Slowly, she turned around and faced him. He stepped back, hands clenched at his sides as he looked her up and down.

“You are more beautiful than I ever dreamed,” he said softly, and reached out to smooth his fingers along her bare upper arm.

He glided higher, hooking a finger beneath her chemise strap. He leaned in as he tugged it, drawing it down as he traced the path of the fabric with his lips. She couldn’t hold back another gasp of pleasure and held tight to the mattress behind her with one hand as she drove the fingers of her other hand into his hair.

He chuckled against her skin and trailed his lips back up her shoulder, across her collarbone, drawing the other chemise strap down and tasting the trail of it.

Her chemise bunched around her waist, and they both looked down at her at the same time. She was bared from the waist up, and heat suffused her cheeks as he stared at her naked breasts with their dark nipples at full attention as she anticipated what would come next.

He cupped them, drawing his thumbs across the tips and eliciting yet another gasp she couldn’t suppress. She felt like she’d never been awake before, not fully alive, and here was this man bringing her into the world with his hands and, dear God, his mouth. He bent his head and drew one nipple between his lips, sucking and swirling his tongue around her as he continued to massage and pluck the other breast with his thumb.

She found her hips rocking forward, meeting his as he touched her. Her legs shook, there was a deep ache growing between them. She needed him to ease it, but she had no idea how he could ever do that. How to ask for it.

Luckily he didn’t seem to require that knowledge from her. He drew back from her breasts with a pop as her nipple left his lips. He pushed her chemise and drawers down in one smooth motion, leaving her fully exposed.

And fully at his mercy.

Chapter 9

Thomasina was naked. It had happened that fast and she stood before him, trembling with nervousness and pleasure mixed, and watched him watch her. He had a possessive, dark smirk on his face, and he let his hand trail across the soft swell of her stomach.

Then he looked into her eyes. “I am going to lie on the bed with you. And I’m going to do very wicked things to you. And you’re going to come.”

She blinked. “Come where?”

“I’m going to build such pleasure in you that you’ll need to cry out and scream my name, and then it’s going to overwhelm you. And you will never look at the world the same way again,” he explained.

“I already don’t,” she murmured.

He caught her in his arms, kissing her again as he swept her up and placed her on the bed. He joined her, lying on his side next to her, kissing her as he lazily stroked his hand up and down her body. Each stroke brought his fingers lower, closer to the center of herself, the valley of her sex. And when he finally cupped her, she arched into his hand with a hiss.