Page 20 of How to Seduce a Viscount (Wed Within a Year #3)

Contrary to her less than competent efforts, Luce’s hands were making short, enviously ept, work of the buttons on her bodice.

Her simple, borrowed gown, could be fastened—and in this case unfastened —from the front, designed for a woman who hadn’t the luxury of a maid.

He gave a low growl and nipped at her neck.

‘Consider it quid pro quo for all the layers a woman usually wears.’

‘Quid pro quo? Really?’ She looked up at him and laughed, the waistcoat forgotten. ‘Only you, Luce Parkhurst, would quote Latin during foreplay.’

‘Only because you would understand it,’ he teased sliding the blue dress from her, his eyes moving over her, lighting up as if he’d just unwrapped a gift.

She ought to have felt naked, exposed, vulnerable standing there before him in her chemise, but all she felt was power in knowing she inspired the look in his eyes.

‘You’re beautiful.’ Two simple words, uttered in male, primal honesty, changed the tenor of the interlude entirely.

What Wren had thought would be a ravenous ravaging of mouths and bodies between two people desperate to claim some modicum of completion, to slake their burning curiosity in regard to the other, was now transmuted into something that bordered on reverent.

But it was no less potent, no less intense, for its reverence.

Her mouth went dry. She had not anticipated real love-making.

This was to have been a rapid joining, a conflagration of heat that was there and gone in an explosion of passion.

It had certainly, and agreeably, started that way.

She understood those couplings. But this, oh this , with Luce’s dark eyes hot upon her, telling her she was beautiful with the sincerity of an honest man who had no hidden agenda, she hardly knew what to make of it.

Luce stepped back, his gaze never leaving her, and finished unbuttoning the waistcoat himself before pulling his shirt over his head in a deft movement that drew her attention to the flex and play of muscles in his arms. It was hard to decide where to look first. She wanted to look everywhere all at once; his arms, his shoulders, his upper chest, the lean muscled lines that defined his torso and drew the eye downward.

She schooled her gaze to patience, working her way down his body with slow intent, careful not to miss a thing. He was quite a specimen.

‘Most men look better in their clothes than out,’ she commented dryly, her gaze returning to meet his after a long perusal that had left her hot and wanting. All the man had to do was walk into a room without his shirt and he could have any woman he wanted.

‘Do you think I am most men?’ Luce gave her a sharp look that had her pulse racing with the reminder that he was definitely not most men.

‘No. Not at all.’ She stepped towards him.

‘I want to touch you,’ she whispered, her palms pressed against his chest, her fingertips revelling in the hard sculpted structure of him.

‘You feel like granite.’ A veritable stone wall to protect the woman he loved.

In the fantasy she was weaving, that woman could be her.

‘If you think my chest is hard…’ He gave her a slow, wicked smile.

His hand captured hers and moved it lower until she closed her hand over the length of him.

Her breath caught and she gave a delighted shudder.

He was long, hard and hot through his trousers.

His was no mere bulge but a veritable log.

‘Dear lord, we must get you out of these trousers at once.’ She was only half playing at the mock seriousness in her tone.

Her breath was coming fast now as she undid the fastenings and pushed his trousers past his hips.

Then and only then could she feast with her eyes and her touch.

And what a feast it was. She took the length of him in hand and gave a slow, experimental stroke, delicately thumbing his tip until moisture beaded.

‘You are positively magnificent,’ she murmured against his mouth.

‘Shall we get rid of your chemise now?’ Luce’s hand was at the hem of her garment. She hesitated.

‘ You are muscled perfection, Luce. But I am not. I have no such perfection to offer you in return.’ Her scar was still fresh, still violently red against the paleness of her skin. For the first time since he’d undressed her, she felt self-conscious.

Luce gave a slow, reassuring smile. ‘I’ve seen your scar. I’m the one who stitched you up.’ He’d probably seen more than that, too, although he’d been gentleman enough never to bring it up.

‘I’m not ready for it to be on display.’ She pressed a kiss against his jaw.

‘You can still touch me. Here.’ She gently disengaged his hand from the hem of the chemise and placed it on her breast, her body thrilling to his caress.

This was not a mere touch. It was an invocation, the beginning of a promise of pleasure.

‘And here.’ She pressed his hand to her mons and moved against it. Luce groaned behind gritted teeth.

The heat and the hurry was building between them again, matching pace with Luce’s reverent adoration. She knelt on the carpet before the fire and tugged him down with her and he came, gathering her to him, surrounding her with the strength of his arms and his body as he covered her.

Oh, how she revelled in that strength and the care he took with it to keep all that power braced above her instead of on her. She could not have borne it. She opened her body to him and invited him in.

How lovely to be able to do that, to be the one who decided.

Lovelier still—the word was not enough—was the feel of him, the slide of his body against hers, the glide of his phallus as it met with her wetness.

This was perfection and she wanted to hold it close.

She wanted it to last and last. She wrapped her legs about his hips, prepared to guide, to coach.

‘I know what I’m doing.’ He gave a low lusty laugh at her ear.

‘Trust me, come along with me. We can do it together.’ He moved a hand to her hip, training it to his rhythm.

He slid deeper and she fell into it with a gasp—part pleasure, part epiphany.

This was what it meant to have a lover .

A man who thought of her first. Who thought of them and what they could achieve together.

He picked up the pace, the rhythm becoming a staccato tempo and her body answered, her legs tightening as she felt his body gather itself, the muscles of his arms taut with strain, the cords of his neck standing out, the waves of his dark hair falling into his face.

She reached out to push his hair back, bracketing his face with her hands.

Dear God, she wanted to see him, all of him when the moment came.

Those dark eyes, that wicked mouth. She arched her back, pushing her hips up into his, craving closeness to him in the extreme as the critical moment neared.

Her pulse beat a rapid tattoo against her skin— this, this, this.

And then pleasure was upon her, sweeping over her until all she could articulate was a series of desperate disbelieving sounds as he tore himself from her with a groan, his body spending beside her, a gentleman until the last.

While her body was still in the echoes of passion, he reached for the velvety throw and dragged it over them.

He gathered her to him, nestling her against his body, and there they stayed for a long while without words.

Speech seemed almost plebian after that.

A tool that belonged to mortals while she and Luce had soared with the gods.

Her body was soaring there still and she never wanted to come down.

This was heaven; to lie in his arms beside the library fire.

To feel peace seep through her bones like the most pleasant of elixirs.

She had not imagined such a feeling was possible.

But now that she knew it was…well, that posed a whole other line of questions and problems that she did not want to think about, not yet.