Page 26 of Shadows Of Rosings Park: Part 2

He worked down the row with less skill than he brought to most tasks. The admission hidden in his clumsy fingers unsettled her more than practised seduction would have done. When the fabric loosened, he pressed his mouth to the place where her neck met her shoulder. Heat streaked downward. She drew a breath and felt him stop.

"Don't stop for that," she said.

His lips moved again, slower. Her gown slipped to the carpet, followed by her stays and shift, until she stood before him in stockings and wedding ring. His gaze travelled over her, but he did not touch. Want stripped the composure from his face.

"I believe," she said, running one finger along the open collar of his shirt, "that you are at a considerable disadvantage in the matter of undress."

His breath left him in something close to a laugh. "You propose to remedy that?"

"I propose to level the field."

She untied his shirt. Her knuckles brushed the warm skin of his chest; the muscle beneath tightened. He held himself motionless while she pushed the linen from his shoulders. The body beneath his tailoring was not polished or gentlemanly. It was hard from riding and fencing, marked by an old pale scar below his ribs, warmer than she had imagined. She traced the scar. His abdomen drew taut.

"What happened?"

"A foolish boy and a low branch."

Her finger followed the scar's ridge to where it disappeared beneath the waistband.

"You were the foolish boy?"

"I was. Don't repeat it."

"Your secret is in doubtful hands."

The real smile appeared, brief but unguarded. She rose on her toes and kissed it from his mouth.

His restraint broke. His hands closed around her waist, lifting her against him, and the kiss deepened until she tasted hunger and felt his hard length against her belly. He carried her the few steps to the bed and laid her down, then halted above her.

"Still your choice?"

"Yes." She touched the line of his jaw. "Fitzwilliam."

His eyes closed at the sound of it: his Christian name, offered willingly again. The surrender in his face was worth more than any vow the vicar had extracted.

Then his mouth descended to her throat.

He kissed a path down her body, pausing at her breasts until her nipples tightened beneath his tongue and the ache between her thighs became impossible to ignore. She gripped his hair when he drew one peak into his mouth. The pull earned a low sound from him, a vibration against her skin that sent another rush of heat through her.

"Again," he said.

She pulled harder. His teeth grazed her, not enough to hurt, enough to make her arch.

His hand slipped along her inner thigh. She opened for him before he asked. Recognition darkened his eyes. The look took her back to the moonlit room at Rosings, to the sounds his fingers had coaxed from her there. Tonight there was no Charlotte beyond a connecting door, no need for silence, no danger of leaving desire unfinished.

The first stroke of his fingers made her gasp. The next found the place that had undone her before. He watched her while he touched her, learning each response: the turn of his hand that made her hips lift, the pressure that turned her breath ragged, the slow retreat that made her drag him back.

"You said this was to be real," he murmured. "Don't hide from me."

"Then don't make me wait."

His mouth curved against her breast. He moved lower.

At the first touch of his tongue, Elizabeth lost the sentence forming in her mind. She clutched the sheet as his mouth worked between her thighs with the same patience he had offered everywhere else. Pleasure gathered too quickly for pride to contain. She gave him his name again, not quietly, and his answering groan carried through her.

The release took her without warning. Her body tightened, then broke into waves beneath his mouth. He held her hips and stayed with her until the last tremor passed and she lay open, dazed, every objection burned down to breath.

He drew back long enough to remove the rest of his clothes, then rose over her. His hair had fallen across his forehead; his control was gone. The hunger in his face should have frightened her. Instead, she reached between them and closed her hand around the rigid heat of him.