“And even though you’re dry, you’re still cold so I make you warm.”
Georgie stared up at him and listened to her heart thump in her chest and felt her blood rush in her veins. Her gaze was caught in his, she couldn’t look away. “How?” she whispered.
“Like this,” Vickery said, and he placed his hand on her bare ankle.
She shivered convulsively, and he froze, and said, “Is this all right, Georgie?”
Her throat was almost too tight for speech. “Yes.”
Vickery hesitated a moment longer, his gaze intent and searching. What he saw on her face must have reassured him; his hand slid up her ankle and under the hem of her nightgown.
Georgie couldn’t help shivering again. This time Vickery didn’t stop. His hand climbed her calf slowly, gliding over her skin. When he reached her knee he paused, his eyes intent on her face. “Still all right?”
It took Georgie a moment to find her voice. “Yes,” she whispered.
Vickery gently nudged her knee.
Georgie surrendered to that nudge, parting her legs, inviting him to do whatever he wanted, anything, everything.
Vickery’s hand slid higher beneath her nightgown, creeping up her inner thigh, inch by slow inch, his fingers moving over her skin, tickling, making her shiver and gasp.
“Getting warm?” Vickery asked.
“You know I am,” she managed to say, breathlessly.
He laughed softly, and transferred his attention to her other thigh, his fingers light and caressing, teasing. Georgie bit back a groan. She dragged air into her lungs, unable to believe that this was happening, that she lay on Vickery’s bed with her legs spread for him, the nightgown barely concealing her private parts—and then she remembered that in his daydream she was wearing his tailcoat, and if she lay like this, splayed, she would be utterly bared to him.
It should have mortified her; instead, a pulse of pure pleasure coursed through her veins.
Vickery’s hand drifted higher. “Want to be even warmer?” he whispered.
“Yes.”
Vickery pushed her nightgown up to her waist and she was bared to him.
Every muscle in her body tensed. Georgie was caught between embarrassment and need—and then she saw the expression on Vickery’s face and the embarrassment snuffed out. He was looking at her as if she was the most beautiful thing he’d ever seen. She saw his wonder, saw his desire.
Vickery reached out and traced a gentle path through the curls at the junction of her thighs, and then—oh, God—he was stroking her again, his fingers sliding across exquisitely sensitive skin—sliding, sliding—and then his fingers dipped inside her.
Georgie’s back arched slightly off the bed. She clutched the counterpane.
Vickery grinned at her, his face hot, his eyes dark, and dipped his fingers inside her again. “Like that?”
She could only groan.
His grin broadened. He shifted, lowered his head, and then his mouth was where his fingers had been.
Georgie opened her own mouth—but no sound came out. She had no breath to give voice to her shock, or to the quite extraordinary pleasure he was evoking. She could do nothing but grip the counterpane and shift helplessly while he teased her with his fingers, with his tongue, with his teeth. Her pulse thundered in her ears and she was hot enough to burst into flames—and then she did burst into flames. She heard herself cry out breathlessly.
Vickery drew her nightgown down, covering her, smoothing the fabric gently over her legs, and then stretched out alongside her.
“Do you think that would warm you up enough?” he asked.
Georgie pressed her hands to her face for a moment, catching her breath, catching her sense of self, then she lowered her hands and looked at him. “You know it would.”
He laughed softly and gathered her in his arms, kissing her brow, her cheek, her lips.
Georgie kissed him back, tasting herself in his mouth. “What happens after that? In your daydream.”
“It depends,” Vickery said. “Sometimes it stops raining and you get dressed and we ride home, and sometimes . . . sometimes it rains all afternoon and we stay in the summerhouse for hours.”
“Hours?”
“Hours and hours.”
She ran her fingers through his dark, disheveled hair. “What do we do?”
“Lots of things,” Vickery said. “Would you like me to show you my favorite one?”
“Yes.”
Vickery climbed off the bed and removed his nightshirt in one movement, dropping it to the floor.
He was stunning in the candlelight. The broad shoulders, the muscular arms, the powerful thighs. A trail of dark hair arrowed down his abdomen.
Georgie’s gaze followed that trail and fastened at his groin. She had grown up in the countryside. She knew that males of a species possessed an appendage that females didn’t. What she hadn’t known was what the appendage looked like on a man.
Vickery’s appendage was rather larger than she’d thought it would be, jutting stiffly from his body. Its color was a rosy red.
Georgie stared at it, consumed by curiosity and an intense longing to touch it, and then looked at his face.
Vickery was watching her, waiting, his eyes dark and intent, his chest rising and falling with each breath.
Georgie moistened her lips, found her voice. “You’re magnificent.”
Vickery blushed, until his face was as rosy as his appendage. “Do you still want to continue with this daydream?”
“Yes,” Georgie said.
Vickery stood quite still for a moment, and then he climbed back onto the bed on hands and knees, looming over her.
She looked at his face—flushed and intent—and then at his appendage, and reached out and touched the very end of it with a fingertip, cautiously, curiously.
Vickery inhaled a sharp breath and shuddered.
“Do I touch you in your daydream?”
“Yes.” The word was half-strangled, almost unintelligible.
“Do I touch you a lot?” His appendage was very hot, very smooth.
He caught her hand. “Sometimes.” He was trembling. “But that’s not my favorite.”
“What is?”
“My favorite is when you take off my coat and we make love.”
His words froze her for a moment, every muscle in her body clenching tightly.
“Do you want that, Georgie?”
“Yes,” she said urgently.
Vickery released her hand.
Georgie scrambled out of her nightgown and lay on the counterpane, naked. Her nipples were tight, her whole body taut with anticipation. “Like this?”
Vickery let out a shaky breath. “Yes,” he breathed. “Exactly like that.”
He bent his head and kissed her breasts, his mouth gentle at first, barely touching her, then more forcefully, grazing her nipples with his teeth, nipping them. Georgie clutched his head, digging her fingers into his hair, arching up.
She was breathless by the time Vickery abandoned her breasts. He kissed her throat, and then her mouth, fiercely, and she kissed him back just as fiercely. His hand was between her legs, two fingers inside her, and she arched into his touch. “Vic.” His name came out in a sound that was neither gasp nor groan, full of urgency and need.
Vickery withdrew his fingers and positioned himself over her. He looked almost wild—the tousled hair, the flushed face, the dark eyes. A man made of hot skin and hard muscle. “It doesn’t hurt you in my daydream, but it might . . .”