‘I cannot live without you,’ he bit out briefly, before swirling his tongue round one painfully sensitised nipple. ‘Don’t make me do without you, my sweet love.’
His sweet love? Was she really his sweet love?
‘Oh, Gregory,’ she sobbed, as tears welled in her eyes.
Something arced between them and then they were kissing frantically. She clawed at his back as he pushed up her skirts. Wrapped one leg round his hips as he ran his hand up the outside of her thigh and kissed her neck again. Her face. The cleft between her breasts.
She was on fire. Burning up with the need that only he could create within her. That only he could assuage.
He raised himself slightly. Slid away so that he could bring his hand between her legs.
‘Oh, yes,’ she moaned as he delved, and stroked, and pleasured her. ‘Yes. Please. Oh...’
Something like a shower of fireworks went off inside her, scattering her in a blaze of sparks across the heavens, before gently drifting her back down to the hearth. Where she discovered he was holding her close, his fingers buried in her hair, his chest heaving as though he’d just been running.
He dropped a kiss on her brow. ‘Wait right there,’ he said as he got to his feet.
She watched drowsily from between heavy lids as he gathered pillows and blankets, then came back and dropped to his knees beside her.
‘Lift your head,’ he said, passing her a pillow. She did as she was told without demur, seeing as he was only ministering to her comfort.
‘Raise your arms,’ he ordered next.
When she did so, he pulled the sleeves down her arms and off. She raised her hips so that he could remove the gown altogether.
‘Now for the stays,’ he said. Then checked himself. ‘Good God—your other stays are still in my valise. If anyone unpacks for me...’
She tried, and failed, to stifle a giggle.
‘Are you laughing at me?’
‘I’m sorry. I couldn’t help it.’
‘You will pay for that, you minx,’ he growled.
And deftly removed every last stitch of her clothing with ruthless efficiency. Then he knelt back. And stared at her. For so long that she began to start wondering if she should be worried. Or if she ought to feel shy. A modest, virtuous woman would surely wish to cover herself? In at least a couple of strategic places.
All Prudence wanted to do was preen. Because the way he was drinking in the sight of her, lying naked and ready for him, made her feel like a goddess being worshipped by an acolyte.
‘You look so lovely, lying there with the firelight flickering over your body, I cannot decide where to start,’ he said at last. ‘Should I start at your poor abused toes and work my way up?’ He ran one hand along the length of her leg, round and over her hip, up and over one breast, ending by cupping her cheek.
‘Or at your hair? Your glorious hair?’ He leaned forward and started plucking out the pins.
‘Wait, Gregory,’ she said, as a thought suddenly struck her. ‘I know where you should start.’
‘Where? Where do you wish me to begin making love to you?’
She smiled up at him. ‘I thought you already had. But, please, my dear, won’t you put a couple of logs on the fire before you do anything else? I don’t want the fire to go out at a crucial moment and for you to have to stop to get it going again.’
‘I can promise you the fire won’t go out all night,’ he growled.
She didn’t think he was talking about the one just getting going in the hearth.
‘My practical little wife-to-be,’ he said, tending to the fire. ‘Always thinking one step ahead. You will be a formidable duchess, you know.’
She didn’t really believe him, but she felt far too lazy, too replete in the aftermath of all those fireworks going off inside her, to be bothered to argue.
And she was glad she hadn’t when he knelt over her with an intent expression on his face and shrugged out of his jacket. Then his waistcoat. Then his shirt. His chest was as magnificent as she remembered. Only now she had the right to run her hands over it. To follow the dips and hollows, experience the difference in texture between smooth skin and hairy, hard muscles and the soft skin of his nipples. To sit up and kiss the bruises marring his ribs.
He shuddered. Gripped her shoulders and pushed her away. ‘Don’t,’ he grated. ‘Not yet. Or I won’t be able to keep my promise.’
‘But I want to feel you,’ she complained. ‘Taste you.’
‘I will make you feel,’ he said, taking hold of her wrists and pinning them above her head.
Again.
‘It will be like nothing you have ever felt before,’ he vowed, before stopping her mouth with a kiss.