Instead, he released her leg and rose.
“No,” came her harsh whisper. “Don’t stop.”
“I won’t.” Beneath her eminently practical shift, he could see the tight peaks of her nipples but little else. “Can you stand, just for a moment?”
She rose without any visible difficulty or discomfort, although she listed slightly to one side as she shifted her weight onto her left foot. Again, he ran one fingertip along the gathered edge of her last remaining garment, that same light touch he meant to teach her to crave. Her chest rose, pressing toward his hand. Slowly, he plucked at the tie between her breasts, and when it was loose he eased her shift down over her shoulders. It met no resistance as it came to her hips and slid over them to puddle on the floor at her feet, like the marble gown of some Grecian goddess, draped over the pediment.
“Ah, Camellia. How lovely you are.” And she was, with her high, round breasts and skin like fresh cream, though there was a bruise on one shoulder from her fall, and she was far too thin. Had her aunt’s cruelty extended to starvation?
The sound of his voice seemed to remind her that his sight was unimpeded, and she moved her arms to cover herself. “Don’t,” he said, tracing one finger along the angle of her jaw. “If it will make you feel better, I’ll douse the candles, while you lie down on the bed.”
As he moved around the room, extinguishing the lights until all that was left was the soft glow of one flickering flame near the washstand, he shed his coat, his waistcoat, and his shirt, letting each garment fall where it would. When he reached the bed again, he propped himself against it to tug his boots free. She was lying half curled on her side, imagining, he supposed, that she was shielding herself from his gaze, though the sight of her long legs and the curve of her bottom were more than sufficient to send a bolt of heat straight through his belly and into his cock.
He did not generally let that organ do his thinking for him. It would have been death to do so at any gambling hell, where beautiful women were often employed as distractions. He knew he ought not to be thinking with it now, either. Whenever the right cards simply fell into his lap, he had taught himself to play as if the game were rigged, which it usually was. There had been women who wanted nothing more than a tumble with the notorious Lord Ash, of course, and he’d generally been willing to oblige. But he’d certainly not expected it of this one.
He wished he felt more confident of his ability to read her intentions. Perhaps the blindfold had been a tactical error. No matter—he did not have the strength to deny her, whatever her intentions were. Still, as he kneeled onto the end of the bed beside her feet, the shudder that passed through him was more than desire. A premonition of loss, perhaps.
Except what he feared losing in this gamble was not money or land or some other meaningless bauble that could easily be replaced.
His eyes fell on the scattering of silvery scars just above her makeshift bandage. She had risked at least her limb, perhaps even her life, to save her sister. What was it Fox had said about the burdens of being the eldest sibling? Always responsible, never quite free. He’d witnessed the same protective instinct in her treatment of Felicity. She had given a great deal of herself to so many.
Had anyone ever sacrificed anything for Camellia?
Bending low, he set his lips gently against the curve of her calf. The physical hurt from that incident with the dog was no doubt long gone. But there were other sorts of pain, and he would kiss them away, kiss every inch of her, until she let go of everything she’d been carrying and…flew.
Careful to skirt her injured ankle, he suckled her toes, then moved up her leg, nipping the soft flesh behind her knees, laying kiss after kiss along the back of her thigh till he came to her bottom and paused to pass his hand lightly over its plumpness, feeling her skin prickle to awareness, drawing her womanly scent into his lungs. Then he started again with the other foot, tasting salt. When her hips began to lift eagerly to his touch, he knelt above her and began at the top, sweeping aside her hair to kiss her neck, the slope of her shoulders, down the valley of her spine. Lips, teeth, tongue, over and over again, until she was breathless and so was he.
When he’d given her a moment, and only a moment, to recover, he cupped one shoulder. “The best is yet to come,” he said with a low laugh as he coaxed her to turn onto her back.
Chapter 14
As Cami turned, the straw in the mattress crackled beneath her and the faint fragrance of the field rose from it, not unpleasant. The sheets felt coarse against her bare skin, abrading her cheek, her nipples. To her surprise, that feeling was not unpleasant either. She had thought she knew what to expect when he stripped her of her sight, but she could not have anticipated this rush of awareness, the way even ordinary sensations threatened to overwhelm but never did. Touch, scent, sound—they left no room for modesty, crowding out her doubts and the niggling vestiges of guilt.
And she could only be grateful.
Though why should she feel guilt? He was not now Felicity’s, any more than he would ever be hers. It was only giving in once—or perhaps, if it was very good, twice—to the practiced seductions of a rake, as heroines were wont to do. But this time
