“Did—” She swallowed. “Did His Grace order these?”
“He did,” Madame Laurier smiled. “I must say, my dear, I have never met a man who can recall his lady’s measurements. Your beau is the exception.”
Ellie kept her head down; she could not dare tell them the opposite for fear that word would get out. “He is… unique.”
Standing, she looked at her reflection, and her stomach swooped; she looked like a seductress garbed in an angel’s clothing. How was it that pure white looked more devilish than lurid scarlet?
“I—” She paused. “I cannot believe such… decadence.”
“Yourinamorataalso has an eye for fabric and style,” the madame said. “He asked for the best of the best, for everything. He has… er… deep purses, as they say.”
“He does—?”
The door behind them pulled outside, and Ellie had a moment to pivot before a wave of panic and mortification washed over her. She couldn’t move, could barely think as Dorian’s eyes latched on her, and she slapped a hand over her modesty.
The heat that flared in his eyes made her knees go weak; even from the short distance, she felt the heat of his gaze burning through her. His eyes trailed over her slowly, like molasses on a winter’s day, before he looked to the modiste.
“Good work.”
The softly closed door sounded as loud as a gunshot, and Ellie sank to the edge of the bed. The modiste laughed softly. “He is an intense one,non?”
“I have never seen that emotion from him,” Ellie admitted.
“Merveilleux,” Madame Laurier smiled. “That is the reaction you would want from a man. Let’s hope for the same reaction when he sees you on your wedding day,oui?”
CHAPTER 10
Dorian dragged a hand through his hair. If she was as prudish as he suspected she was, he’d probably shocked her half to death by the words brimming on the tip of his tongue. What proper lady could accept his dark, insatiable appetites, or his irritability and devilish temper? What sweet little virgin could put up with that?
It took a certain combination of emotions to spur Dorian to drink—and seeing Ellie in those strips of nothing had not only sent a lightning bolt of lust through him, but it had also made him consider the very thing he shouldn’t; namely, the wedding night; the night he had assured Ellie she would pass untouched.
Now, all he could think was of her body, slick with a sheen of sweat, her hair tousled on the pillow, and her eyes rife with lust.
“Where the bloody hell is that bottle of wine?” He muttered to himself, tugging the cupboard in his rooms open. “I am sure I’d placed it in here… somewhere.”
He found a bottle of American peach brandy and decided it was better than nothing. Shucking his jacket, plucking off his cufflinks and nearly ripping the cravat away, Dorian poured the whole snifter glass and swallowed it in one gulp.
His erection, that randy beast, was already peaking with interest. He was no stranger to lustful thoughts, but what was foreign to him was wanting to keep Ellie pure, even while every other sense begged him to rip those slivers of nothing from her body and plant his mouth all over her skin.
He swelled with pent-up need. His length was harder than a fire iron— Christ, from just a glimpse of Ellie in her unmentionables.
Throwing back a mouthful, he savored the burn. It was probably not the best thing to get foxed on the eve of his wedding, nor was it any way proper to go seek bed company for his last night as a free man.
He eyed the door.
Judging from the throbbing state of his erection, he wouldn’t need more than five minutes at most. Despite years of honing his control to prioritize his ambition before his sexual needs, these past five months had been the longest time he’d gone without sex for as long as he could recall. Maybe releasing his aching erection would satiate him.
He lay back and undid the fall of his trousers; he couldn’t recall the last time he’d pleasured himself—why stay alone when he was spoiled for choice with company?
If he closed his eyes, he could almost imagine Evelina’s slender white fingers circling him. He could almost see her widened eyes and feel her nervous breath skittering out of her parted lips as his lips trailed down her belly.
“Dorian… Dorian, God…”
“—What is wrong with you?” a sharp voice, a sharp female voice jarred him out of the reverie he was in, and when he realized that Evelina’s voice was not in his mind, but in his ear, he calmly covered himself.
“Please,” he reached for his drink, his drawl sarcastic. “Enter at your leisure. Make yourself comfortable, why don’t you?”
Evelina was covered from head to toe; she had added layers to make up for the ones he had seen her without. “What in heaven's name is wrong with you? W-why would you do something like that? To come in while I was n-n-naked. Do you not have a shred of decency about you?”
