“Are you ready for lesson three?” I asked, my voice not nearly as steady as I wanted it to be.
His grip tightened around my hand. When he looked at me, there was nothing teasing in his eyes. Only heat. Only want. Only a kind of raw gratitude that scared the hell out of me because it felt an awful lot like trust.
“Lesson three,” he echoed, the words more promise than joke. “I want all of you tonight, Clara.”
Upstairs, Wes’s room felt smaller than usual, like the air had thickened the second we crossed the threshold. The lamp on his nightstand threw gold over the bed, the dresser, the long mirror propped in the corner and a sturdy wooden chair that would be perfect for what I had planned.
He closed the door with a soft click, and we just stood there, facing each other in the warm pool of light, the rest of the house falling away.
“So,” I said, my voice coming out softer than I intended. “Game plan?”
With a shake of his head, he said, “Missionary’s out.” His gaze flicked between my eyes. “Without two good knees, I can’t really get”—he cleared his throat—“leverage.”
I nodded, silently letting him know I understood, though my cheeks flamed.
“Standing’s still iffy,” he admitted. “If things go sideways, I’d rather not take us both out.”
I huffed a shaky laugh. “Fair. No concussions on lesson three.” I tipped my chin toward the chair. “Sitting might work.”
“A chair is solid.” He tapped it with his knuckles. “Foot planted. Back supported. Low risk of me face-planting into the dresser. Very dignified.”
“Sexyandpractical.” My heart squeezed. “I like it.”
The corner of his mouth twitched. “Yeah?”
“Yeah,” I said, and meant it. He wasn’t less of a man because he thought about stability and the physics of his prosthetic. He was more himself. More careful, more deliberate.
More Wes.
We stepped closer at the same time, some invisible tether pulling us in. He stopped an arm’s length away, chest rising, eyes dark.
“Strip for me,” he said, voice rough as gravel.
Heat shot straight through me.
I met his gaze and held it, letting myself bask in the sheer hunger there. “Yes, sir,” I murmured, because apparently my mouth wanted to get me in trouble.
His jaw flexed. “Clara.”
I reached for the hem of my sweater, fingers suddenly not as steady as I wanted them to be. The cotton slid up my stomach, cool air kissing my skin as I pulled it over my head and dropped it to the floor. His eyes tracked the movement like he couldn’t have looked away if the house caught fire.
I took my time with the rest, because it felt like the only power I had over how wildly my heart was beating. Jeans button, zipper, the slow tug of denim over my hips. His gaze followed every inch, knuckles whitening on the back of the chair as I shimmied them down my thighs.
By the time I stood in front of him completely bare, my skin felt too tight for my body. My pulse thudded in my ears. He was breathing harder, eyes blown and hungry, like I was both a miracle and a problem he fully intended to solve.
His hands flexed on the chair before moving in front of it. “Jesus, Duchess.”
The nickname rolled over me like a touch.
“Your turn,” I said, stepping closer until I stood right in front of him. My fingers found the hem of his shirt, the soft cotton stretched over the expanse of his chest.
“Is this okay?” I asked, checking in one last time.
He nodded once, jerky. “Yeah.”
I lifted the shirt, inch by inch, revealing a strip of warm skin, the trail of hair, the carved muscles of his stomach. Scars cut across the planes of him—white lines, a map of what he’d survived. My throat went tight as I tugged the shirt over his head and tossed it aside.
He went still under my hands, like he wasn’t sure what to do with being looked at. I let my palms skate slowly over his shoulders, down his chest, following the curve of muscle and bone, making no effort to hide how much I liked what I saw.
