She was so sensitive and it lit him on fire because he knew he could access her pleasure in so many ways. Giving pleasure had always aroused him, but all those other times paled in comparison to this. To her.
He bent his head and lightly traced the shape of her nipple with the tip of his tongue. Her fingers dug into his hair and she cried out in the quiet. He smiled against her flesh and held her closer, sucking now, licking as she writhed against him and made soft mewls and groans. He shifted to the other nipple and repeated the pleasure there, watching up the line of her body as she arched. Her head was thrown back, her eyes squeezed shut, her lips slightly parted with pleasure.
He wanted to give more and more of that. Until she shattered like she had against his tongue. Until she shuttered around him, milking his own pleasure with hers.
He shoved her chemise down the rest of her body as he traced his mouth up over her breast and back to the hollow of her throat. “Lie down on the bed,” he whispered against her wild pulse.
She drew back. “I don’t want you to stop.”
He heard the desperation in her voice, felt it in the way she trembled, and hesitated. He’d caused those reactions, of course, by denying her earlier. But there was more to this than just him. He felt it, knew it. And he wanted to ease it, soothe it, despite the fact that it wasn’t his place. It could never be his place.
“I’m not going to stop,” he assured her instead.
She held his gaze and her relief was as palpable as her desire. She nodded wordlessly and then stepped from his arms and to the bed. As she settled into a place on the pillows, covering herself with her hands, he went to work on his own clothing.
She watched him as he shed his jacket and his waistcoat. As he unwound his cravat and unbuttoned his shirt. When he tugged it over his head and tossed it over his shoulder, she sat up with a sharp intake of breath.
He smiled and tried not to preen. But it was almost impossible when she was looking at him like that. “Like what you see, Your Grace?”
She nodded. “Very much so, Your Grace.”
He laughed at her repeat of their titles and stepped toward the bed so she could look more closely. “Examine away,” he murmured.
She scooted closer and reached out a hand, tracing her fingers across his pectoral muscle and then down the midline of his chest. The touch was so delicate, but it lit him on fire like nothing he’d experienced for a very long time. She followed the line of chest hair that disappeared into his trouser-waist, drawing a fingertip along the edge of the fabric there with a shiver.
She looked up at him then. “When you touch me, even just in the gentlest way, it does something to me. It makes me feel…feel wobbly. Tingly. Alive. Does it do the same for you when I touch you?”
He nodded. “Yes.” She continued to play along the waist of his trousers and he sucked in a breath. “Like what you’re doing just there. Fire.”
She wrinkled her brow and dragged her hand back and forth in the same place. "This?"
“Yes.” His tone was garbled.
She pulled her hand away and he was as disappointed as he was released from her intoxicating spell. She swallowed hard. “May I see the rest?”
Theo blinked, not at the question but at the reaction in his body. He’d never been self-conscious about his nudity before, but he felt…nervous. How was that possible?
He pushed the sensation aside and stepped back to slowly unfasten the fall front of his trousers. He lowered the flap and caught himself in hand, stroking the half-hard length of himself and barely holding back a groan. He was so sensitive at present that he feared he wouldn’t last long if he wasn’t careful.
And he wanted to last a very long time for her.
Her breath went from short to nonexistent and she stared at him, eyes a little glazed. “I…I don’t know if that will fit.”
He glanced down at the hard length of his cock and shook his head. He was of average size, not enormous. He might have expected such a comment if she were a virgin, but not from someone who had been with another man in her life.
“You and Tunbridge did have relations, didn’t you?” he asked.
She nodded. “We did. But I didn’t see…” She waved her hand at his cock.
He stared at her. “He never let you see him?”
Now redness entered her cheeks and she flopped back against the bed and covered her head with a pillow. “I sound ridiculous. Oh, I knew I would ruin this somehow and—”
“It’s not ruined, far from ruined,” he interrupted, shoving his trousers off so he wouldn’t trip over them and sitting down on the edge of the bed next to her. “Etta, will you please look at me?”
She took a moment before she lifted the pillow and peeked out at him. “I’m sorry.”
He shook his head. “If that was how he made love to you, that’s his failing, not yours, my dear. Did you like it when he bedded you?” Her long silence was his answer and he briefly despised the late Duke of Tunbridge. “I see. Well, all the more reason to fully worship you, as you were meant to be worshipped. But first, sit up.”
