“Shush,” she said, a giggle escaping. “If you’re not careful, you’ll alert the servants.”
Wycliff chuckled. “Love, in a moment, you’ll be riding my naked body as if leading a race at Epsom Derby. Thankfully, the servants are deaf to most sounds, trained to respond to nothing other than the tinkling of a bell.”
The mere mention of lovemaking stirred a quickening deep in her core. It didn’t help that Wycliff’s hands moved to the buttons on his breeches. With slow, sensual grace, he unfastened the buttons on the waistband, then the top two securing the fall front.
“I imagine over the last few days you must have seen this before, too.” Fixing her with a wicked grin, he pushed his breeches down past his hips. “Though I fear it might have appeared less … rigid.”
The sinful devil stripped off his breeches to stand before her like a proud victor in a Roman arena. Power radiated from his broad shoulders, from the rippling muscles in his abdomen. But it was the solid length of his manhood that held her transfixed.
Scarlett gulped. “You’re rather larger than expected.”
He palmed the length of his jutting erection just to tease. “Have no fear. I’ve always known we would fit.” His heated gaze perused her from head to toe. “You must be hot in those clothes.”
Hot? She was ready to combust. But the thought of stripping naked, the thought of revealing her scars again rendered her immobile.
“Can I ask you something?” No doubt he heard the tremble in her voice.
“What? Now?”
“Where did you go after you left me in Bedford Street on the night of your father’s ball?” In light of what they were about to do, the answer seemed important. Or was it nerves that made her ask? Had the widow abandoned her and left the naive girl behind?
Wycliff closed the gap between them. He stood so close she could smell the earthy scent of his skin. “Do you want the truth?”
“Everyone wants the truth, even if it hurts.” What was it she wanted him to say? Had he not already explained that they shared a connection?
“Would it hurt you to know I visited another woman?”
Hurt her? It would cleave her heart in two. “It would.”
How had her defences crumbled so easily?
He stroked her cheek. “I went home to drown my sorrows. I drank alone for an hour and then fell into an empty bed.” His fingers moved to the buttons on her pelisse, and he undid them as deftly as he did the night at Vauxhall.
“What made you go home and numb your thoughts with liquor?”
“You did.” He pushed the pelisse off her shoulders. “You’ve held me in your spell since I met you. The night of the ball, I realised I had but two options.” He spun her around to unfasten the row of buttons on the back of her dress.
“And what were those?” The brush of his lips at the base of her neck woke the butterflies in her stomach. Scarlett closed her eyes, savoured every second.
“If I had no hope of making love to you, I might be forced to join a monastery.”
A smile tugged at the corners of her mouth.
“Now, don’t you think you’ve punished me enough?” he said, placing his hands on her shoulders and easing her dress down her arms to pool on the floor. Her petticoat followed. “I might be standing while I strip you naked, but you’ve had me on my knees for years.”
The comment bolstered her confidence.
“While the position has certain advantages,” he continued, “I’m a man who desires equality.”
He tugged at the ties on her stays. Every movement released air into her lungs. The little jerks sent her imagination racing as she anticipated the thrusts of his body entering hers.
When down to nothing but her chemise, stockings and boots, she expected him to swing her around, to get to work on the other garments hindering their lovemaking.
But Damian Wycliff was a man who defied expectation.
His mouth was on her neck, sucking and nipping.
His hands found the hem of her chemise, and he slid the material slowly up past her thighs to her waist.