Chapter 22
He stepped away from her, and Ruby felt a cold wash of disappointment. She had thought—oh God, she had been so certain—
But he was only moving to lock the door.
“Tell me this has a latch,” he said, a trifle breathlessly. “I swear to you, Ruby Ballimore, if it doesn’t, I’m having you anyway. Up against the door maybe. Don’t care if this whole bleeding house gets an eyeful. It’ll teach them to stay away.”
She laughed, an unsteady sound. Her heart leapt in her chest. “Perhaps you could push the settee in front of it.”
He picked an immense blue-and-white pot instead and made a rather impressive show, his muscles flexing beneath his thin shirt, as he shoved.
“Every door,” he muttered. “Let’s make your next project locks on every bloody door in this house.
The larder. The wine cellar. That one shed with all the garden tools. ”
“I had no idea your imagination was so exhaustive.”
He was back now, behind her again, spinning her to face the window, palming her belly and mumbling into her hair. “Comprehensive. Extravagantly so, when it comes to you and the places I have pictured taking your clothes off.”
“The garden shed, though? Among the spades and trowels?”
He pulled her tight against him and lowered his mouth to her ear. “Poor pet. Let me show you the rake your life’s been missing.”
She laughed again.
He raised one hand to graze her lips, and in their reflection, his dimples emerged, retreated, emerged again. “I like that sound so much. I don’t suppose I could ever get enough of it.”
She trembled, just a little, in his arms.
It was almost too intense: his beautiful mouth, the clutch of his hands, the words he’d said, so fiercely, as he’d locked his gaze with hers.
He wanted her. He saw her, and still he wanted her.
Some part of her wanted to shy back, to run away. She believed him—believed every word, could look at his mobile face and know that he meant what he said. But part of her felt so uncertain, too. He meant it now. But for how long?
But she steadied herself. She pressed her palms atop his and held him against her body. She was not asking for approval, nor waiting, nor pretending she did not want something because she was afraid she could not have it.
She would not waste a moment. Not now. Not with him.
He touched the loosed buttons of her bodice, caressing the tiny shimmering disks. There was something arousing about the sight: his long, tapered fingers circling the mother-of-pearl, sliding above and beneath. Her belly went hot, and she shifted, just a bit, to press back into his body.
He was aroused too. His body jerked into hers, and she felt the heavy weight of his sex against her lower back.
He made a rough sound. “Let me take this off you,” he said. “Can I? God, Ruby, I want to see you so badly.”
“I want to see you too.”
She did—she did want to see him. But more than that—she did not want to be alone.
She felt strangely revealed already. She had not undressed, but she had spoken her desires aloud: to watch as he brought her pleasure.
It was what she imagined in the darkest part of the night, Malcolm a floor away and her body hot with wanting.
He smiled as he looked at her, and—merciful heavens, the man had such a talent for joy.
“As her ladyship commands,” he murmured, and peeled off his shirt.
In answer, she twitched her shoulders, and her flounced white frock fell to her elbows. She tugged it off the rest of the way, letting it puddle on the ground at her feet, and then stood in her chemise and stays and stockings, and met his eyes in the glass.
His hungry gaze dipped down to the décolletage revealed now above her chemise, to the place where her stays lifted her breasts, pushing them up and out. And then his eyes dropped further: her hips, her legs, the shadowed place between her thighs.
She could feel the slow path of his eyes like a fingertip, tracing over her flushed, sensitive skin. She shivered, and her chemise brushed her nipples. She felt restless—already wanting.
He set his hands on her hips to hold her still. “Let me look at you,” he said thickly. “I could stand right here until the sun comes up and not grow tired of the sight.” His palms tangled in her chemise, easing the fabric up.
Her breath came quickly, her chest rising and falling unsteadily, and she watched him in the window—watched the flex of his forearms, the pale high curve of his shoulder, the slow path of his gaze.
Her chemise was above her knees. His hands worked; the thin cotton rose higher, brushing her heated skin, and her hips shifted back, seeking him.
“Impatient?” he murmured.
She covered his hands with hers, traced the lines between his fingers. “I told you,” she said. “I told you what I wanted.”
“You did.” He gave a breathy, uneven laugh. “God, you did, and I liked it so much. I don’t know why it pleases me to draw it out. To make you wait.”
“Because you wish to torment me?”
His left hand gripped the fabric taut, pulling it across her belly. His right hand slipped between her legs. She gasped, and he did too, grittily, groaning as he cupped her with his palm.
“Not torment you,” he rasped, and his hand shifted, his thumb sliding through her wetness to circle her clitoris, and then retreat. “Well. Perhaps a little.”
She felt dizzy. She felt her whole body cant down into his hand, tipping toward the place where he cupped her. The sight—ah—she could look down and watch his forearm ripple, his elegant fingers flex and move—and then she could look into the glass and see the ferocious focus on his beautiful face.
Her thighs went taut around his hand. Arousal built and built in her belly—she had learned, these past days, how quickly he could bring her to her culmination.
But this time, he stopped before she reached her peak, slipping his fingers free to clutch her hip.
She took a gasping breath, and he reached up and put his palm to her chest again. “Breathe. Yes. God, you feel good. Yes, breathe just like that.”
She clutched his arm. Her breasts pushed up into his hand as she inhaled, and she felt his body grow harder where he pressed into her back.
“Torture,” she got out. “I recognize it.”
“No,” he murmured, and palmed her breast with a little moan. “Can I take your stays off?”
“If you remove your trousers.”
Now he laughed too, and pressed his mouth briefly to her neck, her cheek, and then her lips. “Done,” he whispered against her mouth, and had himself out of his shoes and trousers in a heartbeat.
He was bare as the day he was born, and she could not help but chart the contours of his body while he worked her stays. His shoulders were broad; the muscles of his abdomen flexed. She had traced the scars on his biceps muscle with her tongue.
His phallus resembled no classical statue she had ever seen. Perhaps the Greeks had been loath to show off.
He had her stays off now, and then her chemise too, and then he was cupping her breasts, molding them, pressing them together and staring, staring at her in the glass, shamelessly grinding himself against her back as he devoured her body with his eyes.
She had never had strong feelings about her own form.
Plumpness was generally considered a pleasing attribute, and she dressed in such a way to take advantage of her shape.
But her breasts had always been cumbersome; when slim sweeping gowns had been in fashion, Ruby’s bountiful bosom had made such straight lines impossible.
But now, as she watched Malcolm watch her, she could spare no feelings for her own body except delight.
She made him feel this way; her body brought him to a fever pitch of wanting.
She felt a strange, vertiginous flush beneath her skin at the thought of her own power, a hot melting sensation in her lower belly.
He rolled her nipples, and she gasped. Desire felt like a seam deep inside her, pulled tighter and tighter, poised to split apart.
He slipped his hand between her legs again. “Breathe,” he murmured. “Watch.”
It was impossible to get enough air. She came up on her toes and then lowered herself back down, helplessly, against his hand. He refused to push his fingers inside her, even as she rocked against him, even as she made a little sobbing plea.
He pulled back, stroked the wetness that had slicked the top of her thighs. “I think,” he said unsteadily, “it pleases me so much because it means you trust me. You do trust me, don’t you, darling?”
She scarcely understood what he meant. Her mind felt thick, mazy, as though she’d slipped into a clouded dream. But she knew the answer—knew it as well as she knew the shape of his smile. “I trust you.”
He shuddered against her. “I can’t—ah God, Ruby. I want it so much.” His fingers were back between her legs, touching, teasing, and his other hand rubbed across her mouth. “You know that I’ll take care of you?”
“Yes,” she managed. She ground herself against his hand, and this time he obliged, pressing two fingers inside her in a slick, deep thrust.
“You trust me enough to wait for me?” he said hoarsely. “As long as it takes?”
“Yes,” she said again. “Malcolm, please—”
“Watch,” he murmured. “Watch us together. See how good we are.”
She hadn’t realized her eyes had closed. She forced her lids open, her body shaking, her mind a bright blaze of sensation. She watched his face and the flex of his arm—watched the way he watched her, so carefully, as she came apart.
She couldn’t help herself. Her eyes closed again. Her body was alight, a desperate animal thing. Pleasure flooded her, crested—broke like a wave and left her gasping.
When she stopped shaking, he gathered her close, skin pressed to skin, and brought her down atop him on the settee.
She still felt muzzy-headed, her thoughts slow and syrupy, her body washed clean in the aftermath of her pleasure.
She skated her palms up his abdomen and then back down, marveling at the ridges of muscle, the dip of his navel, the dark hair that thickened as she approached his sex.