And then his body turned to stone.
Tessa stood beside the grate fully and completely unclothed.
Chapter Thirty-Three
Lady Winnifred’s maid had not batted an eye when Tessa had told her she’d wanted unfastened from the red dress and stripped naked. Her host may have been shocked by Tessa’s pianoforte concert but perhaps nudity in the guest suite of Abbotsford Cottage was not an uncommon thing.
A good omen, Tessa thought. Abbotsford Cottage would likely be her future home and she quite liked the idea. She couldn’t believe they’d not thought of it sooner. If Tessa was unnerved by Joseph’s hand rising in her skirts, why not simply remove the skirt? Why not remove it all?
She had barely positioned herself beside the warm glow of the fire when Joseph knocked twice and stepped into the room. She did not, thank God, have time to second-guess. She simply laced her hands behind her back—why play timid now?—raised her chin, and waited.
Joseph froze when he saw her. No metaphor could do justice to his expression. He looked exactly as if he’d opened the door onto an unexpectedly naked woman. Shock, then captivation, then enterprise. It was all chased with a very little bit of uncertainty, but enterprise prevailed. Heunderstood. And he was immediately complicit. He paced three steps, stalking her, and then paced three back. He looked at her through narrowed eyes, he looked again and again, devouring the sight of her.
She allowed it. Her hands remained behind her back. She thrust out her breasts and he stopped walking.
“You’re certain?” he asked.
“Certain,” she said. “But I should like us both to be naked. Will you do it? So that we both—?”
“Yes.”
He hopped on one foot and tugged off a boot. The other boot came next. After that, his jacket, cravat, waistcoat, shirt, undershirt, buckskins, drawers—all shed in a matter of seconds.
He stood tall and tan and muscled some five feet from her, his clothes in a heap on the floor. He was painfully aroused and Tessa allowed herself to study him in the way he had studied her—in the way he studied her still. She had touched every part of him during the past days, but she had notseenhis body.
It was a work of art; the body of a Greek god.
The music she’d played after dinner, Chopin’s “Nocturne Op. No. 2” in C sharp minor, rolled in her head, and she was emboldened to move first.
But he moved, too, they reached out in the same moment, and their bodies made impact like the sun meeting the horizon at dusk, smoothly, gracefully, unstopping.
Tessa felt warm, restricting muscle where she usually felt breeches or shirt; she felt his arousal against her belly without the barrier of her gown. She felt, and nuzzled, and kneaded. She rubbed against him like a cat. She raised her mouth across his skin and tasted.
Her senses were awash with him. The smell of his soap, the taste of skin, the sound of his breathing. She saw him only in flashes of the jumping firelight; his mouth descending, his hands brushing the hair from her shoulder.
Yes,she thought.Yes.
No talking, no stillness, nocaution. No dancing around the edges. Noclothes.
Why had they not done this sooner?
“It was a mistake,” Joseph panted, “not to do this sooner.”
“Everything has led to this,” she soothed. “No mistakes.”
He slid a hand down the dip of her waist and cupped her bottom, lifting her slightly and pressing her to him while he made one, delicious thrust of his hips.
Tessa’s mind stopped. She’d felt precursors of this, moments of pressure that threatened to overwhelm her, to carry her away, but they had been mere flashes compared to the bright light of pleasure. She could only anticipate thenextthrust. Surely there would be a next? She bowed her body, reaching... and there it was, he thrust again.
Tessa moaned into his mouth and he answered with her name.
When he pressed again, Tessa’s knees threatened to give away. She wobbled, and Joseph lifted her and carried her to the bed. She felt his muscles strain as he endeavored to lower her down slowly, to bow her back like a tree branch, bent by a gentle wind.
But then she wrapped her legs around his haunches, and his strength failed him. He dropped her onto the bed and came down on top of her. The weight of him made her want to fall and fall and fall.
“Tessa?” he breathed, kissing her shoulder, her clavicle, her breast. “Alright?”
She nodded, pulling his lips back to her breast. He growled and kissed her again.
