“I suppose they must be,” he said, and then stopped as they entered chamber.
She knew what he saw. The room was enormous, done in sensual wine hues and velvet adornments. The bed was big enough for three if not four lovers to tangle in pleasure and the fire cast an ethereal glow over the bed.
“You…sleep here?”
She laughed. “Well, not every night. This was Arabella’s chamber, but once she went to the new house with Silas, she told me I should take it over. Many nights I sleep in my old room, but sometimes I come in here and try to remind myself I’m a courtesan and a seductress.”
He turned to face her and his gaze was hooded. “I can remind you of that if you’d like.”
Her hands trembled as she wrapped her arms around his neck. “I’d very much like that.”
His mouth was on her again, gentle but quickly giving way to passionate and more forceful. He backed her toward that wonderful bed, his hands drifting from her waist and around to cup her backside and lift her more firmly against him. She couldn’t help the moan that ricocheted between them when he did so. His mouth moved away from hers with a chuckle and he dragged his lips to her jawline, feathering light kisses along down to her throat.
She dropped her head back and shivered at the electric pleasure he was creating with such simple touches.
“And now to take this off,” he said, and his hands found the back of her gown where the line of buttons danced along her spine. She shook her head.
“They aren’t real.”
“What isn’t real?” he murmured.
“The buttons.”
He stopped and then brushed the back of her gown as if testing the veracity of the statement. “Why?”
There was a loaded question and a more loaded answer that she had no intention of giving. Not tonight. Instead she pushed out of his arms and stepped back.
“A courtesan may need to dress or undress herself,” she explained. “And there’s something so wicked, isn’t there, about knowing the secret that this gown…” She found the hidden bow within the folds of fabric. “…is held together…” She flicked the bow open and unhooked a few additional hidden spots. “…by little more than a hope and a prayer.”
As she said it she let the silk fall away in an artful pool at her feet. She didn’t wear undergarments, so she was entirely naked before this man save for slippers and her stockings. It was curious how she’d been a courtesan since she was nineteen but in that moment she felt…vulnerable.
Vaughn stared at her from head to toe, then he swallowed hard and moved toward her. “Funny, because most of my recent hopes and prayers were you standing before me exactly as you are.”
“Then I suppose it’s time to let the fantasy become reality.” She took his hand and placed it against her naked breast.
He let out that same possessive growl he’d given in the carriage before he kissed her the first time and her body clenched in anticipation of what would happen next.
He didn’t disappoint. He fully cupped the breast she had offered, stroking the pad of his thumb over her rapidly hardening nipple. Waves of pleasure spread through her at that intimate touch and she lifted against him.
“You’re so soft,” he mused. “So exquisitely soft. And I wonder what you taste like.”
She lifted her mouth and he took it yet again, delving deeper this time, washing her away on rapidly increasing waves that would not be calmed by anything but passion and pleasure.
“Mint,” he whispered as their mouths parted. “Madeira.”
He drew his mouth down again, across her neck, lower to her collarbone, then just skimmed across the top swell of her breasts. “Flowers,” he said. “A little salt.”
“Vaughn,” she murmured, digging her hands into his hair and loving how the crisp locks curled around her fingers.
He glanced up at her and there was something filled with command that entered his expression. Like he’d just remembered how much power he wielded. She couldn’t help but shiver at the sight of it as he said, “You aren’t going to rush this.”
“I wouldn’t try,” she promised.
“Now to taste the next, I think you should be seated. On the bed?”
She nodded and climbed onto the high mattress. She did it artfully, of course, giving him flashes of her sex as she crawled to the pillows and settled onto her back. She spread her legs and rested a hand between them, hissing pleasure at the pressure of her own hand even though she hadn’t done anything.Thatwas how excited he made her and it had been a very, very long time since that had happened. In that moment she realized how much she’d missed wicked anticipation.
She expected him to come to her, cover her, perhaps even take her fast and hard and over too soon. Instead he winked at her, as wicked as any gentleman could be, and shrugged out of his jacket. He tossed it aside and went to work on his cravat, unwinding it slowly before he let it fall with the jacket. She sat up a little, working her fingers over herself absently as he moved to remove the shirt.
