Chapter Twenty-Four #3
He undid one button, then another, the procession of his fingers working down to her navel achingly slow.
The dress might have been Mavis’s favorite, but for a wild, desperate moment, she wished he would simply tear it off.
When the dress was finally loose, Mavis shrugged it off her shoulders and shimmied it over her hips.
When she was left in only a thin cotton chemise, Arden sat back, his fingers trailing down her bare arms as his eyes roved over every inch of newly exposed skin.
“Gods, you’re beautiful.” Arden’s voice was hoarse in a way she’d never heard it before.
Mavis had to resist the urge to cover herself.
It wasn’t that she didn’t believe him—Mavis always thought of her beauty as another weapon in her arsenal: handy to have and dangerous when wielded correctly.
It was a commodity, but one that would only depreciate in value as she aged.
And she had aged since the last time he’d seen her like this. What if he was disappointed?
He must have felt her tense beneath him, because he pulled back.
“What’s wrong? Do you want to stop?”
“No,” Mavis said quickly, reaching for him to try to pull him back down to her, but he caught her hands in his.
“We can slow down—”
“If you go any slower, I’ll kill you,” she told him, earning a laugh, though he didn’t release her hands.
“Then what is it?”
He wouldn’t let it go, and as embarrassing as her worry was, she was too desperate for him to touch her again to keep it inside. “I’ve changed. My body, I mean. It isn’t the same.”
Arden blinked, his expression bewildered. “You don’t truly want me to document your freckles, do you? I can, of course, but—”
“It isn’t only the freckles.” Mavis felt her face flush.
Arden still looked perplexed, but after a moment, understanding dawned. Instead of responding, though, he lowered his mouth to her shoulder, then to her bicep, where she was fleshier than she’d been five years before.
“I never thought it was possible for someone to be more exquisite than you were when I met you.” He kissed the soft skin of her inner arm, an inch above her elbow. “But I was wrong. Five years ago, you were beautiful. Tonight, you are absolutely ravishing.”
Mavis felt ravishing when he looked at her like that, and when he touched her, his fingertips tracing a path up her thigh with a reverence that made her feel precious.
She found it almost laughable that she, born in the gutter of the Low City, wretched and unwanted, could be treated as precious by anyone, but least of all someone like Arden Ryskamp, who had lived a life surrounded by all things bright and lovely.
His fingers found the hem of her chemise, which had ridden up to just below the curve of her hips, but he paused there, toying with the lace trim and looking down into her eyes with a silent question.
He was waiting for permission, Mavis realized, her heart aching all over again at that.
She nodded, lifting her hips, then the rest of her body so he could pull the chemise over her head, tossing it aside and leaving her utterly bare beneath him.
For a moment, there was no sound apart from Arden’s uneven breath and the thunderous beat of Mavis’s heart. He sat back on his knees, still bracketing her hips, and looked down at her, gaze sweeping over every inch of skin before his eyes locked on to hers once more.
“I’ve seen you like this in my dreams, Mavis, but you put my wickedest imaginings to shame.
” One corner of his mouth quirked up into the lopsided smile she loved so much.
“Ravishing,” he said again, lifting her hand to his mouth and kissing the inside of her wrist, where her pulse was beating wildly.
She smiled back, then slid her hand out of his grip, around the back of his neck. “Then ravish me, Arden,” she told him, before pulling him down into another searing kiss.
His strangled groan against her lips was the only response he could give, but Mavis didn’t need any more. Their legs tangled together and then his touch was there, between them, stroking through the curls that covered her entrance, slipping one digit inside, then a second.
“You’re so wet for me,” he said, the words coming out as little more than breath against her lips.
She cried out when his thumb brushed over her, finding the spot that made her thoughts scatter like leaves in the wind.
Mavis’s hands were busy too, though, fumbling with the fastening of his trousers.
When she got it, she shoved the material down his legs.
He kicked it off, and it joined her chemise on the floor beside the bed.
With nothing between them, she curled her fingers around the hard length of him, and his hiss of breath sounded like music.
“I missed this.” She twisted her grip down to the base of him, then back up to the tip.
“It missed you,” Arden managed to get out between gritted teeth. “Too much to endure any longer if you keep that up.”
Tempted as she was to tease him further, Mavis relented.
When Arden withdrew his fingers from her sheath, she guided the broad head of him there, where she suddenly felt unbearably empty.
He pressed forward, filling her inch by inch in a slow stretch that pulled his name from her lips like a prayer, her head falling back to the pillow, eyes fluttering closed.
“Perfect,” Arden said on an exhale when his hips met hers. He held himself there for what felt like an eternity and an instant at once. When Mavis opened her eyes, she found he was watching her, his blue eyes darker than she’d ever seen them, tracing over the lines of her face. “You’re perfect.”
No one had ever accused her of that before, but just then, Mavis believed him.