“By then, it will probably be time for dinner.”
“It will?” He absently finished pulling off his coats and tossed them to a nearby chair.
She was in the middle of untying his cravat when she stopped and regarded him with a quelling glance. “Well, how long does it take? To make love, I mean?”
Andrew’s mouth moved, but no sound came out.
“Not all night, surely?” she prompted.
He cleared his throat. “Seeing as how I’ve... I’ve not ever really done this before...” he stammered. “I mean, made love to a woman I... I love, I mean, I...” He stopped and swallowed, realizing Danielle was staring at him in awe. “What is it?”
“You love me?” she asked in a whisper.
He nodded. “Well, of course, I do,” he replied defensively. “I have since I was... I was eight years old,” he claimed. “That’s why I want you to be my wife.”
“And the money?”
Andrew frowned. “What money?”
Danielle sighed. “Your allowance?”
Careful not to react, Andrew said, “My allowance or lack thereof has no bearing on my wish to marry you,” he stated, curious as to how she had learned about his father’s edict.
She angled her head to one side. “What about your wish to go to Greece?” Reaching up, she continued to undo his cravat.
He scoffed. “I want to take you to Greece, of course,” he said. “And to the Kingdom of the Two Sicilies. But I want to do so with you as mybride. I want us to see those sights together.”
Danielle sighed and stood on tiptoes to kiss him. “You might have mentioned it before,” she teased, once she had finally pulled away, holding the length of white silk that had been wrapped around his neck as if it were a hard-won trophy.
“I thought I did,” he countered.
“Well, thank you for making your intentions more clear,” she said as she turned around, expecting him to undo her buttons. Instead, she gave a start when his lips touched the nape of her neck. He kissed her there and then directly behind her ear. “That tickles,” she whispered, as one of his forefingers trailed along her hairline to the top fastening of her gown.
“I suppose I’ll have to rebutton all these later,” he murmured, struggling with the round mother-of-pearl discs.
“Not until it’s time for dinner,” she said, surprised at how different it felt to have his larger fingers undoing the buttons compared to those of her lady’s maid.
When he had most of them undone, he spread the edges apart. She shivered as his fingers skimmed over the skin of her bare back above her chemise. A frisson shot through her when his lips brushed over the bumps of her spine, and she gasped. “Drew,” she whispered, as yards of fabric were suddenly pulled up and over her head.
When she emerged from the gown, she inhaled softly. Despite the stays, chemise, petticoats and stockings she still wore, he was gazing at her as if she were naked. She took the opportunity to pull the hem of his shirt from his pantaloons, trying but failing not to notice how his arousal tented the form-fitting garment.
Andrew lifted the shirt from his body and tossed it toward the chair as he toed off his shoes. “May I remove that?” he asked, pointing to her stays.
Staring at his bare chest in wonder, Danielle didn’t answer but merely presented her back to him again. “You don’t have to undo the ties completely,” she whispered. “Just loosen them.” A moment later, and he was lifting her arms and pulling the stays over her head. She felt his tug on the ties that held up her petticoats, and they fell to the floor, one after the other.
“That’s enough,” she murmured, her lips trembling as she turned to face him. One of her hands went to his chest, skimming over the surface so that only one or two fingers made contact with his skin.
He inhaled sharply, and all at once, he seemed to become a different man. His eyes darkened upon seeing her rose-colored areolae through the translucent silk of her chemise. At seeing the dark triangle at the apex of her thighs.
Danielle pulled her hand away, but he captured it in one of his and placed it flat against his chest, directly over his heart, at the same moment his mouth descended toward one of her breasts. She inhaled sharply as his tongue laved over the mound. Even through the silk fabric, she felt the texture of it, felt the moisture and the heat. When her nipple pebbled, he worried it with his tongue and teeth. “Oh!” she cried out in surprise, now understanding why her mother made such a sound.
“Did I hurt you?” Andrew asked, lifting his head from her breast.
“No,” she breathed as she shook her head. When her knees seemed to give way, and not from the champagne, Andrew lifted her into his arms. “What are you doing?” she whispered.
“Putting you on the bed,” he replied, as he captured a handful of the counterpane and, with a flick of his wrist, had it stripped from most of the bed. He set her down and went to work on removing his stockings.
“Will you mind overmuch if I’m not wearing anything?” he asked, his breathing labored, and not just from having lifted her onto the mattress.
“I don’t know,” she whispered, holding herself up on her elbows. Every nerve ending in her body seemed to be firing all at once. She could feel her pulse in her ears. In her chest. And it positively throbbed in one particular spot near the top of her thighs.
Despite his nervousness, or maybe because of it, Andrew chuckled. He doffed his pantaloons close to the edge of the bed. Given how high the mattress was, his engorged manhood was hidden from her when he straightened.
He didn’t have a moment to reconsider what he was about to do.
