She hadn’t known this madness lived in her.
But when would she ever again have this kind of opportunity?
“The second,” she whispered.
Primal satisfaction surged in his expression. His eyes were very dark indeed.
“Very well. If you would be so kind as to lift your skirts, Daphne.”
He said it quietly. His tone suggested he’d just asked her to pass the salt. And somehow this made it more illicitly thrilling.
Blood rushed to her head and pooled between her legs.
She hesitated, to tease him. To tease herself.
Their gazes locked. The two of them were balanced, breathlessly, on the knife edge of anticipation.
But they both knew she would do as he asked.
Her hands shaking, she gathered her dress in her fists, and furled it slowly upward.
Until the air of the room rushed over her exposed skin.
Until her skirt lay ruched across her lap.
He watched the entire process unabashedly. His face taut, his eyes dark.
“Now spread your legs for me, Lady Worth.”
Every step of the way he ensured she understood her complicity. Every step of the way he made sure she was choosing this.
No longer did a voice in her head suggest to her she could stop at any time.
She could not listen to lies.
This was who she was.
This was what she wanted.
And so she did, like the veriest wanton. Slowly, she opened her legs until she could feel the air of the room caressing her thighs.
When he knelt between her knees, she closed her eyes.
Her breath rushed between her parted lips.
She nearly jumped at the first featherlight touch of his fingertips on her ankle.
He traced with the pad of his finger, a slow, complicated, feathering little shape over it. And from everywhere his fingertip touched, silvery, shivering sensations fanned in tributaries, tiny trails of flame, that reached every point in her body. She shifted to accommodate the simmer in her blood as all roads, as he seemed to promise, led to right between her legs, where she ached.
His single fingertip became a squadron of fingertips, and together they glided up the curve of her calf to the hollow behind her knee. And there his lips and tongue joined the siege.
She sighed, and pressed her hands against the seat of the settee.
And then, to her desperate rejoicing and uneasiness, his lips were on the silky inside of her thigh.
He took his time.
Delicate brushes of his lips, following by delicate brushes of his fingertips, evolved into hot, lingering, openmouthed caresses, and she was on fire with want.
