A strange smile drifted across his face as he pulled the gown down from her shoulders. “I think I’m beginning to.”
She stood like a doll as he undressed her. Unexpectedly, he seemed in no rush to use her. She tried not to mind her nakedness, told herself she’d been naked for him so many times before. But she couldn’t stem the quivering vulnerability she felt standing nude in front of him.
When he reached for her hairbrush, a horrible thought occurred to her. “You’re not going to spank me?” she asked in dismay. For some reason, that would be the final humiliation in a night filled with humiliations.
His soft laugh grated on her nerves. “No, although you might enjoy it.”
With sure fingers, he reached up and let down what remained of the knot she’d twisted her hair into earlier. Her dash into the bushes had tangled it into an impossible mess. Slowly, thoroughly, he began to smooth the long black strands into order.
She stood motionless under his attentions. For a long time, the room was quiet as he concentrated on his task, his face calm and serious, as if brushing her hair were the most important thing in the world.
Eventually, he put aside the brush and gently pushed her down onto the bed. She lay staring upward and listened to him tug the clothes from his body. For all her denials and refusals, she was back where he wanted her.
She fought the urge to burst into tears.
It was like last night. Tomorrow night would be the same. And the night after that.
And every night until he tired of this cruel game.
Without extinguishing the candles, he lay down next to her. She waited for him to part her legs and claim her. But tonight he seemed determined to take his time. Perhaps because after this morning, he knew pleasure was the worst punishment he could inflict. He wanted to make her pay for her abortive attempt to escape him.
Verity turned her head and watched him raise himself up on one elbow in a characteristic pose. As he made a leisurely inspection of her prone form, the ghost of a smile curled his lips. The room was silent except for the crackle of the fire and the soft susurration of her nervous breathing.
She stiffened in silent rejection of what that smile promised. After everything that had happened, she could remain unmoved if he merely rutted over her, seeking his own release and ignoring hers. She was staunchly certain she could resist a thoughtless lover.
But now he promised to be anything but a thoughtless lover. He reached out to stroke his hand across her body, learning its shape and texture. It was as though touch were the only sense available to him.
He sighed with a pleasure she couldn’t mistake as he trailed his fingers across the hollows of her collarbone and down her arms. He touched her belly and her shoulders and her legs. His hand was warm and gentle on her naked flesh.
Against her will, her pulse quickened after each seemingly casual brush of his fingers. His gaze was intent and serious as he studied the intricate, meaningless patterns he drew on her skin, patterns which made every inch of her sing.
She closed her eyes and told herself he’d done this before. On so many long, languid afternoons in Kensington.
The first time he’d shared her bed, he’d taken the trouble to arouse her. She’d been surprised at his care. Then shocked at her reaction.
With Eldreth, she’d gradually learned to tolerate sex. She’d quickly decided that if she had to earn her living on her back, she might as well make the best of the bargain. But the Duke of Kylemore had unveiled a dazzling new world of sensuality—a world which beckoned so strongly that she’d been frantic to escape its pull by the time she’d left him.
Now she fought to stay unresponsive under Kylemore’s touch. Surely, she knew all the weapons in his arsenal of seduction. Familiarity must blunt their effectiveness against her.
But here, his touch seemed different. Just as Kylemore seemed a different man in many ways, some too subtle even to describe.
Gently, he shaped her thighs, her flanks, her arms. As if testing what a woman was. Her heart fluttered within her like a trapped bird. The light skimming hands were tender and astonishingly arousing.
Verity’s nipples tightened. The reaction was immediate and uncontrollable, and she had no hope of hiding it from him. Her uneven breathing caught, then resumed an even more erratic rhythm as she tensed, waiting for him to touch her breasts.
But he concentrated on parts of her she’d never before considered particularly erotic. Although she knew from her year as his lover that her whole body offered him the promise of delight.
Only after long minutes of silently enduring his attentions did she realize he deliberately avoided her breasts and between her legs.
Nor had he kissed her.
He meant to demonstrate his superiority. Of course he did. She’d never fooled herself that this was anything but a quest for supremacy. That insight helped her beat back the shimmering response his fingers created wherever they glanced.
You abducted me, she chanted in her mind. You think you own me. You want to destroy me. You’re nothing but a selfish brute.
The litany went on, eventually overcoming the spell of his caresses. Her wanton body might strain to surrender to him. The memory of the ecstasy he could call forth was imprinted on her skin. But her head and her heart were stronger, and they would prevail.
As her own arousal faded, she became more aware of Kylemore’s. He breathed unsteadily, and his touch lost its effortless mastery. Next to her, he radiated heat like a great fire. His hand wandered down her stomach, tantalizingly close to her sex.