Page 137 of A Very Bellamy Christmas

Regardless of what it meant, he should put a stop to this. He was an experienced man who’d goaded a virgin into demanding that he strip. But if he called a halt to things right now, she would probably think it had something to do with her, rather than a gentlemanly impulse—albeit weak—to spare her tender sensibilities.

Liar. You just want to get naked in front of her.

Well, there was that too, he thought as he obeyed her command, sank into his chair, and speedily, if not exactly gracefully, wrenched off first one boot and then the other.

“St-stockings, too.”

He bit back a grin as he pulled them off, tossed them aside, and then flexed his liberated toes.

He heard the sound of movement from across the room, the faint creak of the settee—was she sitting down? Or getting up? And then came the subtle squeak of one of the ancient floor planks, her footsteps so quiet that she must have shed her ankle boots. His lips twitched at the thought of those diminutive boots. Had he ever seen such a small pair before?

“Why are you smirking?” she asked, her voice coming from far nearer than he’d expected.

“Because I am happy.”

“It does not embarrass you to remove your clothing in front of somebody you hardly know?”

He chuckled, not just at her question, but at just how un-embarrassed she would discover he was if she ever got around to demanding that he shed his leathers. “No.”

“Stand up,” she said, her tone sharp, as if his answer had annoyed her.

Andrew stood.

“Remove your breeches.”

His eyebrows almost launched off his forehead at her unexpectedly bold command, but his hands were already in motion, nimbly flicking open the catches on his fall and giving a tug that pulled all the buttons out of their holes in one fell swoop.

And then he let the soft doeskin fall to the floor and kicked the garment to the side.

The air shifted around him, and he heard more floorboards creaking, farther away this time.

You should put a stop to this. It is up to—

“Your shirt.”

He hesitated.

“Was that confusing, my lord?”

Andrew laughed. “No, Miss Martin.” He grasped the hem of the garment, which was long enough to reach almost the bottom of his small clothes and pulled it over his head.

She gasped.

Andrew was arrogant, but he suspected it wasn’t the sight of his tented smallclothes that had drawn her gasp.

No, it would be the hideous scars scattered about his person. Women seemed mesmerized by the mute evidence of violence. Perhaps because so much about war was a mystery to them. Or maybe just because the wounds were ugly.

Andrew dropped his shirt to the floor when she did not take it from him.

“What happened?” she asked, her voice coming from right in front of him.

“Sabers happened.”

He could feel soft warm puffs of air against his chest; she was close.

“Touch me, Stacia,” he said, his cock throbbing at the memory of her cool, smooth hands on his chest the night before and the pleasure they’d given him.

Andrew heard an amusing gulp and could see her expression of indecision in his mind’s eye.