He did stiffen, however, when Phoebe opened the gleaming razor and used her free hand to angle his face to the side. “It’s me,” she said gently. “Don’t worry.” She pulled the skin of his cheek taut with her thumb, held the razor in a practiced grip, and stroked downward with the blade at a perfect thirty-degree angle. After a few careful, neat scrapes—deliciously satisfying sounds—she wiped the blade on a shaving cloth draped over her arm. She didn’t realize West had been holding his breath until he let it out in a controlled sigh.
Pausing, she looked down at him with her face directly over his. “Shall I stop?”
His mouth twisted. “Not if it’s giving you tingles.”
“Many,” she assured him, and continued to shave, deftly stretching areas of his face and scraping them smooth. When it came time to work on his neck, she turned his face toward her and nudged his chin upward to expose his throat. As she saw his hands begin to tighten on the chair arms, she said, “I give you permission to look down my chemise.”
He loosened his grip and regulated his breathing.
Phoebe shaved his neck with short and meticulous strokes, revealing skin that gleamed like copper. She took special care with the strong angle of his jawbone, where there was no cushioning softness beneath the skin. “What a lovely jaw,” she murmured, admiring the clean edge. “I’ve never properly appreciated it before.”
West waited until the blade lifted from his skin before replying. “I was just thinking the same thing about your breasts.”
Phoebe smiled. “Rogue,” she accused softly, and moved around to his other side. After the rest of his neck and jaw was smooth, she put her face near his and covered her bottom teeth with her lower lip. “Do this.”
He complied readily, and she shaved beneath his lip with delicate strokes. As she worked around his mouth intently, using featherlight pressure, she sensed that West had surrendered completely, his limbs relaxed and loose beneath her. Perhaps it was wrong, but she was enjoying the situation immensely, having his big, powerful body under her control. It hardly escaped her notice that he’d stayed hard all through the shave, his desire unflagging, and she enjoyed that too. Now and then she paused to look into his eyes to make certain he wasn’t uncomfortable, and was reassured by the calm, almost drowsy softness of his gaze. As she checked for missed patches on his face, she found a residual bit of roughness near his jaw, and another on his left cheek. After daubing more frothy soap on those parts, she shaved against the grain to remove them.
She used a fresh hot towel to remove every last trace of soap, and patted some rose-water tonic on his face with her fingertips. “All done,” she said cheerfully, drawing back to look at him with satisfaction. His clean-shaven face was handsome enough to make her heart skip a beat. “And not a single nick.”
Rubbing his smooth jaw, West went to the washstand to have a glance in the looking glass. “It’s a better shave than I could give myself.” He turned to face her with a brooding stare.
Wondering at his mood, Phoebe raised her brows questioningly.
Coming to her in two strides, he pulled her against him and took her mouth in a roughly fervent kiss. She began to smile at the demonstration of masculine relief and gratitude, but the pressure of his lips made it impossible. His hands slid over her body, stroking and gripping, molding her hips against his as the swollen length of his erection throbbed between them. He kissed and tasted his way along the side of her neck, his lips and cheek smooth against her skin. Her head tipped back as he kissed the hollow at the base of her throat and swirled his tongue there.
“Thank you,” he whispered against the humid spot he’d left.
“Thank you for trusting me.”
“I would trust you with my life.” He reached higher, and she felt a gentle tugging at the combs that anchored her hair. The weight of the twisted locks fell and unraveled down to her hips. West took a step back, dropped the combs to the floor, and reached out to grasp a handful of the shining red hair. He brought a few of the ruddy locks to his face, stroking them over his cheeks and mouth, and kissed them. His face was grave, almost severe, as he stared at her with absolute concentration. “How can you be so beautiful?” Without waiting for an answer, he picked her up with an ease that caused her to gasp.
West settled her amid the dappled light and shadows of the bed, still rumpled from his sleep. He lay beside her, propped up on one elbow, his gaze following the path of his fingertips as he caressed the exposed skin of her upper chest. Reaching the edge of her neckline, he pulled gently to reveal a pale pink nipple. His thumb circled the tightening bud, stirring a sweet ache that caused her to arch and tremble. He lowered his head, his lips drifting back and forth across the sensitive peak, teasing lightly. The moist heat of his mouth closed over her, and he suckled tenderly, his tongue flickering and playing. Taking the stiff flesh between his teeth, he bit tenderly, sending a dart of heat to the pit of her stomach.
He lifted his head and stared down at the aroused nipple glowing a deeper shade of pink than before. “What am I going to do with you?” he asked softly.
Phoebe flushed so hard that her face prickled, and she had to duck her head against his neck before she could manage to reply. “I have ideas.”
A huff of amusement filtered through her hair. She felt his weight leaning over her, his lips grazing her hot skin. “Tell me.”
“That day at Eversby Priory . . . when we were in the study, and you . . .” She fidgeted, unable to find words for what he’d done.
“When I pleasured you over a pile of account ledgers?” West prompted, his hand sliding lazily over her back. “Do you want that again, love?”
“Yes,” she said shyly, “but you offered . . . to use your tongue.”
A quiet laugh tickled her ear. “You remembered that, did you?
“I thought about it afterward,” she admitted, amazed she was confessing something so shameless, “and . . . I wished I’d said yes.”
West grinned and cuddled her close, his lips toying with the soft tendrils of hair around her ear. “Sweetheart,” he whispered, “I would love above all else to do that for you. Is that all you want?”
“No, I . . .” Phoebe drew back enough to look at him earnestly. “I want you to make love to me. Please.”
Their faces were so close, she felt as if she were floating in a deep blue ocean.
West’s fingertips traced the fine edges of her face. “There’s no future for us. We both have to agree on that.”
Her chin dipped in a single nod. “But you’ll be mine for as long as you stay at Clare Manor.”
His voice was soft. “I’m already yours, love.”
He sat up and began to undress her with deliberate slowness, untying the tiny silk ribbons of her chemise and pulling the garment over her head. But when she tugged at the hem of his shirt, her hands were gently pushed away.
“I want to take your clothes off too,” she protested.
“Later.” West unfastened her lace-trimmed drawers and eased them down over her hips.
“Why not now?”
She heard his unsteady laugh. “Because the briefest contact between any part of you and any part of me will end this in one flaming second.” His eyes had turned heavy lidded as he gazed over her slender naked form, lingering at the sight of the red curls between her thighs. “I want you too badly, love. I want you the way dry earth soaks up rain. There may have been a time in my life when I could have seen you like this and still had some hope of self-control. Although I doubt it. I’ve never seen anything as beautiful as you.” His hands trembled slightly as he removed her garters and stockings and cast them aside. Taking up one of her feet, he lifted it to his mouth and kissed the inner arch of her sole, making her leg twitch. “However,” he said, playing with her toes, “if I do anything you don’t like, you have only to tell me, and I’ll stop. That much control I’ll always have. Do you understand?”
Phoebe nodded, her hand stealing over the patch of private curls to conceal them.
Amused by her modesty, West asked, “What happened to the woman who just shaved me while dressed in nothing but her undergarments?”
“I can’t just lie here spread out like a starfish,” Phoebe protested, now wriggling to be free of him. “I’m not used to this!”
He pounced on her with a smothered laugh, pinning her arms to the sides and scattering kisses across her writhing torso. “You are the most adorable, delicious creature . . .” His mouth slid over her stomach, finding the ticklish hollow of her navel. But the warm, wet swirl of his tongue didn’t make her laugh as she would have expected—it spread a peculiar molten feeling through her abdomen. “Delicious,” he repeated in a different tone, low and vibrant. He traced the rim with the tip of his tongue before licking deep again. His lips rounded as he blew a cool light stream of air against the dampness. The muscles of her stomach tightened and quivered.
Transfixed, Phoebe lay passively beneath him as he settled between her thighs and pushed them wider. She was dimly aware of the abrupt reversal of their roles from earlier: now he was utterly in control and the surrender was all hers. Her gaze was filled with the brightness of the whitewashed ceiling. She’d never done anything like this in the daytime—it made her feel terribly exposed, and defenseless, and yet somehow that aroused her even more. West continued to play with her navel, kissing and nibbling, while his fingers sifted through the wispy curls covering her sex.