He caught the delicate fabric of her skirts and began lifting. Hesitantly, she joined in, helping him to remove her gown. She stood before him in stays, a chemise, and a thin frill of petticoats.
Was his mouth watering?
He spun her about once more, working on the laces of her stays and petticoats. Never had he been more desperate to have a woman naked. He wanted to kiss and lick every bit of her gorgeous skin he could find. He wanted to suck on her pearl until she bucked and cried out and came all over his tongue.
Fabric dropped to the floor in a heap. He attacked the pins in her hair next, plucking until a sleek waterfall of mahogany curls cascaded down her back. Dom could not resist running his fingers gently through her sweetly scented tresses.
He released her with great reluctance, tamping down his steadily rising lust. “Turn.”
Slowly, she did as he asked, until she faced him. The linen of her chemise was so thin, the pink circles on the peaks of her breasts and the shadow between her thighs were visible.
Floating, burning, sinking hell.Her nipples were hard.
“Take off your chemise,” he ordered softly.
She swallowed, her eyes going wide. “Is that necessary?”
He would have laughed, was he not plagued by such mad longing. “More than air, angel. Will you do it, or shall I?”
Her pink tongue flicked over her lower lip, wetting it and leaving it glossy. “I will.”
Damnation.
Having her remove her last undergarment before him would be delectable. “Excellent. I want you in nothing save your stockings, on your back in my bed.”
A becoming tinge of pink colored her cheekbones as she grasped her chemise in her small, fine-boned hands. He had failed to notice how dainty they were previously, how perfect. They were not rough and reddened from work like most females of his acquaintance. The thought of those hands upon him, touching him, filled him with wild yearning.
He realized belatedly that she was flushing. Was her embarrassment an act as well, or was she new to being a mistress? Whatever the reason, Dom was entranced. He had never known a woman like her. Instinctively, he knew he never would.
She lifted the chemise over her head in the next moment, and all coherent thought fled him. He drank in the sight of her—lush, womanly curves, wide hips, generous breasts…
He moved without realizing he was in control of his body. His hands spanned her waist. Her bare skin was warm and smooth, and it stoked the flames inside him higher. Dom scooped her into his arms and carried her to his bed, then lowered her to it.
Dom had never been so single-minded about the pursuit of something since he had come to power over the East End. He ignored his clothing—it could be shed later. He knelt on the bed, still fully dressed. Mayhap it was just as well. Surely he would shock her with his markings and his scars. Some women had been repulsed. Others had not given a damn after he had made them spend. This delicate siren, he had no doubt, who had only shared a bed with pampered lords, who blushed like a virgin, would be shocked.
Her thighs were clamped together. This would not do.
He caressed her calves. “Have none of your other lovers ever given you pleasure, angel?”
“No,” she said, eyes wider still. “Yes. Yes, of course they have.”
“You are lying,” he charged without heat, for he did not mind. Somehow, the notion of being the first man to offer this incredible creature true pleasure filled his chest with pride and the rest of him with swelling, ridiculous need.
But she was not just lying.
She was also flustered.
And she wanted him. Dom was an expert at reading faces, at understanding what was churning through the thoughts of his opponent. It was how he had risen to the top of the rookeries, and it was why he had never lost a single game at the green baize. The scent of her desire was musky on the air.Christ, yes. If his mouth had not been watering for a taste of her before, it most assuredly was now.
He kissed a path up her left shin, to her knee, all the way to her garter, caressing her legs as he went. There was no denying the tension in her limbs, the stiffness in the way she held herself. Although he prided himself upon striking terror in the hearts of his enemies, the angel in his bed was the last person he wanted to fear him.
Dom kissed her knee, running his hands over the soft, supple flesh of her inner thighs. Above her stockings, her skin felt like paradise. He exerted slight pressure, parting her legs, and she offered no resistance. Her thighs opened. Inflamed, Dom kissed higher, discovering a mole on her inner thigh in the shape of a heart.
Fuck.
This woman.
He kissed the beauty mark, then nipped it with his teeth. She gasped. Her legs slid on the counterpane, and she was opened to him. At long last, he allowed himself to look at her fully, the dark thatch of curls on her mound, the slick pink of her slit, the swollen bud protruding from them beckoning to him.
