He brushed his lips lightly across Lillian’s. ‘Why especially me?’
‘Because…because I want to make you happy. To make this perfect.’ She pulled off her gloves and put them onto the bedside table. ‘This might be the only night we have together, so I want it to be …memorable.’
He copied her movements and put his gloves on the table beside hers, smiling at the picture of their belongings touching each other and was seized by a yearning to view that small intimacy more often, perhaps on a permanent basis. Sliding his bare hands around her waist was also an unexpected delight, as it’d been more than four years since he’d touched a woman who wasn’t a family member. ‘Anything and everything we do will be memorable, and as for seducing me, you accomplished that the moment you asked me to come upstairs. I’m entranced by your loveliness and in thrall to your proposal.’
Kissing her stopped her from answering for a moment, and when he lifted his head her gorgeous gray eyes were glazed and her cheeks flushed a becoming pink. Slipping his hands around her head, he pulled out her pins, one by one, and dropped them to the carpet. A mass of curls tumbled to her shoulders and he groaned. ‘I haven’t seen your hair down since we were children.’ He lifted a long lock to his face and inhaled. ‘I recognized your citrus scent. Though at first I imagined one of your sisters, Candace most likely, had inveigled an invitation to the ball, or had been escorted here by an ungentlemanly rake.’
‘Oh. You didn’t know it was me?’
‘Not at first, no, but when I came closer and saw--’
‘What?’
He rolled his eyes. ‘This is a little embarrassing, but your breasts are quite… unique.’ As he spoke, he rolled his thumbs across her bodice and stroked her nipples through the fabric. ‘Unique and quite exquisite.’ He turned her and started on the back buttons, stopping as he released each one to ease her gown aside and nibble a path across her shoulders. Lillian moaned and his prick jumped and swelled.
She pushed her bottom back until she found his arousal and then she wriggled. His turn to moan, aloud, and grip her waist to hold her still. ‘Sweetheart, as amazing as that feels, I need you naked before I lose control, toss you on your back and take you, hard and fast.’
‘I wouldn’t mind.’ She pulled her bodice down her shoulders and bared her pale skin.
His mouth went dry. ‘But I would mind. Later, I’ll have you bent over the dressing table and plough you from behind.’ She hissed in a breath. ‘And hard and fast up against the wall. Then with your bare back to the window and the curtains open so that anyone standing in the courtyard can watch and wish they were the lucky bastard having unrestrained sex with the most skilled courtesan at the ball. They won’t know that by day you’re the daughter of a duke observing the conventions of mourning, because they’ll hear you scream out your climax and spread tales of witnessing the spiciest bird of paradise in the whole of Britain in action.’
Lillian’s breathing was a series of pants and she slumped against his chest. ‘Brent, please, I need you. Hurry … hurry.’
‘Shush, my love. We have all night.’ He worked on the ties and clasps of her remaining clothing, letting everything puddle at her feet before helping her step away from her coverings and into his arms. Her thin chemise hid nothing from his hungry eyes and when she crossed her arms over her chest, he gently pulled them aside. ‘Let me look, my sweet. After all these years of wondering, and longing, I finally get to feast on these.’ He hefted her breasts in his palms and moaned. ‘Superb. Truly magnificent.’
He slipped his hands under the hem and slid the lawn upwards, inch by inch, while she quivered under his hands. The chemise joined her other discarded clothing and he stepped back, still holding her hands, and surveyed the splendor he’d unveiled. She shivered and burrowed into his chest. ‘Are you cold?’
She shook her head.
‘Excited?’
She nodded.
‘Good. So am I, and a little nervous.’
She chuckled. ‘I’m sure you’re very knowledgeable and not at all nervous.’
‘I haven’t been with a woman since my wife died.’
‘Four years?’
He nodded. ‘And even more than that. After she’d admitted to being unfaithful, several times, I could no longer stand being in the same room as her, let alone the same bed.’ Unable to resist her upturned face and her red lips, he wrapped his hands through her hair and poured all his newly-revealed feeling into his kisses. ‘Tell me how to make this good for you.’
She licked her lips. ‘Take off your clothes, Brent. Please.’
He grinned as he peeled off his cravat, vest, and shirt as quickly as he could, sitting on the side of the bed to tug off his boots and stockings and rising again to step out of his smalls. Her eyes were as wide as saucers and her mouth hung open, making him feel like a god. ‘See anything you like?’