With a low growl, he once more took possession of her mouth, deepening the kiss until it was nearly impossible to tell where he ended, and she began. Heat swept through her, through skin, muscle, and bone. Sensations rose to the surface and danced along her nerve endings, causing little sparks to burst forth like the tiniest of fireworks.

She couldn’t stop the little mewl of distress when he separated himself from her.

“Patience, love,” he urged, his low voice sending shivers of need through her. Slowly, he trailed one finger along the line where silk met flesh, over the swells of her breasts. Puckering tightly, her nipples strained against the cloth. “I want you as you were last night, naked before me.”

Those deft pianoforte-playing fingers made short work of removing her clothing and his, but then he was barely dressed. Shirt, trousers, boots. They came off so quickly, a heap of clothing on the floor.

“You’re so beautiful,” he rasped.

Reaching out, he pulled the pearl combs from her hair. As though appreciating the value of them, he carefully placed them on the table beside his bed. He began plucking the pins from her hair. What had taken nearly an hour to pile into place, he disassembled in less than a minute, and the long heavy tresses fell around her shoulders, along her back. “You are as lovely as the first ray of sunlight over the moors.”

“Poetry?”

“Merely truth.”

Lifting her into his arms, he carried her to the bed and set her upon it as though she were handblown glass that needed to be handled ever so carefully or it would shatter. Taking his hand, she pulled him down. “Make me soar.” Higher than a kite, a balloon, a bird in flight.

Chapter 23

A twinge of guilt pricked at his conscience because he had yet to tell her the truth of his identity, and yet he couldn’t deny the absolute pleasure it brought him knowing that she’d sought him out for simply being Matthew Sommersby. A man. Not an earl, not Rosemont.

Last night she’d needed reassurances. Tonight she was here because she needed him.

He considered telling her the truth of things now, but he didn’t want to ruin the moment, didn’t want to have to delve into an explanation that might cool the passion that was burning so fervently between them. Later. He would tell her later, when his blood wasn’t rushing so forcefully between his ears, when he could think more clearly, when he wasn’t distracted by those lovely breasts that were in need of his attention. She wanted him now without the title. Surely, she would want him with it.

Clearing his mind of all thought except pleasing her, he lowered his head and began peppering kisses over her breast. Kneading it, licking it, suckling it.