Page 87 of For a Scot's Heart Only

“I’d rather you tell me a story,” she said.

The confident woman. Her eyes glittered darkly.

“A story—that is a surprise.”

“Your voice, it calms me,” she confessed.

Arousal seeped through his abdomen. His thighs were taut. Her clever hand busy. Small noises were magnified. Rasping cloth, her studied breaths. Wispy curls falling on her neck. The fire’s leaping flames were witnessing an excellent seduction. If the enterprising corset maker kept this up, he would spend himself in his smalls.

A corner of his mouth hitched. “Have a care, or you’ll have a mess on your hands.”

She stopped, her forehead dipping beguilingly against his chest. Dark curls shimmered on her back. He cosseted their silkiness, the strands dripping through his fingers. Reluctantly, he brought her playful hand to his mouth and kissed her palm. Smelling himself on her hand was primal. She’d leave tonight, wearing his scent.

“Do you know what’s wrong here?” he asked.

“No.” Her eyes fixed on him. “I thought this was going rather well.”

“What’s wrong is you’re talking in complete sentences.” He kissed her wrist, lingering on her skin. “Which means I’ve not done my job...” He kissed her pale forearm. “Because if I had, you’d be lust-addled”—he kissed the crook of her elbow—“and speechless.”

She swallowed hard. “What do you propose?”

Chapter Twenty-Three

“Let me do whatever I want to you.” Thomas was pensive, focused.

“For a story?” Her voice pitched higher.

She was, after all, standing, breasts bared, negotiating wanton acts.

Her mouth dried as flesh between her legs trickled wetness. Behind those persuasive green eyes her sea wolf was hatching a plan. This turn shouldn’t come as a surprise, him thinking about tonight, anticipating it. She knew why they were here—she’d planned this, for goodness’ sake. But nothing prepared her for the primeval rush. For everything magnified. The heightened scent of his skin or the smell of whatever soap his laundress must use. The feel of his clothes, his skin, his body.

Easing into this would’ve been preferable. Five years had made her rusty, and the clock’stick-tockwas conspicuously loud. She checked it.Two and a half hours ’til midnight.It wouldn’t do to miss her meeting with Miss Mitchell, but she feared she might.

Thomas West was the drug she couldn’t refuse.

He followed her sight line to the clock. “Got somewhere else to be?”

His question lit a match.Why not play along?was the fire flaring inside her.

She flirted with the open button flash of his waistcoat. “No. Nowhere else but with you.” Like a proper sensualist, she strolled to the bed, an impudent hand on her hip. “Want me here?”

Gem-hard eyes sharpened in the shadows.

“I want you on the bed, naked.”

Her blood was liquid fuel set aflame. Thomas was backlit by fire, his smile ruthless.

“Undress for me,” he said.

She felt her lips part, velvety and slow. If their rough play lit a match, his telling her what to do scorched her. The longer he watched, the more her mind surrendered to a haze. She could be an odalisque serving the conquering sea wolf. His dangerous scar only added to her excitement.

Flooded and sensual, she worked her front-laced stays. The ties slid through her fingers like water, slipping this way and that, until the useless garment fell. It was heady, this undressing while Thomas’s uncivilized stare ravaged her.

Reaching behind her back, she couldn’t take her eyes off him.

The things he would do. The places he would touch...

Her breasts jostled, supple and heavy, and her nipples poked forward. Cold air pinched them. Thomas’s predatory smile faded. His visage became stark and destroyed.