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Chapter Twenty-Seven

Z eke waited, tense and desperately aroused, his body pressing hers into the mattress. If Kitty told him what he wanted to hear, everything would change. If not…He swallowed hard.

Kitty gazed up at him. “I snuck here to your chamber after everyone was abed because of your injury—”

“That doesn’t explain your presence in my bedchamber. Not really.”

Her hands stilled on him. She lowered her lashes, shielding her eyes from his view. “I don’t want to talk. Kiss me, Zeke, please.”

He didn’t want to talk either, but he forced out the words. “Kitty, last we spoke, I made you a proposition. You promised to think on it. Did you?”

She nodded.

His heart hammered into his ribs hard enough to crack bone. Longing and fear threatened to choke him. Fear she might not give him the answer he so desperately needed to hear. “And?”

She lifted her lashes and gazed up at him with inscrutable eyes. “You must know the answer, Zeke.”

Blood roared through his ears. He could hardly breathe as lust and satisfaction converged within him, flooding his senses.

She was his. His to do with as he pleased, from this moment forward. He lowered his head and pressed his mouth over hers, his lips moving slowly and deliberately, claiming her. His .

She clutched his shoulders, her nails digging into his skin, while her body arched against his. He had never wanted a woman so badly.

“Kitty, tell me you want me,” he said against her lips, her cheek.

“I want you,” she whispered.

“Again,” he murmured into the column of her throat. His hand came up and cupped her breast through her bodice, then retreated enough to skim one tight nipple with his palm.

“I want you,” she said, panting as he rolled her nipple gently between his thumb and fingers. She let out a low mew, then said in a voice barely audible, “I love you, Zeke. I’ll always be yours.”

***

She closed her eyes and pressed her burning face into Zeke’s hard shoulder. She hadn’t meant to profess her love for him. The words had simply fallen from her lips, pulled from the depths of her being as surely as his hands were coaxing the most delicious sensations from her body.

She pressed up into his palm, shamelessly encouraging his caress. This was all that mattered. Her, Zeke, their bodies entwined.

While his fingers played over her breasts, his lips traveled to the base of her throat where his tongue delved. She sucked in a breath.

He nibbled his way to her ear. “You love me, do you?” he breathed, before taking her earlobe between his teeth in a gentle nip.

In answer, she angled her chin upward to give him greater access.

He gave a throaty chuckle and hefted his weight off her to rest on his forearms, bracketing her upper body. His rumpled hair fell forward, tickling her nose as his face hovered inches above hers. His choppy breaths fanned her fevered skin as he gazed down at her.

She drank in the sight of him. The flickering, golden candlelight, played over the hard line of his jaw, the contours of his full lips. But it was his eyes that caught at her heart. They burned with desire and a tenderness she’d never hoped to see from him.

He brushed his knuckles over her cheek. “I know I should tell you to go. You deserve roses and champagne and a wedding night for your first time. But—” He shook his head.

Using the lightest of touches, he cupped one of her breasts through her gown, then smoothed his palm down her ribcage to her hip.

He squeezed. “I have one small problem. I want to touch you everywhere. Taste you. Everywhere.”

“I want to touch you, too.” She cupped his cheek.

A look akin to pain crossed his face. “Kitty, I’m not sure you understand.” He gave a shaky laugh. “Hell, I don’t even understand this madness.”

Sobering, he traced her collarbone with his fingertips. “What I’m trying to say is… What I mean is…” He emitted a low curse. “If you don’t extricate yourself from my bed this instant, I’ll use everything in my arsenal to coax your legs apart, and sink myself into you.”

His words both shocked and enthralled her. “I’m not going anywhere.” She barely recognized the husky voice as her own.

Heat flared in his eyes. “In that case…”

His hand drifted to the bodice of her bodice. He toyed with the ribbon-trimmed edge, slipping his fingertips beneath the fabric. “I think one of us has on too many clothes.”

“I’ll need a bit of help with the buttons,” she said. Inwardly, she marveled at her calm tone. Her insides were quaking.

In one easy move, he rolled off her, taking his body heat with him.

She sat up, twisting so her back was to him, and slanted a glance over her shoulder.

Propping himself up on one elbow, he wordlessly set to his task.

His burnished gold hair and bare chest gleamed in the candlelight.

An artfully draped sheet concealed his hips and one leg, while the other tanned leg rested, knee bent, foot flat on the twisted fabric.

He resembled nothing short of a debauched demigod.

She held her breath as he pushed the fabric of her gown apart. The cool night air whispered over her shoulders, causing gooseflesh to rise all over her body.

“Are you cold?” Zeke ran one fingertip down the length of her spine, stoking the hot and needy ache pulsing low in her abdomen. She shook her head.

He inched closer, and the heat from his body swathed her. He reached around her to push her bodice low, sliding her arms out of the puffed sleeves. The fabric pooled around her hips.

His large hands encircled her waist. “Better,” he murmured in her ear as his fingers drifted up her ribcage.

He bent his head to kiss her neck, and slowly, so slowly, his fingertips grazed the undersides of her breasts.

Body humming with sensation, she fell into the wall of his chest, and gasped when she felt a hard ridge against her buttocks.

His body shuddered at the contact, and he half-growled. His hands slid roughly upward, to cup and squeeze her breasts through the sheer silk of her chemise. He rolled her nipples between his thumbs and forefingers, each tug sending intoxicating darts of pleasure deep in her core.

She closed her eyes, glorying in the heady sensations, and every ragged draw of his breath in her ears. Nameless, dizzying need clawed through her.

He turned her to face him, his gaze traveling down her torso. His mouth curved in a wicked grin as he shoved her gently into the pillows.

“Still too many damned clothes.” He shimmied her gown and petticoat down her legs and flung them to the floor.

The sheets ensconcing him had disappeared. Candlelight limned the tapering V of his torso, illuminating the band of his white drawers—and the very definite, very large bulge.

The first flicker of doubt assailed her. But she couldn’t leave. Not now. She would have to live on this night for years to come.

Zeke hinged forward, planting his forearms on either side of her. As always, the scent of him—sandalwood, spice, and pure Zeke, numbed her mind to all but an insatiable craving to be closer to him. Her doubts receded. She loved him, and for tonight, nothing and no one else mattered.

He pressed feather kisses across her collarbone, his soft hair tickling her nose. Then his warm, wet lips encircled one nipple through her chemise.

A kaleidoscope of pleasure spiraled through her. “Zeke,” she half-whimpered.

He gave a low groan, as his tongue danced over her nipple, flicking softly, before his lips closed over her again to suck and pull at the heated flesh.

His hand skimmed down, over her waist, her hip. He bunched a handful of the skirt of her chemise. The sheer lawn inched upward. He grasped another fistful of material, exposing the lacy ruffle of her knickers.

A moment later, her underskirt reached her hips. Cool air whispered over the bare flesh where the fabric of her crotchless knickers parted. She’d never felt so vulnerable, or so alive.

His hand settled on her knee. Stilled. He brought his mouth back to hers and kissed her so tenderly she thought her heart might burst from her chest. “All right, kitten?”

Unable to speak, she nodded.

Staring into her eyes, he smoothed his lightly calloused palm up her thigh, pushing her knickers higher until his fingers slipped into the loose folds of fabric to cup her bare bottom. Goose flesh rose over her entire body.

She bit her low lip and pressed her face into his damp, hot neck.

“Shh,” he whispered. His fingertips traced slow circles on her tender skin, ‘til her insides bubbled like hot wax and the area between her legs thrummed with need.

His fingers slid higher, grazing her curls. On instinct her legs squeezed together despite her desire to give him everything she had.

“Open for me, darling. Trust me to know what you need,” he purred.

Her heart pounding in her throat, she inched her shaking legs apart.

He feathered kisses on her lips. “More.” He drew up her knee, planting her foot flat on the mattress. His fingers traced down the underside of her thigh, sliding inexorably toward her core.

This time, when he eased his fingers into the petals of her sex, she sucked in a breath but left herself open to him.

“Sweet Jesus,” he breathed, his eyes narrowing as if he were in pain. “So wet. So ready.”

He brushed his fingertips over the slick flesh near to her opening, and she quivered helplessly at his tantalizing touch. Then, he slid one finger inside her while his thumb slowly massaged her sex.

Pleasure unlike any she’d ever known unfurled within her. “Zeke,” she cried in desperation. “Please.”

She heard his husky laugh before he murmured in her ear. “Shhh, darling. Just let me…”

She made a choked noise and fisted her hands in the sheets. Her hips undulated as his thumb moved over her in a deliberate, circular motion, relentlessly twisting her insides tighter and tighter, like a coil ready to spring.