Page 22 of Victorian Bride

“Confound these things,” he mumbled as he began working on the fastenings of her gown. “Why must they be so impossible to get out of?”

“For exactly this reason, I think,” Mya answered, swallowing a laugh in case it might prompt him to actually follow through on his threat. “They do not want you despoiling innocent young ladies.”

“Innocent, indeed. I do not think I imagined that you are just as eager as I am.”

Mya did laugh, then. Kayden made a frustrated sound at her back, just as he managed to actually succeed in his task and get the gown to slide from her shoulders.

“Now you have to lift it off,” Mya instructed.

“I am aware of how clothing works, my dear.”

“Not that I have seen thus far,” Mya retorted.

“Unbelievable.” Kayden laughed as he lifted the gown over her head, tossing the whole thing in a rumpled pile on the bed. “I treat you like a queen and you do nothing but abuse me.”

“Perhaps you need to be taken down a peg.” Mya unfastened the straps that held the crinoline in place and let it fall, folding in on itself as it went. Then she gathered it up and laid it and the dress in the chair by the window.

“Clothes, clothes, and more clothes.” Kayden sighed. “I swear they aim to convince men that there is not a human form at all under all that fabric.”

“That is one way to protect women's virtue. Make it entirely not worth the bother.”

Kayden's eyes slid slowly over her body, now hidden only by the most basic undergarments, and Mya felt the look like a touch. “You will always be worth the bother,” he said, voice dropping low and husky.

Mya's cheeks went pink, but she didn't give him the satisfaction of fluttering about. “Flattery will not help you here.”

“No?” Kayden's fingers began loosening the stays of her corset. “I think it has performed rather nicely thus far.”

It was an unimaginable relief to let her ribs expand. The corset was not such a terribly uncomfortable thing as she had expected it to be when Lottie and Eleanora had introduced her to it, but there were moments at which she had wondered if dancing in such a contraption was an entirely wise choice. Little wonder some of the women had come so near fainting after some of the more vigorous numbers.

He turned her, and opened the fastenings up the front of the corset, catching it as it fell and laying it in the chair with the other things.

Mya took a deep breath and let it out again on a pleased sigh.

“Glad to be rid of it?” Kayden asked, the smile on his face saying he knew quite well that she was.

She didn't answer. Only reached down and pulled the chemise she had been wearing beneath it over the top of her head.

Kayden's eyes darkened as she threw it aside, not bothering with the chair for it. He stepped back into her space, curling his hands beneath the weight of her breasts and brushing his thumbs over her nipples. Mya gasped as they peaked under the touch. Her ribs and stomach were marked with the indentations the corset's boning had left behind.

Kayden ran his hands along them, and she shivered with the ticklish sensation of the barely there contact.

When his fingers reached her waist, Kayden stripped the drawers off, and Mya kicked them to the side, left only in her stockings and garters. She reached to loosen them, and Kayden stilled her hand.

“Those stay,” he said, lips tilting into a crooked smile.

“Oh, they do, do they?” Mya's eyebrows lifted. “And what if I wish them to go?”

“Then you will break my heart,” he replied instantly.

She laughed, and left the garters alone.

Kayden lifted her, hands around her waist, and set her on the bed. Mya leaned comfortably back on her hands, relishing the warm air of the room sliding over her naked skin. He, of course, did not have nearly so much clothing to remove as she had, and it was a matter of only moments before he was naked entirely.

He looked the way he had in her dream. Not just a little, as though she had guessed at what his physique might be under the suit, but exactly. The slope of his shoulders. The width of his hips. The... She flushed a little at the mental comparison and shook off the thought.

“You turn such a pretty shade of pink,” Kayden said as he knelt on the bed, his hands curling around her thighs and drawing her in close to him. “Whatever is going through that lovely head of yours?”

“You,” Mya answered truthfully.