Her.
“I figured that I might as well. Being in London was too—” His mouth turned down and then his gaze narrowed as he stared down at her feet. “You walked over here wearing slippers?” He lowered himself to his knees and untied the lace wrapped around her ankle. “These are soaked.” His warm hands embraced one foot and then the other.
Her heart cracked at his tender touch. “How long after my departure before you left?”
He lifted his head and held her gaze, revealing pain she’d not seen in his eyes before. “Two days.” His hand crept up her ankle, to her knee.
She would have asked him why he’d given up on her so easily if she wasn’t already so very flustered by the sensations ignited by his hands. Oh, how she’d missed this.
“Do you still wear those pretty lace garters with little bows? What color were they? Green?” His voice, not to mention the stroking of his thumb, sent heat rushing to her center.
She swam through the fog of her brain to answer his question. “Mint.” She cleared her throat. “Pastel.” She barely managed to get the words out.
“Ah, yes. How could I forget?” Both hands were under her skirts now. “These stockings are damp as well. Mustn’t have you catching cold.” He held her gaze even as he untied the lace just above her knee and then slowly slid the silk garment off her leg.
“You remember?” she whispered. She had always allowed him more liberty than she ought. There had been days she cursed herself for doing so, thinking it must be the reason she couldn’t stop missing him.
“I remember everything.” He went to work on her other garter. Once both her stockings were removed, he rose and then hung them on the chair with his coat. Was she limp with relief or disappointment?
It ought to feel wrong, watching a man handle her undergarments. Only he wasn’t just any man. Had he cared for her at all? Did he care still?
He was Nicholas.
She expected him to return to his seat near the chest and took a breath to explain everything to him. She would ask him to open the letters. He would realize she hadn’t been the one to leave him. Quite the opposite, in fact.
Only, he didn’t return to his seat but dropped before her again.
“Eve.” His hands renewed their exploration of her leg.
“Nicholas,” she whispered, watching him from beneath suddenly heavy lids. His hands, which had felt warm holding her feet, felt cool as they urged her thighs open. She slumped and offered no resistance when he pulled her to the edge of the seat.
She shouldn’t have come.
“No pantaloons, Eve?”
She rarely wore them. As his fingers brushed the soft tufts of hair near her entrance, she doubted they would have deterred him.
He stroked along her seam, softly at first and then easing inside. She gasped.
It was daylight. She was an unmarried woman in a gentleman’s chamber. They had no promises between the two of them and yet none of that mattered.
“You’re wet for me here too.” He penetrated her with one finger, and she couldn’t keep her hips from jerking. “God, Eve, you’re so beautiful.” She felt his eyes on her but couldn’t open her own.
He had not read her letters. He hadn’t even realized she’d written him. Could she forgive him so easily? She didn’t know the answer, and yet she did nothing to stop him. After the numbness she’d endured since his betrayal, her mother’s death, and then her father’s fall into despair, she’d ignored emotions that dared to creep up on her.
She’d done her best to stop feeling.
But she had been lonely—so very lonely.
She uttered a shameless cry of need, and he added a second finger, increasing the depth as well as the rhythm of his touch.
“Let go, love. You want this. Just take it.”
She clutched the sides of the chair tightly, and a hiss escaped past her lips.
“I’ve got you, beautiful, let go.”
And just like that, Eve threw back her head, forgetting that she’d ever considered herself a modest lady as she panted and moaned until she crested and then descended to the other side of this, oh, so lovely journey.
A spark popped in the fire, jerking her out of her stupor. His hand remained covering her, protectively almost. She felt claimed and almost hopeful. Was love still a possibility?
“I told you love wasn’t necessary for this to be good.” He withdrew that same hand from beneath her skirts and proceeded to smooth her gown.
Eve opened her eyes and in a storm of shame, spiraled into a depth of emptiness she’d not been prepared for.
Passion, lust, and something Nick didn’t wish to consider too closely, had swept through him as he watched her come alive at his touch. The cauldron of emotions was more than he’d felt in months.
She’d come here to talk, she’d said. She’d come for tea. And at the first opportunity, he had his hand up her skirts.
Hadn’t he just promised himself he’d not allow this to happen?
In a moment of self-preservation, he’d uttered words that had her staring at him as though he’d just slapped her.
Her face was flushed and her eyes bright. The urge to take her into his arms nearly had him begging forgiveness, but he did not. He could not—would not—allow himself to go through that again.
He’d all but fallen apart when she’d betrayed him before. If not for the adrenaline from his anger, he doubted he could have remained upright when he boarded the ship for the channel crossing. And then once in Brussels, he’d drank to the extent that even in the mornings, he was never quite sober. He barely recalled the few women who had been fool enough to attempt to share his bed. It had been humiliating. He’d been so
