Chapter 13
Isobel turned slowly away, presenting her back. She glanced an invitation over one shoulder, setting his nerves snapping.
He came to her and set two fingers lightly against her neck, just below where a few short wisps of hair curled loose from her chignon. Again, yes.
One by one he undid the line of tiny hooks until the dress was loose enough to slip from her shoulders. She started to say something that was lost on a sigh when his lips found the spot on her nape that his fingers had touched. Yes, again.
Short stays remained, ending well above her hip, with a chemise so fine as to be translucent, skimming just above garters and silk stockings.
He worked loose the stays’ lacing, unthreading it bit by bit until it came free.
Mouth suddenly dry, he grazed a knuckle down her spine’s elegant curve beneath the chemise.
He couldn’t have spoken had his life been imperiled.
It was . . . This was an unforeseen complication, a distraction even, but it was also an unanticipated gift. A very welcome one.
He sat to remove boots and stockings, discarding his waistcoat as she bent to undo her garters. A moment’s hesitation and then she’d grasped the hem of her chemise.
He had to remind his lungs of the necessity of air. Lightheaded, he drank her in. The light from the lamp cast her in gold: slender shoulders, breasts with nipples pulled tight, narrow rib cage above rounded hips, long slim legs.
She closed the space between their bodies when he stood.
His cravat did not at first want to yield; she caught her lip in her teeth as she worked at it.
Next, the lacing at the neck, and then her hands were on him, tugging his shirt free to slide beneath the lawn.
Her fingertips drew trails of fire everywhere they touched.
“I want to see all of you.” Her voice had gone husky, burning through him and pervading his senses like fine liquor. She gathered fabric in her hands, pushing the shirt up. He caught it from her and pulled it over his head.
Her hands skimmed his bare chest, skin and muscle and scar. She lingered on the ugly welt that curved from his chest across his ribs and over his left hip. “This is from Badajoz?”
“Two years earlier. An action at the River C?a.” A moment of panic by a young Frenchman who’d thought to use his bayonet with his musket jammed. He’d managed to catch Nate a blow across the chest, although he’d not had further time to regret the unwisdom of not retreating.
Isobel ran her fingers pensively across the scar. Thinking of her late husband? How could she not?
He could have grace enough to acknowledge it, even in a moment like this. “Was it a similar wound? Your Jamie?”
“A cuirassier’s sabre is what took him off his horse, so I was told. But I do not know if it was that wound or another that proved fatal.”
He said sincerely, “I am sorry for it.” War was brutal. Too many dear ones were lost to it.
Isobel surprised him by leaning forward to press her lips against the widest part of the scar that slashed across his pectoral. “I am glad you survived your wound.” Her fingers traced the line downwards to where it turned silver and disappeared beneath the edge of his trousers.
She continued her inventory, next with the indented scar just below his right clavicle where a musket ball had gone through.
“That was the worst of Badajoz.” It was nothing short of miraculous that the ball had neither struck an artery nor deflected off bone to wreak havoc elsewhere in his torso.
It was several months before he could fire a rifle again with any sort of precision, but he’d survived when many men died from just such wounds.
She circled behind him, and her fingers brushed the wider starburst scar where the ball had exited.
Her touch was light as she catalogued with her fingertips the evidence of other old wounds: nicks from other bullets, pitting from grapeshot and canister, powder burns, a few faint white lines from blades.
She finished her circuit with her head downcast, her thoughts her own. He touched her throat lightly before cupping the curve of her jaw and brushing his thumb along her cheekbone.
She tipped her face up to him. “I am glad you are here.” Her voice was fierce.
He bent his head, starting just above her ear with his lips to follow in reverse the line that his thumb had made. She met him, hands spearing into his hair. Minutes uncounted, the kiss, until breaths came fast and shallow.
She ran her hands down his back and around to the front of his trousers. He tangled his hands into her hair as she unbuttoned the fall: first one side, then the other, and finally the central two buttons. He stepped out of them, and she fitted herself against his body, arms around his neck.
He kissed her again until he’d loosed all of her hair from its remaining pins so that it tumbled heavy down her back.
He combed through it with his fingers, something he’d wanted to do maybe since he’d seen it down that first morning.
She made a noise when he caught her by it to hold her still for a deeper kiss.
A tremor ran through her, and she pressed against him closer yet, one foot sliding along the back of his calf.
“Come,” she said, taking his hand.
He’d have followed her down at once onto the bed, but she shook her head, halting him with a hand on his chest.
“Bring the lamp closer,” she whispered. “I want to see all of you.” The same words as before.
He breathed through the savage rush of heat and leaned down to kiss her open-mouthed before doing as she bade.
As soon as he’d settled the lamp, she pulled him down to her. His hands found her breasts, and she made an encouraging sound in her throat, arching into him as his fingers teased her nipples. “More,” she whispered urgently at some point and, “Now.”
He kissed his way down her throat and lower.
At the first pass of his tongue against one nipple, her eyes fluttered shut.
He waited until she opened them again, holding her gaze before he licked her again and grazed teeth over the sensitive tip.
A man might happily drug himself senseless on her noises, knowing himself the cause of them.
Now that he’d given in to it, he meant to find out.
She responded to the lightest touch; he spent long minutes just exploring the contours of her with lips and tongue and fingers: rose-tipped breasts, indented collarbone, ribs, the hollow of her throat, the curve of one hip, low across her belly.
He returned his mouth to her breasts as one hand trailed down to the damp curls between her legs.
She arched up on another gasp as his thumb brushed across the most sensitive part of her.
Her head went back on the pillow, legs falling apart.
He coaxed sighs from her again and again, losing himself in her response until she grasped his wrist, laughing softly.
“Enough. For the moment anyway.” She wriggled out from under him and pushed at him till she had him on his back. She knelt astride his thighs and leaned forward until her breasts brushed his chest.
“I want to touch you now,” she whispered. “Without distraction.”
She slid a hand between them, taking him in hand and making an exploratory pass along his length.
He hissed a breath, his eyes going shut. When she did nothing further, he opened his eyes again. She was watching him, luminous with her hair backlit by the lamp. Her smile was pure mischief before she relented and again slid her hand, tautening her grip. “Two can play at that.”
He’d have replied, but just then her fingers glided over the head of him, thumb lingering on the slight wetness she found there, and speech escaped him.
She circled first finger and thumb around him, less gently than before.
When his hips moved involuntarily, she bore him down with her thighs, laughing and leaning forward, mouth nipping at his.
Her hand slid languidly back down to the base of his cock.
He claimed her mouth again briefly, hands settling just below her waist where it sloped gently to her rear, and let her have her way.
For long minutes, her fingers traced light paths of cool fire over him: around and across his own nipples and down the planes of his stomach, across his thighs, trailing delicately up along his cock until his frame shook before she temporarily gratified him with a tighter grip.
Meanwhile her mouth was on him, lips skimming his neck, his jaw; teeth grazing his nipples, the lobe of one ear.
Sometimes she pulled back just enough to watch his face, mouth curving in satisfaction as she slowly drove him mad with her exquisite torment.
He wound the black silk of her hair up and up behind her head with one fist when she leaned in to kiss him, taking command of her mouth.
The other hand he slid between their bodies, finding first with one finger and then a second her center, slick and hot.
Both of them exhaled shakily, and her head fell back as his thumb found and circled the knot between her legs again.
“Ah! I . . .” She arched towards him; it took but a slight adjustment of his spine to draw one of her nipples into his mouth. She clenched around his fingers on a moan, pulling one from him in response. Her fingers around his cock tightened.
“I can bring you now,” he said roughly, mouth still against her skin. “If you want it that way.”
She looked down at him, eyes glazed and heavy-lidded, and then between them, at her fingers still wrapped around his cock and his thumb against her. “I think . . .” She released her grip on him to settle his hand on her hip, shifting forward until the heat of her was just back of his cock.
“Christ almighty,” he rasped. “Do you want—”
“This is how I want this.” She rose on her knees.
He closed his eyes, breath hissing from between his teeth as she slid down, carefully at first, and took him to the hilt.