Grinning inside, from ears to erection, Zeus glanced up. While entertaining his eyes with her flushed and piqued features, his mouth with her breast, and his mind with all the bawdy bedchamber antics they’d share in years to come, he stript to skin. Blindly, he rid himself of his boots—nearly wrenching his ankles off in his haste—then he ripped clear through one of his woolen stockings until they too were gone and he could finally dispense with his drawers and banish his buckskins to the floor.
“What is the jest, you wonder?” He spoke around her nipple, doing his best to distract her, unwilling to confess it was her naïveté he found so heartening, so joyful. Worried she might not see those qualities the same way he did. “That a man such as I could find exactly what he’s been searching for all his life, and so very close to home.”
“I do not—” When he bundled her shift out of the way and brought one hand to the juncture of her thighs, she broke off. When he caressed upward between her open legs, touching her honeyed center, she gasped and came up off the settee. “Do not take your meaning.”
After another sweep of his fingers through her damp curls, another sharp pull on her breast, he released the succulent treat and rimmed the puckered areola with his tongue before pledging, “You shall, and soon. Of that I promise.” Her womanly scent continued to entice him downward, beckoning him to take further liberties.
Answering the call, his moistened fingertips parted the swollen folds. Her damp heat coated his wandering fingers. Captured him completely. “Have you any doubts, my lady? If so, you’d best speak them now.”
He meant about marrying him, because in truth, if he tasted her beyond what he’d done so far, she would be his wife.
So when she answered, “Nay, no doubts, Zeus. I want you to show me passion. Every bit of it,” using his name, he knew she’d be his forever. That they’d miraculously captured each other.
“But show me your form first,” she challenged when he pressed deeper toward her core. “Now that you’re fully revealed.”
Realizing his exploring fingers had gone a little too far too quickly, Zeus tamped down his own urges and ordered his passion-coated fingers to retreat. Coiling them into a fist, he hiked off her.
“Stay close,” she said when he started to step back.
“Did you not see enough earlier?”
“Nay.” Then softer, “I may never see enough.”
So he halted at the edge of the settee, her heartfelt sigh caressing his ears. Rather pleased with his new position, he stared at one of her dainty feet, the one sans splint and bindings, while giving her time to admire him (he hoped).
Zeus found himself grinning. Even her toes were ladylike.
He swore he could feel her gaze drift along his nude body like a tangible touch. Her silent perusal continued until the tension stretched taut between them.
In his bid to grant her as much time as she needed, Zeus sought a distraction and found one fortuitously close by. Lifting her uninjured foot with his open hand, he cradled it and bent to feather light kisses over her toes. When a tentative swipe of his tongue caused her to squirm, knowing there’d be plenty of time for more attention here after they said their vows, Zeus moved on, applying himself to licking a decisive path over the top of her foot, past her trim ankle, over her knee, and up to her thigh where the hem of her shift bumped his nose.
God, he had to taste her. Freely—without any encumbrance between them. “By God, woman, I hope you’ve seen enough because my patience is—”
“About to be rewarded. Come back.”
As he replaced her foot on the cushion, with a damnable arm that shook he couldn’t help but notice, Zeus marveled at the set of circumstances that had landed him here, within reach of everything he’d never known he needed. Feeling lighter inside than any man had a right to, he climbed onto the settee between her legs, flattered by her shy, somehow sultry smile. Welcomed by her outstretched arms. “Miss me?”
“You and everything you’re teaching me.” After that admission, she mmm’d her approval when he snugged his groin at her mons. On top of the shift.
Zeus fingered the filmy cotton—the only item of clothing yet to be discarded—and met her inquisitive eyes, scouring his mind for another question she could refuse to answer. “Why did you not learn to read after Letheridge kicked off?”
It was the wrong thing to ask.
“I meant to—truly, I did!” she stammered, frowning and shoving him away in an effort to sit upright.
Zeus knew he’d inadvertently found her Achilles. Dammit, why couldn’t he have just continued kissing her ankle and kept his chops shut?
Not permitting her to gain distance from him, Zeus kept his heavy body anchored over hers. He attempted to soothe the legs that’d tensed beneath him, unfurling the fist full of her nectar he’d gathered like a prize so he could graze one slickened finger over her thighs. Her scent nearly did him in. “Never mind that now—”
“I did! It’s just that with the funeral and his creditors flooding in before his corpse was cold and then the fire that—”
“Shhhh, it’s over now.” Zeus stilled his foray, endeavored to do the same with her rising panic. “I’ll take care of the creditors. Put your mind at rest on that front.”
She clutched at his arms as though she was sinking in quicksand and trusted him to pull her out. “But I meant to, I did! Everything changed so precipitously after the house burnt, and—and—”
“Tell me of it, sweetheart. What fire?” Mayhap if she unburdened the words tripping her tongue, they could return to setting her settee
