Goddess of the Hunt (The Wanton Dairymaid Trilogy #1)

The word echoed through his mind, filled his breath, danced on his lips. But he didn’t dare speak it aloud. So long as the silence held, this moment would as well. His hand went to that golden ribbon of light rippling over her shoulder. He traced it with his fingertips, watching the light move over his bronzed skin and the green fabric of her sleeve. Then he slowly ran one finger up the ridge of her shoulder, toward her neck, and hooked it under the edge of gaping muslin.

He waited. Waited for her to stiffen or startle. Waited for her to step away or protest. She didn’t. He eased the fabric down an inch. Two. A bit more—just enough to let that golden ribbon of light slide over smooth, bare skin. He traced it with his fingers once again, and she shivered at his touch.

Jeremy had charmed the frock off many a woman, but this was uncharted territory. Some provided eager assistance; others put on a show of resistance. Lucy did neither. She merely waited in the darkness. He stroked her shoulder again with his thumb, and again she shivered. A shiver of fear? Of delight? He couldn’t tell. Perhaps she didn’t know, either.

Then her hand went to his chest, slowly exploring up to his neck, wending inside his open shirt. Her fingertips grazed the ridge of his collarbone. The touch whispered warm and soft over his skin, like breath. Her hand stilled on his shoulder. Then her thumb swept over his flesh in a bold caress, and Jeremy shuddered. Sank against the solid ebony panel and trembled like a leaf. Trembled with the softness of her touch, exquisitely tender but not at all timid. Trembled with the knowledge that she was unlike other women, that she didn’t know how to play coy or loose. She wanted him to touch her. She wanted to touch him. That was the simple truth of it—and the truth left him trembling with unbearable need.

He fanned his fingers over her shoulder and dragged his hand slowly down, dragging the bodice of her dress down with it. Beneath the latticed light, down into shadow, where touch was his only guide. The fabric resisted briefly; then a rougher tug convinced it to give way. He dipped his fingers under the edge of her stays, and the firm swell of her breast sprang into his palm. She drew in her breath.

He cupped her breast gently, letting the warm weight of it fill his hand. He ran his thumb over her flesh. She was soft. So soft. Unimaginably sweet to touch, like sugar melting under his fingertips. He brushed his thumb over the taut peak of her nipple, and she gasped. He brushed it again, and she sighed. Then he pressed his thumb against it, rolling and teasing the straining flesh until she moaned.

He wanted to kiss her. Cover her mouth with his, make her moan again and again, and drink in that honeyed sound. But then her finger flickered over the tight bud of his nipple, and he was powerless to move. She repaid all his sweet torture, and he let her. Let her tease him within an inch of his sanity, pinching and pressing until he ached with longing.

When he could take no more, he lifted her breast in one palm and pushed her hand from his chest with the other. He bent over her breast, nuzzling against that sweet softness in the dark, and then he drew her nipple into his mouth.

Dear God. Merciful heaven.

It wasn’t just that she tasted warm and sweet and beautiful and pink. It was more than the way she bent her head over his, so that her curling hair tumbled around him, brushing against his neck and cheek. It wasn’t how she gasped and panted against his ear and his loins throbbed with every hot little cry.

It was the way she melted into his body and clutched his shoulders with both hands, clinging to him as though he were her anchor to the earth. As though without him she might float away or fall apart or die. And as he worshipped her breast, suckling and tonguing her lush, sweet flesh, a question—sly and sinister—whispered through his mind.

Who was he to her, here in the dark? Was he himself, or a stranger, or—most terrible to contemplate and altogether probable—someone else known to them both?

If he called her by name … would she know his?

“Lucy,” he breathed.

Even her name was a kiss. An erotic, depraved collection of sounds. He murmured her name again and again, slowly kissing it over her breast. Licking the L over her nipple, pursing his lips around the sensual, rounded vowel, and releasing the name in a hiss of hot breath.

She was soft, sighing heaven in his arms, but he was wicked and damned and it wasn’t enough. He wanted more,needed more. More of her.

He kissed his way back up her neck and brought his hands to the neckline of her dress, gathering the fabric of both sleeves. He hesitated, his grip tightening over the muslin until it threatened to tear. Then her tongue flicked a silent plea against his ear, so lightly he might have imagined it, once.

Twice, he could not mistake.