Luckily it didn’t seem she had to. He turned her as they kissed, backing her through the door to his bedchamber. He kicked the door shut behind them and maneuvered her to his bed. There he stopped. There he stepped away, and the panic rose in her.
“Please don’t tell me no,” she whispered.
“I’m not,” he promised. “But you are giving up something of significance. It isn’t fair not to let you have something in return.”
She shook her head. “What is that?”
“Control.” He lifted his hands to his cravat, untying it, unlooping it. She watched, mesmerized, as he shrugged out of his jacket. Then he unbuttoned his shirt and tugged it over his head.
Her heart all but stopped. She’d never seen a man in any state of undress before, and this man was…beautiful. He had a lean, muscular body with taut shoulders and a narrow waist. There was a smattering of chest hair across his pectorals and then it trailed into a most interesting line that disappeared into his trousers.
“Kit?” she whispered, her voice almost not carrying.
“Touch me,” he said. “Explore. This is for you, Sarah. Tonight is for you.”
She swallowed at that idea. Then she reached out a trembling hand and brushed just her fingertips along the muscular plane of his chest. The fibers bunched beneath her fingers, and he smiled as she flattened her palm over his heart and felt it pounding against her hand, matching the heavy rhythm of her own.
Somehow that helped her, eased her nervousness and gave her enough bold drive to lean closer and press her mouth against his shoulder. He hissed in a breath and his hands came into her hair, tangling amongst the curls. The pressure against her skull, the way his pulse quickened, drove her on. Her fingers clenched against his skin and she glided her tongue lower, tasting the clean maleness of his skin. It was the most potent aphrodisiac, and she groaned as she licked his nipple.
He jolted against her and tugged, bringing her up straight as he kissed her once more. His hands slid down her body and he cupped her backside, grinding against her. She felt the hard length of him pressing into her stomach, and the erotic electricity of their bodies colliding was unexpected and powerful.
“Please,” she whispered, mimicking her needy words from earlier in the day.
He pulled away, smiling down at her, and then he turned her so her back was to him. He slid his fingers up and down her arms, across her shoulders, and then he unfastened the first button of her gown.
“You looked like a queen tonight,” he whispered, pressing a kiss to the triangle of skin he had revealed. “Like a goddess.”
She shivered as the next few buttons slid free and he parted the back of her gown gently. She leaned into him, feeling his bare skin touch hers and his heat suffuse her skin. His fingers looped beneath the satin fabric of the gown and he glided it forward, down her arms until it bunched at her waist and left her only in her chemise. Her undergarments were the only thing she hadn’t received from the duchesses that night, so she blushed as he saw the truth beneath the borrowed lie.
Slowly she turned and shifted the skirt to the floor. She stepped out, picked up the gown and carefully draped it over a chair next to his bed.
“You see that I’m not a goddess, though,” she said. “Certainly not a queen. I’m a woman in a worn-out chemise whose friends pitied her enough to let her play dress up. A woman who pretended she belonged when she didn’t. So if you’re expecting a goddess or a queen in your bed tonight, Kit, then you will be disappointed.”
His gaze held hers for what felt like forever. Then it slid over her, his pupils dilating. “The dress you wore tonight was very pretty. The jewels were lovely. Your hair was beautiful.” He stepped forward and placed his hands on her shoulders, stroking his thumbs across her worn chemise straps gently. “None of that is why I saw a queen before me.”
She shook her head. “But—”
“You would be a goddess if you were in a scullery maid’s gown or an empress’s. It’s you, Sarah. You I saw, and you I want in my bed.”
His mouth covered hers and she let out a sigh against his lips. Suddenly she didn’t care about her worn undergarments or the future or the imprudence of what she was about to do. She just wanted to do it. She slid her hands up his arms, clenching the hard muscle of his biceps as they flexed beneath her fingers.
He drew back and caught her hands, flattening her palms against his chest and drawing them down until they reached his waistband. She bit her lip as she struggled with the buttons along his fall front and finally managed to open them. It fell forward and she caught her breath.
There it was. This thing she had been told to avoid, to fear, to never have a curiosity about. She’d been a very good girl for a long time, behaving as a lady should. But now she looked at the hard cock between them and all thoughts of being a lady fled.
Yes, it was intimidating, for he was so very different from herself. But it was also tempting beyond measure. She looked up at him, and he smiled as he pushed the trousers away and stood before her naked, a study in muscle and sinew.
“What do you want to do?” he asked, his voice rough in the quiet.
“Touch you,” she admitted on a blush. “I want to touch you.”
He nodded, silent permission, and she slid her hand around his length. The skin was so soft over that steely evidence of desire and potency. She stroked her thumb over the mushroom head and then down the vein that strained along the shaft. He grunted as she did so and his eyes fluttered shut.
“Did it hurt?” she asked, tempted to jerk her hand away.
“No. Not hurt,” he gasped, his tone garbled.
She had given him pleasure, seemingly just as intense as what he’d done to her in the study earlier in the day when his mouth had covered her sex and awoken every desire she’d pretended away.
