Rose turned her back to him. “Ever since I thought of it very early this morning,” she murmured.
“I must have known you were thinking of me,” he whispered, remembering how he had been attempting to fall asleep when he realized his arousal wasn’t going to allow it.
Every time he thought of her, it responded by hardening, lengthening, until he was so uncomfortable he had to think of something else entirely.
He hadn’t been able to at two o’clock in the morning, though.
He’d had to take himself in hand and imagine he was making love to Rose. Imagine what she might look like in the throes of passion. How she might sound as he pleasured her. How she might sound when he brought her to the brink of her release.
He had come before he heard what she might have sounded like when he sent her over the edge.
He wouldn’t make that mistake today. He was determined to know. Determined to learn what he must do to pleasure her. To make her his. To keep her his for the rest of their lives.
David regarded the short row of buttons down her back. He had a thought to simply rip open the edges of her gown, his thoughts on what his father might do in his guise as a highwayman or a pirate or whatever role he was playing to seduce his mother, but he didn’t wish to frighten his wife-to-be. Although he had some skill with a fencing foil, there wasn’t one handy to pluck the buttons from her back, nor was there a lady’s maid available to sew them back on.
So he simply undid each button with his fingers and then slowly spread apart the edges of the gown. He slid a hand over her warm skin, pushing her sleeves from her shoulders. When he dropped a kiss at the nape of her neck, Rose inhaled softly.
“That tickles,” she whispered.
“You’re so warm and soft,” he breathed as his hands pushed the sleeves from her arms and wrapped around to the front of her body. The gown was stopped from falling completely given the petticoats holding it aloft.
Rose placed a hand over his and guided it to the top of her corset where a bow held the laces in place. He plucked the end of one and felt with his fingertips to loosen the laces.
“Not all the way,” she warned. “It will take forever to do up the laces again.”
“All right,” he whispered, glancing down to where the petticoats were tied. He undid three bows and felt about for another as yards of fabric slid down her legs.
He took the opportunity to undo the buttons of his top coat and toss it onto a nearby chair.
Still surrounded by her skirts and petticoats, her corset hanging open in the front, she turned around to face him. One of her hands covered his where he had begun to undo his waistcoat buttons. “Allow me,” she whispered.
David’s gaze dropped to the expanse of white creamy skin above the neckline of her chemise. He could see the silhouette of her nipples through the thin fabric, and for a moment he struggled to breathe. “Am I allowed to strip you bare?” he asked in a whisper.
Rose pushed the waistcoat from his shoulders and went to work on his cravat. “Not completely,” she murmured. “My stockings stay on. Always.”
His brows knit together, but he wasn’t about to argue with her. Instead, he lifted the loosened corset over her head, which meant she had to pause in her attempt to free the cravat from around his neck.
He noted how her hands trembled as she moved them back to the silk knot, and he covered one of them with his own. “Please, don’t be frightened of me,” he whispered.
“I’m not,” she insisted. “I’m... excited, is all. I’ve never done this before.”
Grinning, he pulled the tie at the top of her chemise until the bow separated. “I should hope not.” Pushing the fabric from off the top of her shoulder and down her arm until one of her breasts was exposed, he inhaled softly. “Neither have I,” he breathed.
Rose was about to ask how that could be, but decided she didn’t care at the moment. Her entire body was trembling with anticipation. Her body ignited with a desire she had felt long ago, before David’s departure, one that sometimes haunted her late at night and was even more apparent the night of the ball, in the gardens.
She understood now why thoughts of him had frustrated her. Angered her, even. How could she allow one man to have such power over her?
Watching how he gazed at her naked breasts had her realizing she had that same power over him.
I lust for you, he had said in the gardens.
He had said he was falling in love with her, too, but at the moment, she wanted the lusting David. Needed him. The one that could ease whatever it was that had her breasts swelling and the area at the top of her thighs throbbing with need.
“If you pin my arms, I won’t be able to remove your cravat,” she warned.
“Oh,” he replied, about to lower his lips to her nipple. “Well, then.” He gathered up the fabric of her chemise and lifted it over her head, which had her gasping in surprise before he tossed the garment onto the nearby chair.
Before he had a chance to take a good look at her, she had the cravat unwrapping from around his neck, the pleated silk passing before his face over and over until the last of it disappeared and the fine linen of his shirt blinded him as it was lifted over his head. A moment later, and he heard her soft gasp as her hands slid up from his waist through the dark, crisp curls covering his chest to rub over the nubbin of his nipples.
