ones she tried very hard not to think of, had not included a man looking at her utterly naked. And now it would be this man who did.
Thisman.
She turned and found he had stepped back. He stared at her, his eyes feasting from the top of her head to the tips of her toes. She had no idea how he felt about what he saw, and she brought a shaking hand in front of her sex as she turned her face to escape his heavy scrutiny.
“Lydia,” he whispered, that false name now piercing her like a sword because every time he said it, for it reminded her what he really wanted.
She pushed those reactions away and said, “Yes?”
He folded his fingers around her wrist and gently pushed her hand away. “You don’t have to hide from me,” he assured her.
She forced herself to look up and found a gentle expression on his otherwise hard face. A strange dichotomy that she was drawn to, just as she was drawn to everything about this man.
“I’m at a disadvantage,” she managed to grind out, her voice roughened by desire and fear. “For I am undone and you are perfectly…perfect.”
“Far from that,” he reassured her with a low chuckle. “But I think you mean I’m clothed. Which is something I intend to remedy right now.”
He untied his cravat as he said the words, unwinding it in a few motions, then dropping it at his side. As he lifted his hands to unfasten his shirt, she found herself leaning forward. His body had been a fascination to her from the first moment he touched her, pinned her so mercilessly against that table. And as he parted his shirt and pulled it away from his body, she stopped breathing.
He was as hard as he felt when she was in his arms. All muscle and sinew, from his broad shoulders to his uncommonly perfect arms to the faint ripples in his stomach. He had a small scar on his ribcage and another up on his shoulder, but those things only made him more attractive, not less.
“Your eyes are wide as saucers,” he said, his tone laced with both humor and concern. “Are youcertainyou’ve done this before, Lydia?”
She swallowed. “Not with anyone like you.”
“What is someone like me?” he asked, but his hands dropped to the placard of his trousers and he slowly unfastened it, never taking his eyes from her.
“I hardly know how to describe you, for I only repeat the words others write and am no poet,” she murmured, her throat thick, her body trembling. “The Bard would compare you to a summer’s day.”
“That was written for a woman, wasn’t it?” he said with a shake of his head.
“I don’t care, it fits,” she choked as he lowered the placard and revealed the thick, heavy, hard thrust of his cock. “You are golden and not just because of the color of your hair. You are spectacular. And I am fully aware that this is fleeting and so I should enjoy it, much as one does a perfect summer day.”
His smile faltered at her last sentence, but she gave him no space in which to reply or argue. She stepped up to him, bolder than she felt, and wound her arms around his neck to kiss him. She felt him shuffle, kicking aside his trousers, and then he cupped her naked backside suddenly and drew her fully against him.
Her world all but shattered. There was nothing left except her soft body against his hard one, his arms cradling her so safe and tight and warm, his cock nudging her belly, so unsafe and so wanted.
He turned her once more, backing her toward his bed, and her legs began to shake as he lifted her on the edge. This was going to happen. Itwashappening. And she’d never wanted something more in her entire life.
He maneuvered her onto the pillows without breaking his seeking mouth from hers and she settled back into the softness as she glided her fingers into his thick blond hair and pulled it out of the queue that bound the locks.
He pulled back to look down at her and she couldn’t breathe. With his hair down he was the fallen angel he pretended not to be. Sinful and sensual and leading her into temptation from which she would not escape unchanged.
He grinned down at her, infinitely wicked, and then he lowered his mouth not to her lips, but to her chest. He traced her collarbone with his tongue and she gasped at the flood of unexpected sensation that raced through her. He dragged his lips lower, cresting over one breast before he latched firmly onto her nipple.
She drove her fingers into his hair once more, calling out his name in a strangled cry that seemed to shatter the silence of the room. He suckled harder, swirling his tongue around and around and around until she was dizzy with pleasure. Then he drew his mouth to her other breast and did the same, arousing her to a point where she feared she might combust.
But he didn’t take her. Not yet. His mouth moved lower, over her flat stomach, licking her hip, her thigh, and then he spread her legs wide and stopped.
She struggled to sit up, staring at him as he positioned himself between her legs. “What are you doing?” she gasped out.
His brow wrinkled as he looked up at her. “No one has done this for you?”
She shook her head slowly. She wasn’t even certain whatthiswas.
He frowned. “Lydia, if you are untouched, I need you to be honest with me now. I don’t want to hurt you, and I will if you have never been with a man.”
