“I wanted to turn you around and push you right back through the door before anyone else saw you. I didn’t want to share you.” He traced her lips with his finger. “I still don’t.”
Heat flared within her, and she suddenly felt more daring, more womanly. “I don’t want to share you, either.”
He smiled slowly, and his fingers trailed down the length of her neck, across the delicate hollow of her collarbone, resting only when he reached the ribbon that tightened the neckline of her nightgown. Without ever taking his eyes from hers, he gave one of the strands a tug, sliding it slowly from the knot, its corresponding loop getting smaller and smaller until it finally popped through, and she was undone.
Billie watched his fingers, mesmerized, as they whispered across her skin, the edge of the now loosened bodice catching between his thumb and forefinger. The silk slipped from her shoulder, then slowly slid down her arm. She was so close to being revealed to him, but she could feel no modesty, summon no fear. All she had was passion, and the unrelenting need to follow it through.
She looked up, and so did he, almost as if they’d planned it. He caught her eyes with a questioning gaze, and she nodded, knowing exactly what he was asking. He drew a breath, its ragged sound speaking of desire, and then he nudged her nightdress over the rise of her breasts before allowing gravity to do the rest. The pale peach silk pooled luxuriously around her waist, but Billie didn’t notice. George was staring at her with a reverence that took her breath away.
With a trembling hand, he reached out and cupped her breast, her nipple grazing lightly against his palm. Sensation shot through her, and she gasped, wondering how such a touch could make her abdomen clench. She felt hungry, but not for food, and the secret place between her legs tightened with what she could only assume was desire.
Was this how it was supposed to feel? As if she were incomplete without him?
She watched his hand as he caressed her. It was so big, so powerful, and so thrillingly male against her pale skin. He moved slowly, a stark contrast to the feverish kissing of just a few minutes earlier. He made her feel like a priceless work of art, and he was studying every curve.
She caught her bottom lip beneath her teeth, a little moan of pleasure slipping through her lips as his hand drew slowly away, teasing her skin until their only connection was his fingertips at her nipple.
“You like that,” he said.
She nodded.
Their eyes met. “You’ll like this even better,” he growled, and then, as she gasped in surprise, he leaned down and took her into his mouth. His tongue rolled across her, and she felt herself tighten into a hard little bud – the sort she normally only felt in the chill of winter.
But she was the farthest thing from cold.
His touch was electric. Her entire body tightened, arching until she had to plant her hands on the bed behind her just to keep from falling over.
“George!” she practically squealed, and once again he shushed her.
“You never learn, do you?” he murmured against her skin.
“You’re the one who’s making me scream.”
“That wasn’t a scream,” he said with a cocky smile.
She eyed him with alarm. “I didn’t mean it as a dare.”
He laughed aloud – although more quietly than she’d done – at that. “Merely planning for the future, when volume is not an issue.”
“George, there are servants!”
“Who work for me.”
“George!”
“When we are married,” he said, lacing his fingers through hers, “we shall make as much or as little noise as we wish.”
Billie felt her face go crimson.
He dropped a teasing kiss on her cheek. “Did I make you blush?”
“You know you did,” she grumbled.
He looked down at her with a cocky smile. “I probably shouldn’t take quite so much pride in that.”
“But you do.”
He brought her hand to his lips. “I do.”
She lifted her gaze to his face, finding that despite the urgency in her body, she was content to take a moment just to look at him. She caressed his cheek, tickling her fingertips with the light growth of his beard. She traced his eyebrow, marveling at how such a straight, firm line could arch so imperiously when he wished. And she touched his lips, which were so improbably soft. How many times had she watched his mouth when he was speaking, never knowing that those lips could bring such pleasure?
“What are you doing?” he asked, his voice a husky smile.
Her lashes swept up as her eyes met his, and it was only when she spoke that she knew the answer. “Memorizing you.”
George’s breath caught, and then he was kissing her again, the levity of the moment giving way once again to desire. His mouth moved to her neck, teasing along the side, trailing fire in its wake. She felt herself descending, lying back against the bed, and then suddenly he was on top of her, skin to heated skin. Her nightgown slid past her legs, and then it was off completely. She was nude beneath him, without a stitch, and yet somehow it didn’t feel awkward. This was George, and she trusted him.
This was George, and she loved him.
She felt his hands move to the fastening of his breeches, and then he swore under his breath as he was forced to roll off her in order to (in his words), “get the bloody things off.” She couldn’t help but chuckle at his profanity; he seemed to be having a much rougher time of it than she imagined was usual.
“You’re laughing?” he asked, his brows rising into a daring arch.
“You should be glad I was already out of my gown,” she told him. “Thirty-six cloth-covered buttons down the back.”