Chapter 3 #2
“I shall make short work of it, Your Grace,” she promised him, settling into her role of valet.
Her fingers tingling with eagerness, she moved to the smaller buttons lining his shirt front.
One by one, she pulled them free, until the remainder disappeared beneath the waistband of his black trousers.
She stepped back to admire her handiwork.
He wore no undershirt. A tempting vee of his chest was visible, his body more deliciously defined than on any marble sculpture she had ever beheld.
He was strong and masculine, his lean torso banded with muscles that must have been the result of his sporting and riding, nary a hint of spare on his lean form.
His skin was dappled with a light sprinkling of dark hair that led to a line below his navel.
The trail disappeared into his trousers.
Her hungry gaze followed it to the placket of his trousers, where the thick, long ridge of him strained against the fabric. She had felt him against her earlier, but now he seemed somehow even larger.
“You are gawking as if you’ve never seen a man before, valet,” King warned.
Warmth crept over her cheeks as she forced her eyes back up to his. “Forgive me, Your Grace. How can I serve you next?”
“Take my shirt all the way off, if you please,” he said, his voice husky.
Was he every bit as affected as she was? She hoped so. It occurred to her that she had believed she was seducing him, when, in truth, he had been seducing her. Taunting her, tempting her, prolonging the desire, heightening her sense of need.
Tentatively, Verity pulled the tails of his shirt from his trousers, revealing a few more buttons that required her attention.
When they were gone, she pulled the sleeves down his arms, admiring him as she went.
His body was a marvel to her, sinewy and hard and angled where hers was soft and pliable and rounded.
His skin looked as if it had been revealed to the sun more than once, unlike her own pale curves.
She wondered at once when he went about sans shirt and where he was so daring. At the wicked house parties her brother hosted with him alongside their coterie of friends? At his country estate, punting on the lake?
“The trousers,” he said.
She swallowed against a rush of mad yearning. If her hands had been trembling before, they were quaking now, scarcely able to complete her task. Somehow, she managed to unfasten the placket of his trousers and to push them down his hips until he stood before her in nothing but his drawers.
Would he ask her to remove those next as well?
As if sensing her thoughts, he said smoothly, “I think that is enough playing valet for now.”
“Why?”
He took her hand, leading her across the chamber toward his bed, which loomed massive and imposing on the other side of the room. Somehow, it had not seemed so forbidding when she had slipped into it earlier and fallen asleep amidst comfortable, soft bedding that smelled faintly of him.
“Because I’ve never done what I’m about to do with my damned valet,” he drawled, tugging her after him.
Her bare feet hastened to follow. Was this the moment he would make love to her? Her heart pounded fast.
“It is probably most unkind of you to refer to him thus,” she chirped, trying to distract herself and quell the sudden onslaught of nerves attacking her.
For all her bravado, she was quite unsure of herself all at once.
“With the attention he pays to every detail of your wardrobe and toilette, I can only imagine he is anything but damned.”
He stopped before the bed and turned back to her, catching her chin with his fingers in a tender hold. “Verity.”
That simple touch, the bed looming behind him, was enough to make her dizzy. She gathered her wits with great difficulty. “Yes?”
“Are you nervous?”
“No.” That was a lie, of course.
Likely, he knew it as well as she did.
“You needn’t be, angel. But I want to be sure you’re ready for this.”
His countenance could have been chiseled in stone, his jaw the sharp edge of a knife’s blade.
She doubted herself.
He was a rake.
A gorgeous one at that. No doubt he had known dozens of beautiful women, some of them intimately. She knew she was no great beauty.
But this was the man she loved. The man she trusted. The one who had saved her from a burning building. Her husband.
“Yes, I’m ready for this,” she answered, her voice firm and unwavering.
He didn’t say anything, simply stared at her. It was as if he were searching for something. The silence stretched between them, and just when she feared he would change his mind, King moved. His head dipped, and he lowered his mouth to hers.
With a low, needy sound, she wrapped her arms around his neck, pressing herself shamelessly to his body. He was strength and seduction, so vital and alive. A strange pang crept over her at the thought, as if it were one she wasn’t meant to have. But then just as quickly, she dashed it away.
His lips were on hers, hot and demanding. He kissed her in a way he hadn’t before. His mouth ravenous, ravishing. And good heavens, she was lost. She opened for his tongue, and she tasted spirits.
Spirits and sins and darkness and endless devotion.
He cupped her face in his hands as he kissed her.
Time ceased to matter. There was nothing but King and Verity, in each other’s arms, lips moving as one, bodies entwined.
She kissed him until her mouth ached, until her body hummed with need.
And then she rubbed against him, desperate for more, for the feeling of him, for anything and everything.
But he was still wearing his smalls, and she was clad in her dressing gown, and that felt wrong.
“Shouldn’t we be naked?” she murmured against his endlessly clever mouth.
He nipped her lower lip. “Take off your wrapper and get back into my bed where you belong.”
The sultry command sent an answering bolt of desire straight through her, bright and streaking and hot as lightning in a summer sky, every bit as dangerous.
How cunning he was, she thought then. He might have simply joined her in bed when he had arrived, but the anticipation had stoked the fever within her.
She reached for the knot holding her dressing gown in place and loosened it. One shrug, and the garment fell to the floor. “Is this acceptable, Your Grace?”
She was being wicked and she knew it.
A dark hunger flashed over his countenance, thrilling her.
“More than acceptable. Perfection must be suitably admired. Get in so I can make amends to you.”
She turned to do as he bid but instantly faltered.
There seemed to be no elegant way to enter his bed.
She hadn’t concerned herself with appearances earlier, for she’d been alone.
But his bed was ridiculously high, and even though she was tall compared to most ladies, entering it required hooking her knee on the mattress and hefting herself aloft.
He chuckled, seeming to understand her predicament. “We shall add some steps for you.”
Hands settled on her waist then, and he dusted kisses over her bare shoulder, the side of her throat. Then he lifted her as if she weighed little more than a bird, turning her as he settled her on the already rumpled bed. He was still quite frustratingly clad in his drawers when he joined her.
She knew a moment of disappointment, for she wanted to see him—all of him. And she wanted to touch him too. But perhaps that would come later. Verity would have to be patient. She had much to learn, and her husband would teach her. She could scarcely wait.
King stretched his long body at her side, elegant and lithe.
As if he were in no rush, he slowly leaned into her, his lips finding hers for a kiss that was long and thorough as he caressed her body from hip to waist and then back again, inciting a fire in the wake of his touch.
She surrendered herself to sensation, to the press of his lips over hers, the sweep of his tongue, to the sensual glide of his hand over her bare skin.
His mouth left hers to travel across her jaw and then lower.
“Do you know how astoundingly lovely you are?” he murmured against her throat.
His voice was almost anguished, as if he were in pain. Verity’s hands explored his body too, from the breadth of his shoulders to the rigid slab of muscle that was his chest.
“I could say the same of you,” she managed. “But I am hardly lovely. I am a mouse of average looks and wit.”
His head jerked up, his brows crashing together. “Hogwash. I’ll not hear another word of it. You are beyond lovely.” He kissed the slope of one breast. “Lovely here.” His mouth fluttered over her aching nipple. “Lovely here, such a charming shade of pink to match your lips.”
Verity might have argued, but he took the stiffened bud into his mouth and sucked hard.
Her back arched, a gasp tearing from her as sensation unfurled deep within her.
He sucked some more, and her fingers found his hair, sliding through the thick, silken strands.
There was a slight wave to his locks, and she could see now that he must apply some effort to make it straight.
“So lovely,” he praised, flicking his tongue over the distended peak.
Liquid heat filled her, overwhelming. She offered no further protest as he moved to the other breast.
“Lovely here.” Once again, he rained kisses over her before suckling her, his velvety, hot mouth wringing a moan from her before he was finished.
“Lovely and impatient,” he said, sounding pleased as he dotted kisses over her stomach, stopping at her navel.
When his tongue dipped inside, she jerked beneath him, shocked. Such an odd place and yet she’d had no idea how very sensitive it was. He caressed her hips and moved to her inner thighs, parting them with her help, his kisses traveling directly to her center.