And when he returned,oh, when he returned, she couldn’t tear her gaze away.
Shirt unbuttoned to mid-chest, dark hair with those delicious silver streaks falling untamed across his brow, dense stubble shadowing his jaw—and yes, his beautiful, bare feet—he looked like no man in England. Truly, no one moved like he did, a panther on the hunt, sucha stunning counterpoint to the preening dandies of Mayfair.
In her eyes, he was hypnotic.
And she meant to make him fall in love with her, as hard as she’d fallen.
For the first time, she thought she could.
Dominic didn’t linger, crossing the room to halt before her, his hoarse murmur drifting into her ear. “We have ten minutes, and I mean to make them count. I shall attempt to appease your curiosity, in part, my darling intended.”
Before she could respond to this captivating declaration, he stepped between her legs, his movements rough with urgency as he slid the fabric of her gown and chemise to her waist. The heat from his calloused fingertips seared through the thin linen of her drawers and his eyes, when they met hers, had darkened to a twilight hue, dauntless purpose written in their depths.
“You’re curious about this?” he asked, touching the inside of her thigh as his lips pressed a gentle kiss to the curve of her neck.
She nodded. She was so very,verycurious.
“Have you ever?” he asked into her skin.
“Only alone,” she whispered, transfixed when he groaned in response, his teeth taking a delicate bite.
Still clutching her skirts in one hand, he tilted her chin up with the other and seized her lips. The kiss spiraled, tongues tangling, bodies colliding in a promise of what would come later—when they had more than ten stolen minutes. “This is for you,” he murmured, voice ragged, knuckles brushing the crease of her thigh. “I’ll delay my hunger until our wedding night, though I’m near to embarrassing myself like a lad. But I swear I’ll wait.”
Forgoing any effort to shield her from his arousal, he rocked his rigid shaft against her while his fingers were busy slipping through the lace-edged slit in her drawers, spreading her for his teasing play. He touched her lightly—at first. A stroke here, a caress there, until herbody was flushed and moist, her nipples hardened buds crowding her corset, her breath streaking past her lips.
Louisa dropped her head back and inched her hips forward. Asking, without words, for fulfillment.
“This is what you’re seeking, minx,” he whispered, doing two incredible things at once. His thumb moved over the bud of her sex, while he glided a long finger inside her in one splendid thrust.
The invasion was grand, much better than her own efforts.
Because she didn’t have to think, she only had to close her eyes andfeel. Let the world shrink to his scent in her lungs, the mixture of his terse breaths and her own tangling her senses. The fine linen of his shirt crisp beneath her fingertips, the muscles of his shoulder, his belly, his hip, hers to explore. Flashes of light sparked behind her eyelids as he hovered over her, stroking, pressing, bringing her alive from within.
When awareness centered fully between her thighs, another crest starting at her feet and climbing higher, she exhaled, dropping her brow to his chest, her knees tightening around his waist. “I’m…I’m…” she stuttered, unable to adequately describe what was happening to her.
“I know,” he whispered into the crown of her head, understanding more than she did. His voice shook, sounding on the verge of his own release, though he’d promised to wait.
And she believed the boy from the bookshop.
Love and passion stormed Louisa’s mind, past and present colliding in a flood that washed away every misgiving about marrying him.
When she’d honestly had none.
Dominic’s mouth found hers again near her peak, his caresses quickening into a steady rhythm that shook them both. She lost all sense of dignity, moaning, gasping, matching his cadence without deliberation, her body answering his as though it had always known the way.
It was primal, but also achingly intimate, to be so wholly surrounded by him. As if he’d read her thoughts, his strong arm circled her, his hand sliding to cradle the nape of her neck, drawing her tighter against his chest. His heartbeat was a sure pulse beneath her ear, grounding her even as she soared.
The rapturous rush took her, and she let it consume her.
Chapter Nine
Where the heart reveals itshand.
Try as hemight, Dom couldn’t drag the bookstore scene into focus. The forgetting gnawed at him, more potent than memory itself.
Throughout the ceremony, as he and Louisa promised to cherish and protect, as well-wishers pressed glasses of champagne into their hands and toasted their scandal-turned-marriage, he searched the recesses of his mind until it burned, until the edges frayed into nothingness. And all the while, Louisa stood beside him—radiant, resplendent, self-assured, the most breathtaking bride London had ever seen—her triumph making his failure to recall their first meeting in Longman’s somehow unforgivable.
Therefore, when the details continued to elude him, he made them up.
