His lips traced a path along her jaw, then the column of her neck.
“W-what did he say?” she managed to get out, though it was difficult to think with how delicious it felt to have his mouth on her.
Tristan stilled and lifted his head. He cupped her nape in the warm, broad shelter of his palm.
“He said that he wished to speak to you first,” he said, voice deep and ragged. “Your wishes matter to him, and I admire that.”
“And then he’ll say yes?”
Tristan tipped his head and gave her a beaming smile. “He gave me every reason to think so.” The hand at her waist slid higher, along her side, then up the center of her chest until he reached the tie at her neck.
“And what will you say when he asks?” he whispered.
Parting the fabric, he slipped his fingers inside, finding her bare skin above the vee of her nightgown’s neckline. The fabric was delicate and shear and he dragged his fingers down until they circled the edge of her breast.
He bent his head and licked at her peak through the fabric. Teasing until she ached. Then he placed a breathy kiss on the other peak.
Hyacinth’s breath shuddered out of her.
“Yes,” she breathed. “I’ll say yes.”
He dipped his hand lower, tugging at the tie at her waist and pushing the robe off her shoulders to pool at her heels.
“You’re so beautiful,” he murmured as he shaped a hand around her hip, then skated his fingers lower to the hem of her night rail.
“May I see you, love?” he whispered.
Hyacinth nodded frantically. Her whole body felt tight with need. She was aching for him to touch here. Everywhere.
With a tenderness that made her chest feel warm, he lifted her night rail over her head and let it flutter to the carpet. Then he shocked her by lowering down to his knees.
Hyacinth stroked her fingers into his hair when he looked up at her, giving her a wolfish smile.
Then his fingers were at her ankles. He tipped his head down and actually stroked gently along the arch of her foot, making her giggle because it tickled.
With a tantalizing touch, he drew his fingers up her ankles, stroked her calves, then caressed her thighs. She shivered.
“Cold, love?”
“No.” It wasn’t cold that made her shiver; it was raw need.
When a hand that held her hip moved inward, she held her breath. When he stroked a finger toward the curls at the apex of her thighs, she thought her knees might give out on her.
Then he bent forward and nuzzled her there.
She arched her head back against the door and slid a hand to his shoulder, shaking now.
His mouth was hot, and then, oh, his tongue. He spread her with his fingers and licked at her folds.
A groan drifted up to her, and his grip on her thigh tightened, even as his tongue delved again and again, stroking against her. Then he found it. A spot that made her whole body shudder, a point of pleasure that seemed to draw every sensation to that single, devastating point.
She gasped, fingers digging into his skin, needing, aching, climbing.
And then she shattered. Her body soaring and melting at once as she let out a sound that was half gasp, half moan and bucked against him.
When she came back to herself, she was in his arms. He’d scooped her up and was carrying her to his bed. Settling hergently on the coverlet, he stepped back, his hands still on her, and smiled.
“You look as if you belong in my bed.”
