is neckcloth to the rich red-and-blue Turkey carpet. His shirt gaped, allowing glimpses of his throat and the crisp dark hair on his upper chest.
He’d brought her to climax twice, and she was yet to see more of his body than she would in a ballroom. Her eyes fastened feverishly on that revealing vee. Her lips parted as if she already tasted him there. The prickly sensation on her skin heightened. Air pressed against her.
Still with that casual air—an air the banked fires in his eyes contradicted—he tugged his coat from his shoulders and tossed it on the chair behind him.
Diana swallowed to ease the dryness of her mouth. She wished he’d say something. Anything to snap the building tension.
He unfastened the beautiful gray waistcoat with its delicate embroidery of vines and fruit. With the pull and release of each button, her heart crashed against her ribs. He shrugged off the waistcoat and dropped it to lie next to the unraveled neckcloth.
Her fists clenched in her skirts as she fought for control. What was happening to her? When she’d invited Ashcroft to be her lover, she hadn’t wanted it to be like this. This threatened to take over her entire existence.
He stood before her wearing only his fine white shirt and dark trousers. Fully dressed, he was a magnificent figure of a man. In shirtsleeves, he took her breath away. Feverishly, her eyes traced the straight shoulders, the broad chest, and narrow hips, down to his strong horseman’s thighs.
Out of his elegant garb, he should appear more approachable. Instead, he looked hard and male and overpowering.
Her belly turned hot and liquid, and she shifted to relieve the pressure between her legs. Then blushed when he noticed her discomfort.
“Take off that dress,” he growled.
She shivered. In eight years, she hadn’t been naked for a man. Now she’d reveal her body to an acknowledged connoisseur. She was no longer a lissome girl, and this man was used to diamonds of the first water.
She shot him a defiant glare. “Are you always this imperious with your lovers?”
He laughed. “Only when they drive me as mad as you do.”
The humor cut through her fleeting insecurity like a hot knife through butter. With surprisingly steady fingers, she began to undo her bodice. She’d chosen a dress fastening in front as she hadn’t been sure she’d have the services of a maid.
The first few buttons loosened easily before Ashcroft’s fixed regard made her falter. When she glanced down, her bosom swelled over the top of her short stays. She’d always been a regrettably overendowed woman although William had appreciated her assets. One look at Ashcroft’s face, and she guessed he was another man who liked more than a handful.
“Don’t stop,” he said hoarsely. His hands opened and closed at his sides as if he restrained the urge to grab her.
Three more buttons, and she wriggled out of the gown. Carefully, she laid it upon the mahogany chair.
Her hair fell about her face in a disheveled, heavy mass. She tossed it behind her shoulders. Lifting her chin in a proud gesture, she confronted Ashcroft. She forced words from her tight throat. “You’ll have to help with my corset.”
“With pleasure.”
She presented her back and bunched her hair out of the way with one hand. A man of his experience must have undressed thousands of women. The thought stung, although she told herself she had no right to resent his former lovers.
Within seconds, he had her corset unlaced. No maid had performed the mundane task as deftly. He slid it from her shoulders and flung it across her dress. Without invitation, he untied the tapes holding her petticoats. Rustling softly, they dropped to the floor.
She stepped out of them, then slowly turned. Her shift was made of silk so fine, it was transparent. Fleetingly, perilously, she forgot the role she played, of eager, rapacious, heartless lover. Instead, she was just plainspoken Diana Carrick. Bookish. Lonely. Driven. Selling herself to gain a magnificent dream.
Her shaking hands rose to cover her breasts. Her nipples pearled so tight, they ached. The onslaught of desire left her floundering.
“Diana, don’t be shy,” he said softly. He gently uncrossed her wrists. “You’re glorious.”
“This is…this is more difficult than I expected,” she said in a shaky voice. Then bit her lip as she realized what she admitted.
Would he guess she seduced him for her own purposes? Although who was the seducer and who the seduced had become blurred since last night.
To her relief, he took her words at face value, and a smile of surprising tenderness curved his mouth. It made him look younger, less cynical, more vulnerable. She struggled to close the rift that opened in her heart.
“Don’t do anything you don’t want to, sweetheart,” he said softly, and raised her hands to his lips, placing a kiss in the center of each palm.
The brush of his mouth was warm and sweet and set a long slow pulse beating low in her belly. The problem wasn’t whether she wanted to make love to him, the problem was how very much she wanted it.
But she was too rapt in enchantment to wrench free.