“But I will prove you right in doing so.”
She turned away, staring into the fire as she thought about that night all those years ago. That encounter that had started her road to marriage. And the other encounter that had sealed her fate. He remembered neither, and they were so pivotal to her life.
“Please, Katherine.” His soft words broke into the cloud of her doubt. “I see now why you would want something that was just for your pleasure. I understand your desire. I want to grant you that.”
She faced him and lifted her chin. “You understand that I never want to be someone’s plaything ever again?”
“You won’t be,” he said, then cupped the nape of her neck and drew her forward. His mouth dropped and he kissed her.
She didn’t want to melt into him. She didn’t want to give herself without a hesitation or without setting further boundaries, but she did. She lifted a hand to his bare chest, settling it against the planes of muscle there. He continued kissing her, drawing her further and further into his spell, further and further into her every desire.
Her fingers clenched against his skin, tracing the lines of his chest, lower to his stomach. Great God, but the man was a specimen. She didn’t even know men could be made like this. It had always seemed a flight of fantasy in painting and sculptures, but here he was. Real. And hers, apparently, if his words could be believed.
He nudged her back to the settee where they’d begun and lowered her there. She glanced toward the bedchamber as he leaned away, but he made no motion to take her there. To bring her to his bed. She almost felt disappointed, but then he pressed a finger beneath her chin and lifted so she was looking at him.
“I want to undress you, Katherine. See you, be able to touch you far more than I did last night. May I?”
She blinked. “You are asking me?”
He nodded. “I told you that you would be able to trust me. That despite what you think of me, I am not a man who takes and takes and takes. You are in control of whatever happens here.”
She gaped at him in shock. She had never known a man who would cede any kind of power or control to a woman. And yet here this man was. A man who would do whatever he liked, with whomever he liked. A man who had done both those things.
And he was asking her permission.
Her head spun as she tried to recategorize him from the cad she had always believed and experienced him to be. Where did she put him now that he was proving to be so much more than that?
“Katherine?” he said softly. “You can tell me no. There’s no punishment.” He smiled. “I would be disappointed, of course. But you owe me nothing.”
She swallowed hard, refocusing on this moment. There was only this moment, after all. She caught his hand and lifted it, settling his fingers at the line of buttons along the front of her gown.
“Yes,” she breathed, her cheeks flaming as she surrendered once more. “Please.”
The corner of his lips tilted into half a smile and he leaned in, putting his mouth against the side of her neck. He licked and sucked, wild sensation bursting through her entire body. She was aware of his fingers moving, and suddenly her dress gaped.
She struggled to find words. “So easily, eh?”
He lifted his mouth from its trail along her collarbone and grinned. “You will find there are many benefits to asking a libertine to pleasure you, my dear. Experience has its benefits.”
She couldn’t help but laugh along with him, though the sound was quickly transformed into a moan when his mouth returned to her flesh. He pushed her gown open and his mouth moved between her breasts, steaming breath through the thin fabric of her chemise.
Her fingers slid into his hair and she shut her eyes as she surrendered, once again to all he would do to her. For her. He said this night was for her. And she wanted it so badly. If he was willing to meet her terms, why shouldn’t she give in? Enjoy every second since it would certainly not be repeated. He would want more.
She couldn’t give it. Not with so much on the line.
Butthisshe could take. And she did as she rested her head against the settee arm and let go of everything in her mind.
Robert felt Katherine’s surrender in the way her body went liquid beneath him. Her breath exited her lungs in a shaky sigh and she shut her eyes. He took the opportunity to look at her face as he slipped a hand beneath her gown and lowered her sleeve and chemise strap at the same time.
There was normally a tension to everything Katherine did. With him, yes—of course he felt it. She was conflicted whenever she was with him. Torn between wanting him and hating him for those unnamed crimes he hadn’t yet determined.
But he saw that tension everywhere else, too. He understood it more now. She was always waiting for an attack to come…because in her past it always had. How he despised her father and her husband, men who had convinced her that her desire was to be hidden. Quashed.
She had deserved so much better.
And this was to be her reward.
Oh, he still wanted her. He wanted to take her and make her see that sex with him would be something for them both. But not tonight. Tonight was about her. Even if his cock was hard as stone and aching to plunge into her heat and mark her forever.
