“Well, that was most inappropriate of you, sir.” She wasn’t going to give in so easily.
“Really? Then perhaps you’ll like this better.”
He kissed her again and, as he did so, untied her dressing robe and pushed it off her person. She again pulled away and mock-sputtered. “Sir, have you no shame?”
“None at all,” he said. “Watch.”
He undid the tiny hooks on her nightgown one by one, exposing her skin in a long narrow V from throat to belly. “Now watch this,” he said, as he pulled apart the top of the nightgown, exposing her breasts in their entirety.
She stopped breathing. He closed his eyes, opened them again, and slowly exhaled, all the playfulness in his expression gone. And suddenly she was as nervous as she’d ever been. Was she ready for this, for everything it implied?
He sank to one knee in front of her. Her eyes widened. Was he going to propose to her formally? No, he pulled the sash out of her robe. He straightened and placed one end of the sash over her nipples.
“Thank you for thinking of my modesty,” she murmured.
“Say nothing of it,” he said, gazing into her eyes.
He slid the six-foot-long strip of silk across her front. The sensation was indescribable, like being licked, but cooler and smoother. She gasped. He reversed the slide of the sash, and it was that sleek, keen pleasure all over again.
“I always feel such a sense of anticipation when the orchestra tunes up before a symphonic concert,” he leaned forward and whispered into her ear.
“You mean it hasn’t started yet?” she managed to say.
“No. But now we proceed to the overture.”
He lifted her and set her bottom on the bed—a bed that was almost as tall as a hedge—lifted her nightgown up by the hem, and kissed her knees and up her thighs. She instinctively clamped her legs together. But he easily pried her open and continued with his upward—inward—exploration.
“This…this is very shocking.” She knew what he intended, but she’d never experienced it, and it seemed wicked even to her rather jaded soul.
He laughed softly. “What? Have you attended only third-rate symphonic concerts in your life, Lizzy?”
And then he put his mouth on her and showed her exactly how one went about giving a first-rate symphonic concert. Oh, but he was clever and knowing and adaptable: Within a minute his strokes and nibbles were exactly those that gave her the most scorching pleasure.
She watched him; she couldn’t help herself. She’d never felt so exposed, and yet so queenly and worshipped. She loved what he did to her. But even more than the physical pleasure, she loved the feeling of being so at ease with someone that she could enjoy such a dreadfully intimate act.
And then she could think no more lucid thoughts, but only of what he did to her. Her eyes shut. The sensations—like warm cream poured over her—became hotter and sharper in the darkness behind her eyelids. She writhed. She bit her lower lip to keep quiet. She gripped him by the soft curls of his hair.
She crescendoed like a Beethoven symphony, the kind that roused a whole concert hall of genteelly dozing patrons in the very last minute with its cymbals and percussions.
But he did not stop. With his lips and tongue he reminded her that they were only on the overture, and much was still to come. Her second climax exploded almost right after the first one, and the third on the heel of that.
She pulled him into bed. He was hard and burning against her. But he refused to enter her. “No, it’s too risky. It was a last-minute idea—I don’t have any precautions with me.”
“I thought you meant to marry me.”
“Yes, but what if something should happen to me before we could marry?”
He was right: She did have a hard heart. But her heart melted now. Henry had always insisted on precautions too, but it had been for the sake of his standing and reputation, not hers. But this man, oh, this wonderful man.
“Will, my sweet Will,” she murmured, her heart full of love.
She slid lower and took him into her mouth. She’d done the same for Henry and had not particularly cared for it. But with Will it was entirely different. She loved everything about it, the texture, the heat, the way he expelled ragged breaths at her greediness—and, ultimately, the hot, unchaste taste of him as she swallowed every last drop.
“My God, Lizzy,” he rasped weakly as she returned at last to enfold him in a tight embrace.
“Yes,” she said with a fully satisfied smile. “I will marry you.”
Lizzy was still abed when her maid delivered a note from Stuart: He’d arrived at Lyndhurst Hall and wished to speak to her. She dressed, ate a quick bite for breakfast, and sent a return note that she would wait for him on the interior balcony that overlooked Lyndhurst Park’s orangerie.