“I’ve never seen that look on your face before,” she whispered, brushing her lips against his lightly.
“You’ll see it a great deal from now on,” he promised, and began to back her toward the settee. He pressed a hand into the small of her back and lowered her gently onto the cushions. She reached for him, but he dodged her and instead moved to the door.
“Are you leaving?” she asked, tone incredulous as she sat up on her elbows and tracked him.
“Not even if you offered me a million pounds sterling,” he promised, and met her gaze over his shoulder as he turned the key in the lock.
“Ah, a very intelligent king,” she teased.
“I can learn from the mistakes of others,” he acknowledged. “Remi, especially, has been teaching me lessons for a very long time.”
She choked out a laugh at his reference to the delicate position Remi and Priscilla had found themselves just a week before. Of course, it had led to their marriage and that was what both of them wanted so…perhaps he had not been so much a fool after all.
Grantham pushed all that aside as he stripped out of his jacket and tossed it over the back of a chair without breaking his stride to her. She licked her lips, her blue eyes darkening with desire. “Take the rest off.”
His eyebrows lifted. “I am not accustomed to being ordered about.”
“I know,” she said with a falsely solemn nod. “It’s why I do it. To make your eye twitch like that.”
“I would not put it past you,” he grunted, but he did as she asked and unfastened his cufflinks, removed his vest and then unwound his cravat. She seemed mesmerized as she tracked the removal of every item.
At last, he unbuttoned his shirt, tugged it from his trouser waist and then pulled it over his head.
“Good God,” she whispered, her gaze flitting over him. “That statue in the garden does you no justice.”
He chuckled as he dropped to his knees beside the settee and leaned in to kiss her. “That statue,” he said between kisses, “isn’t even designed to look like my body. And it’s missing a finger thanks to you.”
“Thanks to you,” she protested, pulling back from him with a bright smile.
“Thanks to us,” he conceded. “Now I would very much like to remove some of your clothing if you’ll allow it.”
The smile faded and to his surprise her cheeks reddened.
“You don’t want me to?” he asked gently.
She swallowed. “I do. All I have thought about since this afternoon was what it would feel like if your skin was on mine. How combustible that would be. How I would melt into you and forget which parts were mine and which were yours.”
He shuddered at the description that somehow aroused him even further. His cock was almost painful now. “But?” he choked out.
“But it’s been a while,” she whispered. “And the idea of being naked with another person is still…a bit fraught.”
He nodded. “I understand. If it helps, the last time I was naked with another person was also a good while ago.”
She wrinkled her brow. “How long?”
He pondered the question. “Let’s see…two years?”
Her eyes went wide. “Two years? You have not been with a lover for two years?”
“Would you like to declare it from the town square?” he asked.
She shook her head. “I’m sorry to be so boisterous, I’m simply surprised. After all, just…just look at you.”
She punctuated the statement by stretching out a hand and touching his bare skin for the first time. Her fingers dragged along his collarbone and then lower, across one pectoral. It was fire, she was fire, he wanted to burn.
“I…” He cleared his throat and tried to do the same with his mind. “My father died just over a year ago and he was sick for many months before that. I had duties to attend to and could not be distracted.” Truth be told, it was imperative he not be distracted now, either, but Ophelia was just too much to resist.
“I see.” Her tone was softer. No longer teasing. She sat up, their faces even, noses almost touching. “Let’s make it worth the wait for both of us.”
He nodded and reached around to her back. He pulled her in for another kiss. Slow this time, deep. She relaxed against him and he unfastened her gown as he lost himself in her once again. He pulled it and her chemise forward, moving his lips to her neck and sucking gently. Only when he had reached her lower arms with the fabric did she pull away and, with a big breath, tugged her hands free.
She was naked from the waist up and she stared at him, watching him look at her. And look he did. She was glorious. Her breasts were small, with dark nipples that had puckered with the air and, he hoped, her growing arousal. He reached out, dragging his knuckles across one breast and smiling when she dipped her head back and shivered.
He couldn’t resist the offer she made with that motion. He ducked his head and gently circled one nipple with his tongue.
“Oh God,” she gasped, her hands coming up into his hair, holding him tighter against her.
He eased her back on the settee cushion once more and surrendered himself to her pleasure. He studied every reaction as he swirled his tongue around one nipple, then the other. As he sucked gently, then harder. He marked everything he did that made her grind up into him, that made her sigh or curse or grip his hair with both hands. Unlocking her pleasure was like magic and he never wanted to stop teasing and tormenting her just to hear her breath catch and her body tremble.
He hooked his fingers around the gown now tangled at her waist and tugged it. She broke the kiss and took another big breath before she lifted her hips and let him remove the beautiful layers of fabric and lace. Unlike earlier in the day, she wore no drawers, so all that was left were her stockings and slippers.
He stared down the length of her body, memorizing every curve with his eyes before he came to know them in great detail with his hands and his mouth and his tongue. He was truly going to enjoy this.
She leaned up and cupped his chin, forcing his gaze back to her face. “And now you need to remove the rest, or else it isn’t fair.”
He couldn’t help but laugh, but nodded as he pushed from his knees and motioned her to scoot her legs over on the settee. When she’d allowed him a slender space, he perched on the edge and went to work on his boots. Once they were gone, he stood and arched a brow at her.
“Ready?”
She smiled. “You make it sound as if there should be trumpets sounding or—” Her words cut off as he shoved the trousers away and stood naked before her.
The King of Athawick was big. Ophelia had always been attracted to his solid, broad form, how tall he was. But now, staring at him naked, he felt extremely big. Bigger than Erasmus, who was her only frame of reference. She sat up fully and reached for him. Her hand shook as she closed it around his width and then traced his length in one stroke.
“Fuck,” he grunted, his head tipping back.
A flutter worked through her at that curse. She’d never heard him swear before. He was always in too much control of himself to be vulgar. Which meant she had cracked that control and she loved it. Loved watching him shed the trappings of an institution and simply become a man.