Page 97 of Homeless

“Or perhaps by ‘impotente,’ he means a man’s ability to father children, not… well. Clearly, it does not apply to your… to this.”

“We could put it to the test,” he suggested.

She turned her face into him, and her hand softened, exploring him through the fabric. “I suppose it would be irresponsible of me to let you prepare for a trek through the mountains before you proved you could carry on the most basic of a husband’s duties.”

“Irresponsible, indeed.”

XXXVII

Far Gone

She unbuttoned her gown herself.

Darcy sat back, his hands resting on his own lap as she gave him the pleasure of watching her fingers slowly easing the hidden, tiny bone buttons through the holes. One at a time, they gave way, top to bottom, and he stared at each bend and turn of the cloth, each ravishing new glimpse of her shift beneath, as though his next breath depended on it.

She was smiling, watching his face. Her shoulders were back, letting the gown fall open over her breasts without shame. Her colour was high, and occasionally, she caught her lower lip bashfully between her teeth, and her breathing trembled faintly. If she had been instructed, she could not have chosen a more seductive manner to disrobe before him.

He was salivating. Good Lord, he was melting, his posture eroding and his eyes burning because he refused to blink, lest he miss a single instant. When she reached the end of the buttons on her bodice, she paused, glanced down at the split where the skirt gathered at her waist and wrapped to one side.

He hooked his finger in the band at her waist, and she rested one hand over his, guiding it to the button that would begin unwrapping the skirt. He worked at it several seconds, but this button was tighter, set at a different angle, and he was some seconds in finding the right way to release it.

“Here,” she whispered, reaching in to help him, but he pushed her hand away.

“I am in no hurry,” he replied against her lips. “Are you?”

“I am probably the less patient of the two of us,” she murmured, then sighed into his mouth as one of his hands reached inside the bodice to caress her breast.

“Not probably. An undisputed fact. You will simply have to endure, because I am a sick man, after all, and I cannot keep pace with you at the best of times.” His thumb found the peak of her nipple through her shift, and her body went slack under his hand. Her head lolled slightly, and her breaths deepened.

He had the first button of the skirt now, and was working his way down to the second, the third. These came more readily, and the gown was unfurling off her body like a rose waking to the dawn. Elizabeth pushed him backwards slightly with a kiss, then withdrew to tug her arms from the merino sleeves. He helped her, and then pushed the remainder off her shoulders. She glanced down, then purposely filled her lungs with air, lifting her rib cage, and glanced shyly up at him through her lashes.

“Fitzwilliam, that fever must have got to you worse than I thought. I fear you might have amnesia.”

He pressed the heel of one hand to her breast, then cupped his fingers around it. She fit so perfectly — soft, round, and pliant, generous enough to spill between his fingers, but tight and high enough that he had but to lightly gather her flesh to bring it all to his mouth.

“What do you mean, amnesia?” he asked as his lips fell to tracing the nape of her neck, down to her shoulder.

She arched under his lips and gasped when he closed his mouth and softly scratched the half-grown stubble of his chin over her tender flesh. “You act as if you have never seen me before. I know very well you have seen far more than —”

“Every time I see you is new,” he murmured against her collarbone. “I could look at you every day for twenty years and still be struck dumb by the touch of your skin, the line of your back, your scent. I find I am rather foolish about it, and I will thank you to let me make a fool of myself.”

She chuckled and pushed him back. “You can be far more foolish without all this fabric in the way.” She lifted her hips and pulled her legs through the rest of the skirt, then tossed the gown on the floor.

“Oh, yes, that helps.” He was on her throat with his mouth again, so the bubble of her laugh sent warm shivers through his lips. She took his hands and tugged them behind her to set them on the buttons of her shift.

With these buttons, he was less patient. They gave way swiftly, and in a moment, he was pulling it free and flinging it across the room so he could drink in all the glories of her form. “Elizabeth,” he whispered as his eyes filled with her.

He wanted to slow down, to give her half the pleasure she meant to give him, so he forced his breathing to steady, to go even and deeper. He curled his fingers, then softly tracked the line of her hips, her waist, the lower curve of her left breast with the backs of his knuckles. A swirl of lightness passed through his head, and he paused for a moment to let his vision clear.

“Are you well?”

He looked up to meet her eyes. “Perhaps if I laid down.”

Her smile widened, and a mischievous spark lit her eyes. “How convenient.” She lay back on the pillow and pulled him after her.

He would not lie over her body yet. Instead, he lay on his side, her arm slipped round his torso as he leaned on one elbow and gazed at her. He had not admired her properly in Vitoria, and now he meant to do her justice. His fingertips trailed over her skin, and he watched the goose flesh prickle in his wake.

The hard muscles of her shoulders, taut from walking and riding and sickness, and keeping herself upright when others would have crumpled. The ridge of her collarbone, the place where the short ends nearly met at the hollow of her throat. The nearest nipple, with its faint freckles around the dark ring of it, and the farther nipple, how it hardened when he leaned over and took it into his mouth.