It intensified when he climbed up after her.
She scurried backward until the pillows against the ornate headboard prevented further retreat. Instinct—and modesty—had her clutching her dress near her hips, had her protesting. “You cannot mean to—”
“I can.” He pressed inexorably forward, advancing until he grabbed her ankles and spread her feet so he could settle his bulk between her splayed legs. Her skirts rode up as he did so, obscenely so.
Feeling vulnerable, Thea told herself she should protest more stringently, claim she wasn’t ready for such perverted intimacies, not without at least some preliminaries. She should cry out that she truly did not want this—his powerful torso forcing her legs wide.
But all of that would have been a lie. For she’d already admitted, when she shamelessly wrote those illicit lines this afternoon, that she did want this, was vastly curious about the sensations his mouth on her might bring forth. She wanted to experience the scrape of his whiskers in a place that had never known the light of day—much less the lust of a candlelit bedchamber.
So Thea did the only thing she reasonably could—she looked upward.
And what a sight she beheld.
His cigar-brown tailcoat, fitted to perfection across the broad expanse of his shoulders and practically glued to the slope of his tapered back; buff breeches molding to strong thighs… His elegantly attired masculine form—so very dignified for an evening out—so indecently centered between her stocking-covered legs.
Legs that quivered beneath the upward stroke of his hands. “Can and will,” he said in a low rumble that sent a fine tremor through her. “For you.”
“But I don’t—” Thea broke off, seeing her white-knuckled grip on her skirts slacken. Seeing her knees bend, her thighs stretch to welcome his proximity even more. Seeing him pause, tilt his head toward hers.
“Thea?”
She refused to lower her gaze, transfixed by their reflection. Too busy watching his fingers, strong and powerful, slide higher until they gripped the skin of her thighs above the aged stockings. Feeling his hands tighten, then tighten again, until she was persuaded to lower her gaze from the mirror and meet his.
This strong, handsome protector (aye, handsome, for the short beard troubled her not a whit tonight) whose penmanship and the personality it portrayed snared her interest when they were apart, but not nearly as much as his presence captivated her completely. Enticed her mind until she thought of naught but pleasing him. Pleasing herself.
Soulful brown eyes narrowed even as he climbed his fingers upward, honing in on that unexplored territory. A quick, fumbled, under-the-covers mating from Mr. Hurwell, with him in his nightshirt and her in her gown, compared naught to this.
“You,” Lord Tremayne said deliberately, his face looming closer as he closed the gap between his fingers, intensifying the depth of carnal awareness between them, “…don’t…?”
Thea’s lashes slammed down. Her traitorous, treacherous hands abandoned their hold on her skirts and instead curved over his shoulders, latched on to the solid muscles there. But that wasn’t enough to stop their restless wandering and soon they were plucking at his immaculate neckcloth. Tendrils of arousal weaved through her, growing tighter every silent second.
“I don’t…” Want this.
Liar! You know you want this. Precisely this. After what you saw at Sarah’s party, what the verses made you think of today—after what you wrote to him! You want exactly this.
Aye, but I didn’t expect it tonight!
One of his large hands left its intimate mooring high upon her thigh and Thea whimpered at the loss. Only to feel those same fingers edging past the opening in her drawers.
Her eyes flew open.
He was still staring at her face. “You say…” One fingertip brushed lightly down her cleft, barely making contact, fluttering through the tight curls and making her feel the caress deep inside. “Say ‘no’, and I shall stop.” Then it brushed upward.
Thea’s pelvis tilted forward a fraction, determined to receive the caress again.
When his head flinched, she saw her fingernails had embedded themselves in the skin above the starched silk neckcloth. She relaxed her hands and brushed back a thick lock of coffee-colored hair that had made its way across his cheek.
“Nay, I cannot say ‘no’.” At his supreme smile, she confessed, “’Tis all so very new to me though.”
He slid another finger inside the slit and whispered them both down one side of her sex.
“I know.” His breath brushed over her abdomen as his other hand released her thigh to part the placket shielding her, exposing her completely. Thea gulped as he hitched his entire body closer.
But her legs had no such reservations, widening to make room. As though compelled, she returned her gaze above, to the sight of her stark face, eyes luminous and larger than she’d ever seen them, and his broad-shouldered body, his head only inches from where she craved his touch so very much…
“Let me?” The warmth of his words stroked her damp flesh and Thea jerked a clumsy nod.
Thank the saints. He couldn’t have waited another second. Not with her clean, musky scent luring him onward.
Daniel couldn’t believe he was here—with her—on a bed and keeping his clothes resolutely on. The linen cuffs of his shirt extended from the tight sleeve of his evening coat, emphasizing how absurd it was—his rough, callus-worn fingers upon her satiny skin. Or mayhap, instead of absurd, he meant arousing.
Had he ever arrived at the abode of his mistress with the intent to keep his cock tucked away while dancing attendance on her body?
With his thumb, he stroked the smooth, white skin of her upper thigh, nearly choking on his desire when she whimpered and a fresh wash of dew coated the fingertips grazing her furrow. As though determined to thwart him, her thin drawers kept her mound hidden. But the sex-swollen folds were readily apparent, moist and silky and so, so inviting…
He pressed one finger deeper and was rewarded
