The sash fell away.
“He will not have you after I have.”
“I will not tell him you have had me.” She shivered as he drew the sleeves of her gown down her arms.
“A man has other ways of knowing a woman is a maiden than her word alone.” His voice was hoarse, his gaze upon her breasts. Covered now only by the fine linen of her shift, her tight nipples poked out, dark beneath the thin fabric.
She felt light-headed and she wanted to cover herself again. “Then I will discover a method of making it appear otherwise. Women are cleverer than most men.”
“Yet few have your determination and courage.”
“You are not referring to my maidenhood now, are you?”
He smiled, but there was fever in his gaze. Hunger for her. She thought that if she were ever to drown, it would be in his eyes. His hand came around her face, strong and purposeful.
She couldn’t seem to breathe. “Suddenly I am excessively nervous. Or, perhaps not suddenly, simply again. And don’t tell me I do not look excessively nervous like you did that night at Sir Henry’s, because I would know this time it was a flat-out lie.”
“You look . . .” He swallowed, his gaze dipping to her breasts again, and the movement of his throat made her insides flutter. “ . . . perfect.”
She felt like butter must when it melted. She probably smelled like it too, covered in milk. But he didn’t seem to mind it. Circling an arm about her, he pulled her close. Their bodies brushed. He bent his mouth to her neck again, then nuzzled her earlobe.
“We needn’t do this.” His hand was drawing her shift up her legs, sliding it over her behind. “We can stop now, if you wish. At any moment.”
“If you think I’ve been throwing myself at you for over a fortnight so that I will demand that we stop now, I will have to reconsider my opinion of your intelligence. And—” Her breaths hitched. “How on earth could you imagine I would want you to stop just when you are doing that?” His hand covered her buttock and caressed. Her joints went liquid.
“God, you are so soft.”
She went onto her tiptoes and put her lips against his cheek. “Rule Number Five: ‘Always respect a lady’s wishes.’ ” She was a wanton. She didn’t care, not now in his arms.
“I was thinking about that.”
“About what, exactly?”
“About being a gentleman.” His hands left her and he drew off his waistcoat. “It would be ungentlemanly to expect a lady to remove her clothing while everyone else remains dressed.”
She watched, mesmerized, as he unwound his cravat, revealing taut male perfection.
“E-Everyone?”
“Whoever happens to be around at the time.” His eyes sparkled as he drew the tail of his shirt from his trousers and pulled it off.
“Uh.” She stared. “I . . .”
His hands came around her face, fingers threading through her hair, and he brought their mouths together. “Now, minx,” he murmured against her lips. “As a gentleman, I must beg the lady to precede me.”
Her heart was a drumstick beating against the wall of her throat. “Pr-Precede you?” It sounded like a croak. “I cannot seem to stop stuttering. It is very embarrassing.”
“Yet, to be expected.” He kissed her again, a coaxing caress. “Precede me in touching.”
Heat enveloped her, cheeks to toes but especially in her feminine areas. She had never imagined touching his naked body. Clearly she had been tragically naïve.
“Touching?”
Golden sparks from the fire illuminated his eyes, and the corner of his delicious mouth tilted up. “Come now. Will Lady Intrepid be timid in this?”
“No!” He was large and beautiful and so very male, all lean muscle in his arms and wide shoulders and gorgeous chest tapering to his waist bathed in amber firelight. The line of dark hair extending from his navel beneath his trousers made her achy again. She lifted a hand and set two fingertips to the depression at the base of his throat that made her mouth water. He drew in a slow breath, his chest rising. She laid all five fingertips down and slid them across his skin.
Her eyelashes fluttered of their own accord, the place between her legs as damp as her mouth now. His skin was hot, firm, and with only her fingertips she could feel the pounding of his heart. She traced her fingers to one flat brown nipple. He closed his eyes, pulled in a hard breath and drew her closer.
“I may have overestimated my gentlemanliness again,” he said tightly.
“Overestimated?”
“Diantha, keep touching me.” He did not open his eyes. “Your hands . . .” His voice was low and rough. “I pray you.”
There was a quality about his request she recognized amidst the delicious danger of this exploration, a need that she’d heard that night when she held him. She obeyed. Flattening her palms on his chest, she felt him, the smoothness of his hot skin, the shape of muscles that made her weak with longing, the hard beat of his heart. Her hands moved as though knowing where to touch him, curving about his shoulders, along the strong line of his collarbone, across the day’s whiskers on his jaw, then into his hair. He smelled good, of fire smoke and man. She went onto her toes and followed her fingers with her lips. His hands held her to him, spread upon her back, and she felt held and wanted and protected. She knew he would protect her. She had known it from the beginning.
The fabric of her shift bunched in his grasp.
“A gentleman should not compromise a lady’s modesty in order to make love to her,” he murmured. “I should allow you to remain gowned. But I want to see you, minx. I want to see all of you.”
Alarm leaped in her throat. “You do?”
“When I was fevered, the notion that if I came through it alive I might someday see your body kept me sane.”
“But . . .” He couldn’t. No one had ever seen her like that, not even her sisters or maid. At fourteen she had even turned her mirror toward the wall. Her mother had encouraged it; no need to distress herself daily. “Perhaps if we extinguish the candle first . . . ?”
“Diantha, do not deny me.” His eyes held such heat now.
She closed her own eyes so that she would not see his reaction as she drew off her shift and he helped her.
A moment of silence became two. “Dear God.” His voice sounded strangled.
She slapped her arms across her belly. “I know I’m not— That is to say, if I could—”
“If you could ask God to fashion a woman of pure beauty, he would deny the request. For he has already created you.”
She snapped her eyes open to see his gaze upon her, rapt. He touched her then precisely upon the ugly white stripes across her hips and belly. Nurse had told her that these and the marks flanking her breasts showed where her skin had stretched to accommodate her flesh before, and would always remember that time in scars. Now his fingertips stroked there tenderly.
“Beautiful, unique Diantha.”
Her throat choked in a sob she would not allow. This was fantasy. She must not weep now, even for joy. “Do you really mean it? Are you speaking the truth?”
“Yes, I really mean it. Why would I lie? You are already here, willing. I’ve nothing to gain from you by lying yet all to enjoy simply by looking and speaking my thoughts and waiting for those dimples to appear.”
“You are not looking at my dimples.”
“Easily distracted.” He captured her lips and his warm, strong hands drew her to him and finally they came skin-to-skin. Her breasts flattened against his chest and the throbbing apex of her thighs met with a hardness that showered her with pleasure. “Good God, Diantha.” He cupped her behind and pulled her hips tight against him. “If you wish evidence of how enticing I find you, delay another moment in getting on that bed and I will take you down to the floor right here and have you. I can wait no longer.”