She gave two quick nods, and she might as well have delivered two quick punches to his gut for the way it tightened, almost painfully. It wasn’t so much that he was about to see exactly what she looked like. It was more about what her actions said regarding her feelings toward him. She wanted more than his cock, wanted to please him. Not as much as he wished to please her. He suspected that was impossible. But more could develop between them now. More than rutting.

Lifting his hands that vibrated with the barest of trembles, he brought them around to the back of her head where the lacings secured the mask. Tugging on one dangling ribbon, he demolished the bow, then unraveled what remained and pulled the mask away.

Perfection greeted him, made it difficult to swallow. Her cheekbones were high, sharply cut, hollowed out, her nose a slender bridge that connected the blue of her eyes to the pink of her mouth. Unlike the blond of her thinly arched eyebrows, her eyelashes were thick and sooty, which made the blue stand out even more. Without the mask, everything was brighter, more vivid.

“You said you didn’t marry for love. But you are too beautiful for your husband not to have loved you.”

“Trust a man to equate beauty with love.”

Beauty had always been her currency, and for some reason, with him, she didn’t want it to be, which was part of the reason she’d held fast to the mask for so long. But beneath it her face had grown dewy, and she’d become weary of it providing a barrier between them—in more ways than one. She hadn’t wanted to discuss it anymore, had needed to move beyond it. And blast it, she’d wanted his fingers caressing her cheeks, caressing all of her.

This room had made her believe he wouldn’t be fixated with her appearance, that he valued much more, truly understood women. Not that this chamber wasn’t gorgeous, but it reflected a man’s tastes, the sort of room a man would be comfortable in—and he’d given women access to a small corner of a man’s world. Not with only the billiards table but the hunter-green walls, the masculinity of them.

One wall, the one she now neared at the far end of the room, was naught but shelves with books nestled tightly on most of them, the occasional figurine depicting a nude couple in one scandalous pose or another providing an interesting contrast. “Are these books just for show?”

“No. Those to the left of the midpoint I’ve read. Those to the right remain to be read.”

She glanced over her shoulder at him. “You say that as though you intend to read them.”

“I do.”

She moved to the left, wanting to discern something about his taste. Biographies, mostly. Some books on travel.

“Scotch or brandy?” he asked.