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“What?” His once bemused-turned-beguiled-face transformed to pure befuddlement. “I don’t understand.”

“I think you do.” She made a show of checking to see if the door to the head groom’s office was locked.

“Why are you here, Verity?” He drew out each word as his body rose up to his full height. He was towering over her, and her heart was suddenly thrashing about in her chest.

In her marriage, she had never taken control of the bedroom. She always just laid down and taken it. Endured it. It had not been about pleasure but obligation. And even after all those years, she hadn’t fulfilled her obligation of providing an heir. It was humiliating. All of it.

“What’s wrong?” His hand was at her hip before she even knew she was blinking back a tear. There was no way on God’s green earth that she was about to cry in front of this man. Perhaps, she had overestimated her ability to storm in and take control of the situation, but she was going to go through with it.

“Nothing’s wrong.” She worked past the sizable lump in her throat. “I’m trying to decide how I should take you.”

“Is that so?” His fingers reached around to her bottom, splayed across both cheeks right down the middle.

“Yes, it is.”

“What are your options?” That large hand on her backside held her steady while he inched toward her.

She didn’t know her options from experience, only from memory. Memories of pages from that book. That deliciously, cleverly written book for women to learn how to take their pleasure.

She could be wanton.

Page thirty-six flew to her mind.

“Get on your knees.” Her voice sounded breathless even to her, but she shook it off.

“Now what?”

But she couldn’t say anything just yet. She could only picture what she wanted, so she lifted the hems of her skirts. When his eyes darkened and followed her hem all the way up past her ankle, up her calves and over her knees, she finally said.

“Taste me.”

And she thought she saw a slight tremble in his hand before he clasped it around her ankles, but she couldn’t be sure. Mostly because her own body was ratcheted with sensation. His fingers feathering lightly up her legs until he reached her thigh.

Her breath was an audible intake.

“Here?” He said with his tongue licking her inner thigh.

“And…higher.” Sensations imploded inside of her brain. Pleasure beyond what she had ever imagined. But she had to stay strong. Not give in entirely to hyperbole.

“Here?” Another lick, closer to her center. A throbbing took over.

“Higher,” she answered breathlessly.

His hot, wet tongue slid over her lips.

She whimpered. And her knees nearly buckled.

“Here?” he asked one more time.

“Higher. Deeper,” she corrected with a mere slip of a voice.

And then his tongue was exactly where she wanted it. Where she had never known she needed it. Her body slumped into his waiting hands.

He moved them both closer to the door. “Put your legs on my shoulders,” he not only instructed but moved her body into the position.

Her back was against the wall. Her legs wrapped around his shoulders, clamped around his head.

And then he didn’t ask, he just licked all the way up her folds. Slowly. Deeply.