He eyed her, a flash of conspiratorial green that flooded her with pleasure. He let the shirt to fall back over his chest. “Let’s take off your dress,” he said. “Let me see what irresistibility awaits me underneath.”
She looked down at the dress and wondered if she should have made time to change into the silvery negligee. “You’ve missed my wedding-night frock from France, I’m afraid.” She pointed to the chair. “One detriment to waiting five months to determine whether you like me or not.”
He growled and came to her, leaning a knee on the mattress and sweeping her to him. “I always liked you, Willow. I liked you too bloody much.”
She fell against him, burying her face in his neck.He always made me feel beautiful,she thought,despite anything else he may have done.
It was true, he’d wanted her from the start; he seemed unable to resist her. It was a fervor she struggled to accept after all the years of feeling so very . . . neutral in the eyes of any man.
She lifted her head, allowing the heavy weight of her hair to fall down her back. He sighed as if she’d touched him and skimmed his hands down her shoulders. When he found her hands, they locked their fingers, squeezing, only for him to disentangle them and cup her face. He kissed her, the first deep, real kiss since he’d declared himself by the fire. Willow’s mind went hazy, doubts and questions floating away, and she succumbed to his command of her body. He caught her up and lay her back.
“You’ve not delivered on the promise to relieve me of my shirt, madam,” he said, his voice low in her ear.
She reached up, only to discover that her arms were like straw. She fumbled at his shoulders, taking up loose, ineffective handfuls of fabric. He laughed and sat up, pulling the shirt over his head and tossing it to a chair.
At the sight of his bare chest, Willow gasped. She propped up on her elbows. “Cassin,” she began, and then she trailed off, stunned speechless.
“Yes?” A small, prideful laugh.
“You’re so . . .strong. And your skin is so tanned.”
“Like that, do you?” He laughed again. “Compliments of pickax mining under the blazing Caribbean sun for twelve hours a day.”
“But you must never wear a shirt again.” She laughed, running her hands along the firm pockets of muscle on his stomach and chest. His skin twitched and jumped beneath her touch and she went back, retracing every contour. His arm bulged with muscle. She wrapped two hands around his bicep, and her fingertips barely touched. He looked like an Italian marble sculpture. “You look like a statue,” she said.
“I feel like a statue.” He grimaced, unbuttoning the top buttons of his breeches.
“Oh,”Willow said, wonderment stealing over her. She looked lower. “Oh,” she repeated, darting her eyes away.
“Less bold now, I see,” he said, laughing. “Never fear, Countess; we’ll get to that. But first, off with this dress.”
He reached behind her and deftly unbuttoned the dress and then slid it from her shoulders while he kissed her neck. She swam in the sensation, barely aware of her chemise, which slid down next, nor her corset, which was unlaced with five or six urgent tugs. All the while he nuzzled and kissed her neck. She whimpered and listed backward, but he righted her—three times, he nudged her upright—and returned to unbuttoning, unlacing, removing.
When her corset drooped in her lap and her dress and chemise were in a bunch at her waist, he gently laid her back on the bed and gave her three firm kisses on the mouth. She reached for him, trying to keep up, but he slid away, pulling the gown and chemise down her legs, taking her drawers with them.
When he’d finished and she lay naked, except for her stockings, he leaned back on his haunches and stared. The night was cool and the bed was some distance from the fire, but when Cassin explored her body with his eyes, sheburned. The impulse to cover herself came and left almost in the same instant. Some unknown instinct propelled her to slide her hands through her hair, to preen. She dropped long wild curls on her shoulders and across her breasts. The green of Cassin’s eyes went three shades darker.
“You’re beautiful, Willow,” he whispered. His voice was a reverent rasp. “So beautiful. I cannot believe that you are mine.”
“But what will you do with me?” she whispered, instinct driving her again. She reached for him.
“Everything,”he growled. He pulled away long enough to shuck his breeches and drawers. He kissed her, gathering her close, and sensation exploded in her body. The first skin-on-skin contact. All of her nakedness bussing up against all of him. She sighed, arching into him like a cat, reveling in the feel of his hands sliding possessively down her back and bottom. He answered her sigh with a moan, burying his face in her hair.
“Oh God, Willow,” he said against her neck, “I am trying so bloody hard to go slowly. Perhaps if we had one of your lovely chats. Would you like me to tell you what’s about to happen?”
“Oh, I know what’s about to happen,” she assured him, digging her hands into his hair. She would hold his mouth against the skin of her throat forever.
He looked up. “Who told you? Not your mother?”
She shook her head. “Tessa,” she said.
“Of course,” he said, dropping back to her neck. “At least you’re not the last to know.”
He kissed her shoulder next, and then her throat, and then lower, to her breast. Willow’s sighs turned to moans, and the slow, undulating arch of her body turned to a maddened squirm. She was a strange combination of listless and driven. She wanted to float in his arms, languishing in each touch, but she also felt a thrumming sort of propulsion, a search. Each kiss, each touch, set off a small fire that burned a little brighter with each repeated touch.
“My God, you are responsive,” he sighed.
“I want, Cassin,” she cried, hearing her lack of articulation but not caring. “I want . . . ” She was at the mercy of her unnamed need.
