Her breasts were full, perfectly formed, high and proud, their skin creamy, with nipples a soft rose. Below, her ribcage narrowed to a surprisingly slender waist, one he could nearly span with his hands. The flare of her hips, the subtle swell of her taut belly, were the epitome of womanly perfection, entirely proportionate to her height, to the long, gracefully curved lines of her legs.
She stood before him, not exactly relaxed yet without any false modesty, much less shame; head tilting, a question forming in her eyes, she started to raise one hand.
“Just wait, please….” He licked his dry lips. “Stand there and let me look.
”
She arched her brows, but let her hand fall.
He drew in a tight breath and circled her, his gaze lovingly roving every inch, every curve. Letting each facet, each perspective sink into his mind, and enrich his imagination. His passion, his desire.
His need.
He’d inherited his mother’s artist’s eye well enough to appreciate the play of light on her fine skin, the curves kissed by a radiance that seemed almost unearthly. Pearlescent. Precious.
Halting behind her, he set his fingers to her chignon, already halfway undone. Pins pattered on the floor as he released the heavy mass, felt the silky slide of the tresses over his hands. Stepping closer, he lifted the burnished mass to his face and inhaled, deeply, let the essence of her wreath through his brain.
Leaning forward, careful not to touch her skin with his hands, not yet, he brushed his lips to her temple, then ran his hands out, letting the bright strands fall over her shoulders.
“You are…unutterably beautiful.” He breathed the words by her ear, then drew back. Forced himself to step back—and look. Study. This time, this innocence—him of her and her of him—would never come again.
Slowly, he continued around her.
He thanked every angel he knew that she wasn’t missish; although she watched him as he circled her, she stood calmly and made no move to cover her curves, her tantalizing hollows. The golden brown curls that adorned her mons fractured the light, shimmering like gold.
Shielding a treasure he ached to see, to touch, caress. To possess.
Madeline watched as he returned to stand before her. With her eyes she’d tracked his face; what she’d seen there, stamped in his features and blazoned in his amber eyes, had held her mesmerized. She’d felt the heated brush of his gaze wash over her bare skin; if anyone had told her, even an hour ago, that she would willingly stand naked while he examined her, she would have laughed. But that look in his eyes…for that, she would have walked naked over hot coals.
She’d known she—her body—could fix his attention and arouse him; she hadn’t known that she—her body—could affect him to this extent, could command this degree of sincere, wordless reverence. Especially not from him. From a man as experienced as he.
Even less had she expected him to so openly let her see and know how enthralled he truly was.
In doing so he’d given her a gift, a precious pleasure.
When he halted before her, she reached for the lapels of his hacking jacket. “Your turn.”
My turn.
He met her eyes, read her determination, and acquiesced. He was no more visited by modesty than she, not in this, not now, not between them. More, impatience, that telltale tension, gripped him; he didn’t wait passively while she peeled his clothes from him but threw them off himself, sitting bare-chested to haul off his boots and stockings, then standing and unbuckling his belt, stripping off his breeches, flinging them aside.
Then he was naked, but not about to stand and let her peruse. The instant he was upright, he reached for her and pulled her to him.
She gasped. Every bone in her body melted at the contact; she clung to his shoulders, the shocking heat of his naked skin searing hers. Her breasts pressed into the hard hot wall of his chest, nipples furled to tight points, excruciatingly sensitive as the crinkly hair adorning his tensed muscles abraded them. Her hips were firmly wedged against his rock-hard thighs, his hard hands cupping her bottom, holding her there so his erection burned against the taut cushion of her belly.
Then his head swooped, he found her lips, covered them, and took possession.
Of her mouth, of her body, of her.
She hadn’t known what to expect, but never would she have imagined this—the heat, the sheer wildness that infected them both, that raced unfettered through them, igniting fires that consumed, that cindered any reservation she might have had, that vaporized hesitation and replaced it with ravenous need.
The conflagration affected him in the same way. His hands were everywhere, demanding and driven. His patent need evoked hers, built and sent it raging, surging like a wave to sweep her into a roiling sea. Of hot passion, of frantic desire, of that unrestrained, greedy need.
She clung to him, kissed him wildly, pressed to him and let her body speak for her, let the way she responsed to his increasingly driven touch, to every possessive caress, scream her willingness, her urgent desperation.
Hers only fueled his.
He half lifted, half tumbled her onto the daybed, following her down so closely their lips barely parted enough for her to gasp. She reveled in the sensation of his hard body beside hers; she twisted, pressing close, hooking one knee over his the better to hold him to her. The better to savor the hard muscled strength of him down her long length, to feel the wall of his chest against her breasts as he shifted over her, pinning her to the bed.