Then his mouth followed the path his finger had forged, and everything within her went languid. If he weren’t standing there, if her legs hadn’t clamped more tightly around his hips, she might have slid off the table. Instead she closed her hands around his upper arms, clinging to him as her body fought a battle, needing both to implode and explode. She gazed at the top of his head, the brown locks feathered here and there with burnished amber. She was torn between sliding her hand beneath his chin and lifting that lovely mouth to hers and leaving it to continue on its journey.

He made the choice for her, doing neither, but separating himself from her just enough so he could untie her ribbons, unfasten a portion of her corset, and peel away the material to expose her breasts to the air, to the light, to his smoldering gaze. She was surprised the intensity of his focus didn’t ignite her.

“Beautiful.” The word came out on little more than an exhaled breath.

He cupped each one, and they filled his palms. He flicked his thumbs over her puckered nipples, much as she’d teased his with her finger. The sensations elicited were wonderful. When he lowered his head and closed his mouth over her areola, his tongue taunting, she cried out in pleasure and pain as the haven between her thighs tightened with needs, her entire body—head to toe—tightened with needs.

With his hands returning to her back, he braced her, bowing her slightly as though to offer up her breasts as a tantalizing feast—and, oh, how he feasted. With slow licks, hot kisses, and quick nibbles. A suckling here, a soothing there. No area was left bereft of his attentions.

Leaning back on one hand, she scraped the other through his hair, along his neck, over his shoulder. She’d never experienced such devotion, hadn’t known such sensations existed. Always something had hovered, but she’d thought it was merely a wantonness. Perhaps he did these things to her because he wasn’t a gentleman, wasn’t of the nobility, was a commoner. If so, she now understood why women whispered about wanting a bit of the rough. His groans and moans were animalistic in tone, uncivilized—and she was so grateful he wasn’t of a tamed nature. That he ran free over her skin, that he dared to explore what had remained unchartered. She imagined when he was done, he’d be able to draw a map of her.