His hands slipped around her back, and she felt him slide two buttons of her gown open in rapid succession. She broke her mouth from his and stared up at him in shock and wonder.
“What…here?” she whispered.
“The door is locked and I can’t wait to take you upstairs,” he said. “Isn’t it so much more wicked to think that we could take our pleasure here? And then every time you come into this room, you’ll look at that settee…” He motioned across the room to the pretty upholstered couch near the fire. “…you’ll know you rode me there until we were both spent with pleasure.”
Her eyes went wide at the highly descriptive and specific nature of that statement. “Ride you?” she repeated, her hands shaking as she opened his jacket.
He chuckled and returned his hands to her buttons, stripping them open as he backed her across the room toward the settee he’d indicated. He tugged her dress and it fell forward, drooping at her arms. She expected him to remove it, to do all those wicked things she’d been dreaming about all day.
Instead, he stepped away. Holding eye contact with her, he shrugged off the jacket and waistcoat she had been tugging on, then removed his shirt. He sat on the settee, wrenched off his boots and slouched down, watching up at her through a hooded gaze.
“Can you imagine what in the world you might want to do with me, Your Grace?” he whispered.
She wet her lips nervously. A dozen possibilities filled her mind as she stared down at him, in the dominant position for the first time since he’d touched her the night of their engagement ball. Torn between uncertainty and a deep well of desire that told her to touch and lick and take like he would.
“I’m still figuring out what I can and cannot do in general,” she admitted as she tugged the gown from her arms and shimmied out of it. She stood before him in her chemise and drawers and felt the heat of a blush fill her cheeks.
He leaned forward and slid his hand under the hem of her drawers, gliding his rough fingers over the smooth expanse of her thigh. She shivered at the sensation, at the answering tug she felt deep in her sex.
“You can do anything you like, Amelia,” he said, lifting his gaze to hers. “Whatever feels good to us is what is right. You can’t make a mistake in this, I promise you that.”
There was something hypnotic to his low, seductive tone. Something that convinced her, more than any words, that he wanted her and she wanted him, and that would be enough.
She drew in a shuddering breath and then slid the thin straps of her chemise away from her shoulders. Slowly, she let the fabric roll away from her breasts and down her stomach, crumpling it at her feet so all that was left were the drawers.
He muttered something under his breath. She wasn’t sure if it was a curse or a benediction. Both, perhaps, rolled up into one. He flopped back against the settee, hands gripped against his muscular thighs, and watched her with a hungry gaze.
She felt answering hunger in her chest, in her limbs, in the slick heat that pooled between her legs. She swallowed hard, emboldened by the shared madness of this never-ending desire. Slowly she edged forward, nudging herself between his legs until her stomach was right in front of him.
“Untie me,” she ordered, her voice shaking at how powerful she felt.
He glanced up at her, that wicked half-smile cocking his lips once more. “Yes, Your Grace,” he murmured, and reached out to tug the silky tie on her drawers. He moved purposefully, teasing her as he let his fingers trace the waistline of the last thing she wore.
Finally, he loosened the knot and looked up at her as he let his fingers move beneath the fabric and pull them down her legs. She kicked them away, moaning as he let his hands travel back up her hips, cupping her backside as he tugged her in to press a searing kiss against the flat plane of her belly.
“Yes,” she whispered, dropping her hands into his hair and pulling it from the queue. “Yes, yes, yes.”
There was no other word but that one, and he listened to its every meaning. His mouth traced down to her hip, he sucked on her thigh and his fingers slid along the path until he rested his palm on her sex and teased her open.
She knew she was already wet, already hot and waiting. When his fingers slid inside of her, there was no resistance. She’d been waiting for this since the previous day in the carriage, and now he was touching her and she wanted nothing more than to give herself to him all night.
He was watching her as he filled her with one finger, then two. She bore down on him as he pressed a thumb to her clitoris and ground it gently. Her breath became short as the pleasure she had been denied for more than twenty-four hours returned in a heated rush.
He stroked her for a while—she had no idea how long, for time had lost all meaning. It was clear he was in no rush to bring her release. He wanted to tease, to draw out her need, to make her take it or beg for it.
And she was ready to do both. Especially when he withdrew his fingers from her clenching sheath and lifted them to his lips, where he licked them clean with a smile.
“Come down here,” he said, catching the back of her knee and gently guiding her to place it on one side of his thighs. She lowered herself to straddle over him, feeling the thick outline of his cock as she moved into position. Her hips flexed of their own accord and she ground over him.
Her eyes widened.Ride him.This was what he meant. Once he unfastened his trousers and freed his cock, she could take him inside and do just that. Ride until she was spent, until she had milked every ounce of pleasure from them both.
She thrilled at the idea. But once again, he seemed in no hurry. He slid his fingers into her hair, tugging her chignon loose so waves fell around her shoulders, her back, their faces. He slid his hands into the locks, cupping her scalp as he angled her head for a deep, probing kiss.
She melted against him, tasting his desire as their tongues tangled in languid, unrushed passion. There was no need to go too quickly, even if her needy body disagreed. They had all night—and after tonight, the rest of their days—to explore each other.
And that was far more comforting a notion than perhaps it should have been.
He cupped her backside and tugged her flush against him, rocking her and stealing her breath as she dropped her head back with a gasp of pleasure. One that increased when he caught one nipple between his lips and began to suck gently.
