‘What did your maid say? I expected to find you in bed in your prettiest nightgown.’ Cal prowled a little closer, waiting to see if she backed away. He had no intention of frightening her, although the likelihood of anything scaring Sophie was beginning to look unlikely.
She didn’t retreat, simply drifted away from the dressing table and over to the bookshelves. ‘I told her I would do my own hair and so on. I did not like the idea of sitting in bed passively waiting.’ She reached up and took a book down. ‘What do you read in bed? Oh, philosophy?’
‘Helps me sleep.’ He watched her replace the book, then trail her fingertips along the spines. Every bump on his own backbone tingled at the sight. Then she ran two fingers up and down a handsomely-embossed specimen and he had to close his eyes. Damn it, who is supposed to be seducing who here?
‘Are you still angry with me?’ She turned from the bookcase and looked at him, not teasing now, her face serious and a little frown line between her brows.
‘No. I think I understand why you did what you did. Are you still determined not to marry me?’
‘No. I think I understand why you reacted as you did.’ She smiled suddenly, a vivid, happy smile that compelled him smile back. ‘I am glad we can talk about it.’ She twisted the little pearl ring she always wore, suddenly, disarmingly, uncertain. ‘Does this mean that you will not be seducing me?’
‘That was anger and frustration talking. I would never force something like that on you, Sophie.’
‘I know. But it is disappointing. I was rather looking forward to being seduced.’
‘Before our wedding night?’ he asked, every carefully-controlled sensual instinct shaking off the shackles and coming to attention.
‘I thought about it and I think I was being foolish, pretending something I thought I ought to want when, actually, what I want is you, Cal.’
‘Here? Now?’ He wouldn’t move, not until he was certain, because once he touched her he was not at all sure he could stop.
‘Mmm.’ Sophie agreed. She raised her hands and did something at the nape of her neck, then pulled her sash free. With a little wriggle her evening gown slid from her shoulders and she stood there, lit by the six-branched candlestick on the dresser, quite naked except for her pearls.
Chapter Twenty One - Where Death Follows Love
‘Exactly who is doing the seducing here?’ By some miracle he could still speak. Sophie naked in the sunlight on the hillside had been beautiful, but they had been entangled together and, so exposed in the open, they had been conscious of a certain urgency and tension. And besides, he had been focused on reassuring her, giving her pleasure. His memories of Sophie had been softness and glimpses of curves and tangled curls, gasps of pleasure and her sweet tast
e. Now the whole woman stood before him, blushing a little, it was true, but powerfully seductive, naturally sensual in the shimmer of candle light. And his.
She kept her gaze on his face as she lifted her hands again and began to unpin her hair, one glorious golden curl at a time. He was dreaming of course. No woman, other than the most skilled courtesan, could feed his fantasies with such innocent, frank, delicate sensuality.
And then she lost her nerve and fumbled the pins and the blush became rosy and her hands dropped into the age-old gesture, one hand over the feminine triangle of curls, the other arm across her breasts. She was no longer some erotic goddess but Sophie, and that was so much more. Sophie, shy and curious, sensual and still innocent, Sophie full of the courage to come and show him what she needed.
‘Ah, Sophie.’ He moved to take her in his arms and she burrowed against the silk of his robe, her nose, which was endearingly cold, pressed against his bare sternum through the gap in the lapels. ‘I am glad you changed your mind.’
‘About this?’
‘About marrying me. And this.’ He bent and picked her up, a satisfying weight in his arms. She settled against his chest with a wriggle and a little sigh. ‘Don’t get comfortable there.’ He dropped her onto the coverlet and she squeaked as her bare bottom met the cool dark blue satin, then lay like a Venus in a sea-pool, watching him as he threw off his robe.
The frank admiration with which Sophie looked at him should have exalted him. Instead it was terrifying. What if he could not live up to what she thought she saw in him? What if he disappointed her, or hurt her through some clumsiness? His body had no doubts and he saw her eyes widen as she looked down from his face. And suddenly Cal had no doubts either. He wasn’t a god and she was not a goddess. They were two mortals who cared about each other and who were about to make love. Nothing real was ever perfect and Sophie was real and so was he.
‘What are you thinking about?’
‘The nature of reality and the importance of imperfection. Your reality, my imperfections.’
‘Philosophy. I do hope that doesn’t mean you are about to go to sleep.’ Her smile was utterly wicked.
‘Oh no.’ And then he was on the bed beside her and he could caress her soft, cool curves with hands that remembered each dip and swell and now could linger, arouse, tease her into forgetting her shyness. He spent long minutes on her breasts, licking and sucking and tormenting the eager nipples into hard peaks, wondering if he could make her come by this alone, she seemed so responsive.
But her hips were restless, lifting a little, nudging against the impatient thrust of his erection in a way that threatened a total loss of control if he stayed where he was. It was still too soon, he thought, for all her passionate response, and she was far too new to this to rush her.
Cal slid down the bed, parted her thighs and began to make love to Sophie’s hidden secrets. She gave a little cry when he slid a finger, then another inside her, but it was surprise, not pain, and she began to move against the heel of his hand, her breath coming in little gasps. When he kissed her there, his tongue searching for the hard pearl of her arousal, she cried out, then came apart almost instantly and he nearly lost control himself as the scent and the taste of her flooded his senses.
‘Sophie?’
There was a weight on her and she felt boneless and blissful and when she opened her eyes Cal was above her, supported on his elbows, his hips fitting perfectly between her spread thighs.
‘Oh. Cal.’