How to Be a Proper Lady

“Then don’t look at my hair.” Her voice quavered. She shrugged her shoulders out of the fabric and allowed the sleeves to sag at her elbows. She stood bare-breasted before him, her heartbeats fast. But now she was no longer shaking. Instead, she was certain.

He didn’t move. Nor did he so much as glance at her breasts. But in his ice eyes, illumined with firelight, heat flickered.

“Viola.” His voice was low. “No.”

She gulped. “No?”

“You will not achieve what you wish with this.”

He understood that she still hoped to win the wager, and he was refusing. But the desire in his eyes like blue flames did not dim, and the taut line of his jaw and the tensed muscles in his neck and forearms suggested he was not averse to temptation.

She took in a breath of courage. Another. Then, lifting her hand, she trailed a single fingertip down the gully between her breasts. Aidan had once asked her to touch herself. She had not been able to do it, too ashamed of the request and her inability to please him simply by being naked before him. But now, beneath Jin’s gaze, it seemed the most natural thing in the world to slide her fingers around the curve of her skin and circle the nipple. She must please him. She wanted to please him. And it felt surprisingly good, slightly wicked yet honest.

He came to her.

Standing close, he drew her hand away and said in a beautifully husky voice, “Allow me.”

Then Viola began trembling again, but softly, a waiting anticipation of pure, delirious desire. Barely touching her, he drew one sleeve from her wrist, then the other. The heat of his body caressed her skin but her nipples were firm, as though she were quite cold. His attention moved to the cord at her waist. With careful movements he untied the bow and loosened the gathered fabric. He bent his head and seemed to inhale deeply, his chest rising, then slowly falling. Her eyelids fluttered. She wanted him to touch her so much. Her nipples inches from his shirtfront felt tight and tingling.

Finally, gently, he urged the shift over her hips. It crumpled on the floor. She wore nothing else; she’d been ready for bed.

She reached for his waist to tug his shirt free and he pulled it over his head. Viola got dizzy. Quite dizzy and quite weak in the knees again. She’d barely seen him the night before in the darkness. Now the golden light on his skin and glimmering across his wide shoulders washed her with need. She reached for the bulge of his arousal beneath his trousers. He grasped her hand.

“No.”

“No, again?”

“Not yet.” He spoke quietly. “Slow down.”

But she wanted to touch him. She ached for it. “What happened to ‘on my terms’?”

“That was last night. Tonight you have come to me. You have put yourself in my hands voluntarily. Tonight is on my terms.” He stroked the backs of his fingers across her cheek, then the spot beneath her mouth where she was marked. “Do you know how beautiful you are? With all your clothing on.” His voice seemed to smile. Then it dipped low again. “You needn’t remove it to entice.”

“Men look at me with lust in their eyes.” And they believed themselves in love, because they did not know any better than to confuse one with the other. She was counting on that now. She tilted her face into his touch, her eyes drifting closed. “But men are in general lustful creatures.”

“Indeed they are.” His fingers trailed along her throat, down her neck, sending shivering tangles inside her.

She whispered, “The way you look at me is different.”

“Is it?” His knuckles skimmed the curve of her breast.

“Ye-es.”

He bent his head and with his fingertips stroked her breast slowly from the swell and around the peak, then his palm encircled her. But still he did not touch the hungry crest. “How do I look at you?”

“I don’t know.” Her breaths stuttered. “I don’t-” She arched into his touch. “Oh, Jin, I-” He passed the pad of his thumb across the peak, only once. “Ohh.” Her whole body shuddered. She grabbed his arms to stay upright. “Do that again.”

“If I do,” he said, soft amusement in his voice, “do you think you can remain standing?”

“If you do,” she replied, “I will try.”

He did so again, and again, the rasp of male callus against female tenderness sublime perfection, so simple, sending pleasure through her whole body. With such a slight caress he made her into liquid longing for him.

“I don’t know that I can continue standing after all,” she said on a rush.

He lifted her like a child and took her to the bed. No teasing, no laughter, no shame that she could not manage the journey of five feet’s distance by herself. Nothing to prove. He removed his boots and as he did so his gaze traveled over her body, his breaths obviously fast. She reached for him, and he for her, and their mouths came together.

It was as before, the closeness and completeness, like their first kiss, beautifully familiar in its newness. His hands scooped around her head, holding her to him, and she gripped his shoulders and opened and allowed him entrance. He did not tease her, but gave, the pleasure of his tongue meeting hers, his teeth coaxing on her lips. His fingers curved around her jaw, touching her face, exploring as though he would feel their kiss in this manner too. The heat of his palm slipped to her throat, then her shoulder, and he followed with his mouth. She clutched his arms and with each caress she trembled and wanted more urgently for him to press her back onto the mattress and come inside her. She inched her knees apart, hoping she would not be required to tell him she could not wait, to beg. Then his tongue stole around her nipple, and quite swiftly begging seemed like a perfectly reasonable option.

She moaned, his tongue stroked, and she surrendered all hesitation, all concern for what she should or should not do. She slid her fingers into his hair and nothing mattered but this. Nothing but his perfect mouth seducing her, the hot, singing readiness of her body, and a desire beyond anything she had ever felt to make love to a man.

She slipped her fingers over the hard ridge beneath his trousers. He grabbed her hand and pulled it to his lips. His eyes were aflame.

“Don’t,” he said harshly against her palm.

“Don’t? But-”

He captured her mouth with his and she feasted on him, the taste of him and heat and his hard body beneath her hands. He grasped her shoulders and lifted her onto her knees and kissed her again, and again. His hands swept down her arms to her waist, encompassing and spreading heat. Then he touched her. He touched her and her world ended and began at once.

He had not touched her there the night before. Their coming together so swift both times, like summer storms breaking, had not truly allowed for it. Now to have him touch her so intimately, she was changed.

She had never thought much about the womanly parts of her body. They were to be used as any other parts for their proper purpose-for pleasure with a man, certainly. But she had never known what it felt like to be worshipped.

Gently at first he caressed her, and she trembled, and their mouths stilled upon each other’s. His breaths came unevenly like hers. Her face tilted upward, eyes closing, and he stroked deeper. She whimpered from the pleasure that made her need more with each stroke, from the certainty of his touch. In that touch he must know he could control her, command her in this manner, know that at this moment she would do anything he asked. She pressed into him, lost to his caress, and did not care that she had lost.

“Viola, open your eyes.” He spoke at her brow, his deep voice taut. “Look at me.”

Her eyelids fluttered, heavy like the aching pleasure mingled with desperation in her body. “Yes,” she sighed, working her hips against his hand. She whimpered, with each caress needing him inside her, seeking for him. “Why?”

He impaled her upon his fingers.

“Oh! God.”

He thrust again, a hard, sublime possession. “I want you to see that it is I giving you pleasure.”

She moaned and rode his fingers, pushing him deeper, wanting him deeper, everywhere inside her. She sank