He didn’t draw back to speak the words aloud. That wasn’t his way. But she felt the promise in them all the same.
He continued this rare kiss, his fingertips skimming lightly over her buttons as the coolness of the air contrasted with the heat of his touch. Her dress soon became a puddle on the floor, followed an instant later by a ripple of her petticoat and then her chemise.
She was positively shameless. Naked aside from her stockings and slippers, she felt no shyness, only fascination with the ardent hunger in his gaze. And it was because he was looking at her. Her!
“Jane,” he murmured on a hot breath that rushed over the crest of her shoulder and fell lightly against one pale pink nipple. It pebbled against the airy sensation. He cursed in appreciation and this breath took the same path, too, drawing her flesh tighter still, her small breasts feeling heavy and ripe. “You are a living fantasy. I don’t even know where to begin because I want all of you at once.”
“Hold that thought, glutton,” she teased, lifting her hand to his cravat. “After all, if you’re planning to be thorough, then so am I.”
Though, having little experience with undressing a male over the age of four, she fumbled a bit with untying the length of raw silk. His coat was slightly damp, and only then did she hear the soft pattering on the glass.
“You rode in the rain,” she said inanely, blinking up at him with worry. “You must be dreadfully cold.”
Though he didn’t appear cold at all with the slashes of burnished color over the crests of his cheeks and bridge of his nose. And his gaze smoldered down at her when he said, “Then you’d best make haste to get these wet togs off.”
She did her best. But the tailored superfine wool clung to his broad shoulders and the sleeves turned inside out along the way. She unfastened the buttons of his waistcoat and leaned forward to nudge the garment down his arms. Then she gasped as her nipples grazed his shirt, the linen abrading the sensitive rosebud flesh into taut peaks.
He grinned against her lips at her discovery. His hands splayed over her back to draw her flush against him, teaching her the delicious lesson of contrasting textures of fabric against bare skin.
“Oh, I quite like that,” she breathed, rubbing her shivering flesh against the warmth rising through his clothes.
On a low growl, he swiftly stripped out of his shirtsleeves, letting them fall unheeded to the floor. She nearly chided him for skipping through one part of her research, but then he gathered her back into his arms and . . . oh, sweet anatomy!
He was so firm where she was soft. So enticingly coarse where she was smooth. The dark furring of crisp, springy hairs across his chest abraded her nipples to pleasure-stung peaks that sent a quickening to her womb.
“You should have told me about this. Had I known, I might have stripped you from your clothes while you were still pink,” she rasped huskily, inhaling the delicious spice of his neck as he tilted her head back to take her mouth again.
He smirked as his fingertips skimmed over her shoulder blades, along her spine and over the ample globes of her buttocks, arousing her in gently gripping passes. “My naughty little professor.”
She felt the hardness of him pressed thickly against her middle, and she slid her hands down his torso on a slow exploration to the waist of his trousers. But she paused along the way to appreciate the firm breadth of his chest, sliding her fingers through the fascinating curls. His brown nipples hardened to taut discs beneath the attention of her lips. And the muscles along his abdomen quivered slightly as she splayed both hands over him and slid around to his narrow, tight waist.
Unable to help herself, she pressed her nose against the fine trail of hair dusting his stomach, above and below his navel. She breathed in the intoxicating scent of male skin and heat and musk. And since she was already there, she peppered his flesh with kisses.
His hands caressed her shoulders and arms and ribs, and stole underneath to cup her breasts. She straightened then, arching into his palms, breathless and greedy. Fascinated, she watched as his thumbs gently circled her nipples, every rotation exciting the pulse between her thighs as if connected by the same mechanism.
“I’m positively shameless. In all the novels I’ve read about women suffering scandalous male advances, they always faint to save their virtue.”
His lips rasped against the shell of her ear, nuzzling gently into her loose curls. “If you want to save your virtue, you’d better tell me quick.”
“I wouldn’t dream of asking you to stop. Not when I’m thrumming from head to toe and waiting to become a firework again.” She knew she sounded wanton but she didn’t care, not even when he chuckled. “I’m simply wondering why they never write novels where the heroine is brave and admits that she is curious, too.”
He nipped at her earlobe as her hands drifted to his fastenings. “I knew from the moment we met that your curiosity would be my undoing.”
She blushed at the compliment. Then, without even looking, the buttons slipped free. She was amazed at her own deftness. And as she turned her head to press her lips to his, she let the fall front . . . fall.
The heavy heat of him reared out through the opening and lay thickly against her belly. He snaked an arm around her slender waist and pulled her firmly against him, biting out her name on a groan of unabashed pleasure.
She pushed away, but only far enough to steal between their bodies, to find and explore the silken flesh. His phallus was fascinating and hot. She ran the tip of her inquisitive fingers along the granite-hard column, sensing the rush of scorching blood inside the engorged tissue. Her small ivory hand investigated his dusky length, the thick veined shaft and mushroomed head. Then her thumb rolled over the glistening bead resting at the top. She heard his breath shudder, felt it flow through her in throbbing, liquid beats.
“You’re wet, too,” she whispered, but soon found herself lifted off her feet.
He enfolded her against him as he laid her back on the chaise longue, his hands coasting over her body, touching, teasing, stirring. However, when she moved to reciprocate, he issued a short grunt, took both her wrists in one hand and lifted her arms above her head.
“Did I do something incorrectly?” she asked.
Poised over her, he shook his head in a brush against her lips. “No, Jane. In fact, you’ve been an exemplary pupil. You’ve earned the high marks for today and now it’s time for your reward.”
“Then I want to touch you more.”
“If you do, then our lesson will end far, far too soon,” he said with a rueful smirk. Then gazed down on her with something akin to wonderment, his free hand tracing the wispy arc of her brow, the slope of her nose and the outline of her lips. “You’re always surprising me, you know. I think that’s just one of the reasons.”
“One of the reasons for what?”
He answered her in a kiss—a kiss that was apparently meant to obliterate her ability to think because that’s precisely what it did.
She didn’t bother to struggle against the hand that kept hers locked above her head. She simply gave herself over to the pleasure of his touch as he navigated every slope, curve, and contour of her body until she was writhing beneath him, urging his palm to cup her sex. And then he did. His hand was a welcome shield against her, his fingertips teasing softly through her damp curls.