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He cleared his throat. “I was going to ask if you wanted a drink.”
“Oh,” she said, and then frowned when he ducked his head to hide a guilty smile and moved toward one of the armchairs to remove his boots and shuck off his coat. She studied him as he silently rolled each of his cuffs, and burst into laughter. “You cheeky liar. You were going to ply me with all the reasons this is wrong and we shouldn’t be doing this, weren’t you?”
A now barefooted duke stood to his full height and prowled toward the bed. She took a step back and bumped up against the mattress. “Am I so transparent when it comes to you?”
Bronwyn could barely breathe from the raw desire choking her when he bent over the edge of the bed, thick, bare forearms holding up his big frame and bracketing her in place. Clad in a midnight-blue waistcoat, a diamond stickpin winking from the folds of his cravat, tawny hair falling into his brow and cheeks, and eyes glinting with lust, he looked like a dissolute hedonist. Even his cheekbones were in firelit shadow, giving him an otherworldly look. A fairy-tale prince come to snatch her away from the world of mortals. Heavens, when had she become so fanciful?
“No, but you’re careful with me, and you want to make sure I am here in full possession of all my wits and not coerced in any way.”
Because he was a gentleman. A duke who had offered to wed her but for all the wrong reasons. Bronwyn didn’t want him to resent her for it one day, and he would.
“And?” he asked.
“To be clear, you’re what I want.” Her hot stare clashed with his, as she eased out a breath from her tightening throat. “I want you to pleasure me so well that I all can see and feel is you. Make me yours, Valentine.”
The growl that broke from his chest was so primal that all the hairs on her body stood on end. All of her nerve endings, every pulse point in her body, throbbed to violent life. Oh, she had no doubt this manwouldruin her for any other man. Already her body craved his and only his. With a pained grunt, he tore off his waistcoat, buttons flying in his haste, and yanked off his cravat until he stood there in plain shirtsleeves.
The Duke of Thornbury was the most beautiful man she had ever beheld.
The most sinful. His shroud of ice had melted, leaving behind only fire and passion.
Bronwyn wanted to combust.
Holding his gaze, she reached up to the pins in her hair and removed them, letting her hair tumble loose, and climbed further back onto the bed. With one lazy hand, she walked her fingers down her bodice, slowing over the mounds of her breasts in a languid caress that had his jaw clenching before drawing up her skirts to bare her black knit silk hose.
He stared, mesmerized, nostrils flaring.
“Like what you see?” she whispered, suddenly unsure. Each of their past couplings had been hard and fast…with no slow seduction and heady perusals. The feel of those hungry eyes on her was as powerful as the stroke of his fingertips over her heated skin. One look and he could send her aching body to the precipice of release.
“I love what I see.”
She parted trembling thighs. “Then undress me, Your Grace.”
Her breath hitched when his knees hit the side of the mattress, and he stared down at her like a backlit god about to wreak havoc on the world. Onherworld. Her teeth sank into her lower lip with a moan, and his eyes dilated. “My word, you’re exquisite.”
With reverent fingers, he unrolled each of her stockings, warm lips caressing her skin all the way down. She wanted him all the wayup…right to where it ached the most, but he took his time at her ankles, at the sensitive skin behind her knees, the delicate muscles along her thighs, and by the time he removed her drawers, she was a writhing, disconsolate mess.
He stared, eyes memorizing every curve. Reality intruded, and Bronwyn felt a flicker of uncertainly. No man had ever stared at her naked body or her exposed sex with such blazing intensity. “What’s wrong?”
“Nothing, you’re fucking perfection.”
Need contorted his face, making those golden eyes half-wild as he bent and Bronwyn braced.Lick me, she wanted to scream. As he’d done on the ship. But all she felt was the barest kiss of his breath on her overheated flesh and his moan of pleasure as he inhaled.
“Turn over,” he commanded in a hoarse voice.
The horrid, heartless beast.
“I want to see you without a stitch on this perfect body, my lovely Kestrel,” he said. Bronwyn almost squirmed in pleasure. When had her handle become such a wickedly sinful moniker instead of a curse on his lips? “I want to touch every inch of you so that you never forget.”
Bronwyn obeyed, the friction of her wet thighs moving together almost impossible to bear, and then his hands were working the laces of her dress and corset. Every press of the fabric against her flesh made her skin prickle. She was so aroused that each second felt like she was about to shatter. The mattress shifted with his weight as Valentine eased the garments off her body. Air kissed her bare skin and then…nothing. With her face buried in the bedclothes as she was, she couldn’t see him, but she could feel him staring at her. It made her chest squeeze that she could bring him thus, to such a speechless state.
Bronwyn turned and propped herself on her elbow, glancing at him where he knelt on the bed, jaw slack and eyes so burningly bright they almost outshone the fire behind him. “You’re the most beautiful woman I’ve ever seen, Bronwyn. I admit I did you a gross injustice by not worshipping this body in the manner it deserved. Twice.” A fingertip chased down her spine, causing her to arch wantonly. It traced over the place on her arse where he’d bitten before dipping into the crease between her legs and making her gasp.
“Then do it now,” she urged. “Hold nothing back. Not here, not with me. It will be our gift to each other.”A gift before parting.Bronwyn closed her eyes, refusing to think of the end before they’d even started. “Your turn. I wish to see you as well.”
He pulled the shirt over his head as she pushed up to her knees to unfasten his trousers. He kicked them loose. When they knelt facing each other in the altogether, bare of everything but skin and burning passion, in the middle of his bed, Bronwyn felt an odd sense of accord. That this was right where she was supposed to be in this moment. Here with him, her body making a forever pledge that only his could hear.
I am yours.
