Page 69 of What a Lord Wants

“A drafty and smelly studio?” With a chuckle, he nuzzled his cheek against her breast and stroked the sensitive point between her legs again.

Biting back a moan, she gave a jerking shake of her head as her arousal throbbed hotly beneath his fingertips, so close to release that she could barely find her voice to answer, “The place where…you create your dreams.”

He stilled. The realization of what he was about to do with her and where washed over him with an intensity that made him shake. She might have entered his life as a model, but she’d become so much more to him. More than he wanted to fully fathom.

He lifted her into his arms and carried her upstairs into the bedroom.

“Here, mia bella,” he whispered as he lowered her onto the bed. “Right here.”

Chapter 19

Eve trembled as her hands clenched the counterpane beneath her. As he leaned over her, Dom suddenly seemed so very tall and broad, so muscular and masculine, so…wolfish, with a gleam in his eyes as if he intended to devour her.

God help her, she wanted him to do exactly that.

With a lingering kiss that teased at her lips with a promise of what was to come, he pulled off his cravat and tossed it to the floor. Then he straightened and took a single step backward so that he could undress yet still remain close, and close enough that she could feel the heat of his gaze raking over her with such deliberateness that goosebumps blossomed on her arms and legs. He shrugged out of his jacket and tossed it away, and the rising heat inside her flamed into a sharp ache.

His hand went to his waistcoat. “You do know what will happen tonight, don’t you?”

“Yes.” She watched as he worked loose the buttons, unable to stop herself from staring even when he slipped out of the waistcoat. “Mariah told me.”

She caught her breath when he undid his braces and cuffs, then slowly pulled his shirt over his head, as if he knew how much she was enjoying watching him. The muscles of his broad shoulders rippled as softly as the material slipping over them.

He dropped the shirt to the floor, now completely bare from the waist up. “What did she tell you?”

She stared shamelessly at his chest. Sweet heavens, he was beautiful. The only glimpse she’d had of it before was through the gaping collar of his shirt when he’d painted her, so scandalously bare-necked and in shirtsleeves. She’d thought he was ruggedly attractive in his work clothes, and then later, so sophisticated in all his Bond Street finery.

But bare like this…Oh my.

His lips curled, as if the dashing devil knew the effect he had on her.

“She told me how we…” she whispered, remembering the descriptions her sister had shared with her and now imaging Dom doing all those things to her. “I mean, how you…” Flustered, she blurted out, “She told me how.”

Thatwas enough of an answer. She had no idea how she was able to get out even that much. Not when he was still undressing so provocatively in front of her. She couldn’t stop the heating of her cheeks as she watched him kick off his shoes or how much she felt like a wanton for continuing to stare as he reached for the fall of his trousers. But if curiosity and attraction for her husband made her a wanton, then so be it.

“Did she tell you anything else?”

“That it might hurt, but just a little and not for very long.” Her eyes fixed to his fingers as he undid the buttons. “But she also said,” she whispered, unable to bring herself to look away as the flap fell open, “that it’s wonderful.”

“No.”

At that quiet contradiction, her eyes flew up to his, leaving his delectably sculpted body for the first time since he began to remove his clothes.

“It’s so much better than just wonderful.”

He pushed his trousers down over his hips and off, kicking them away along with his stockings. A liquid heat seeped through her as he stood in front of her, now just as naked as she was, the sight of him tingling electricity out to the tips of her fingers and toes.

Even in the darkness, she could see the details of his hard body. Broad shoulders and muscular arms, the dusting of dark hair on his chest that trailed down to the hard ridges of his abdomen, his narrow waist, and lower still…heavens. He stood perfectly still and let her look.

Dear God, he was breathtaking, like one of Lord Elgin’s statues of the Greek gods, somehow both solid and silky, with smooth lines accentuating every hard muscle. No, he was so much better…Her own Greek god, in living flesh and blood. She wanted to sculpt him like this as much as he wanted to paint her.

But for now, she’d settle for touching.

She rose onto her knees to reach for him, her seeking fingers first caressing the handsome face she knew so well, then tracing the line of his jaw back to his neck and down to his shoulder. His muscles rippled beneath her hand as she brushed it over his chest, and a thrill of feminine power surged through her.

He rasped out, “Eve.”

For weeks she’d imagined what he must look like beneath his clothes, what it would feel like to have her hands on him the way he’d caressed her, if she could make him tremble and cry out the same way he’d done to her. His low warning only encouraged her to satisfy her curiosity. Emboldened, she grazed his flat nipple with her palm, teasing at it with her fingers the way he’d done to hers.