Devil's Daughter (The Ravenels #5) - Lisa Kleypas Page 0,83

fingertips, she approached West. He drew in a swift breath as she came to stand between his open thighs.

“Head back,” she murmured.

West complied, regarding her warily from beneath his lashes. “What is that?”

“Almond oil. To protect the skin and soften the beard.” Gently she massaged the taut muscles of his cheeks, jaw, and throat with small, circular movements.

His eyes closed, and he began to relax, his breath turning slow and deep. “This part isn’t so bad,” he said grudgingly.

At this close distance, Phoebe was able to see fine details of his face: the ink-black filaments of his eyelashes, the subtle smudges of weariness beneath his eyes, the texture of a complexion that was silkier but tougher than her own, as only a man’s could be. “You’re too handsome to wear a beard,” she informed him. “I might allow it someday if you need to conceal a sagging chin, but for now, it has to go.”

“At the moment,” West said with his eyes still closed, “nothing I have is sagging.”

Phoebe glanced downward reflexively. From her vantage between his splayed legs, she had a perfect view of his lap, where the ridge of a huge and rather magnificent erection strained the fabric of his trousers. Her mouth went dry, and she wavered between uneasiness and intense curiosity.

“That looks uncomfortable,” she said.

“I can bear it.”

“I meant for me.”

The cheeks beneath her fingertips tautened as West tried—unsuccessfully—to hold back a grin. “If it makes you nervous, don’t worry. It will disappear as soon as you pick up that damned razor.” He paused before adding huskily, “But . . . it wouldn’t be. Uncomfortable, I mean. If we were going to . . . I would make sure you were ready. I would never hurt you.”

Phoebe shaped her fingers around his hard jaw. How surprising life was. Once she would never have considered this man for herself.And now it would be impossible to consider anyone else. She could no more stop herself from kissing him than she could keep from breathing. Her lips brushed tenderly over his before she whispered, “I’ll never hurt you either, West Ravenel.”

After she stirred up lather in a porcelain shaving cup, she worked it into his beard with a badger-hair brush. West remained with his head resting against the upholstered back of the chair as she moved around him.

He did stiffen, however, when Phoebe opened the gleaming razor and used her free hand to angle his face to the side. “It’s me,” she said gently. “Don’t worry.” She pulled the skin of his cheek taut with her thumb, held the razor in a practiced grip, and stroked downward with the blade at a perfect thirty-degree angle. After a few careful, neat scrapes—deliciously satisfying sounds—she wiped the blade on a shaving cloth draped over her arm. She didn’t realize West had been holding his breath until he let it out in a controlled sigh.

Pausing, she looked down at him with her face directly over his. “Shall I stop?”

His mouth twisted. “Not if it’s giving you tingles.”

“Many,” she assured him, and continued to shave, deftly stretching areas of his face and scraping them smooth. When it came time to work on his neck, she turned his face toward her and nudged his chin upward to expose his throat. As she saw his hands begin to tighten on the chair arms, she said, “I give you permission to look down my chemise.”

He loosened his grip and regulated his breathing.

Phoebe shaved his neck with short and meticulous strokes, revealing skin that gleamed like copper. She took special care with the strong angle of his jawbone, where there was no cushioning softness beneath the skin. “What a lovely jaw,” she murmured, admiring the clean edge. “I’ve never properly appreciated it before.”

West waited until the blade lifted from his skin before replying. “I was just thinking the same thing about your breasts.”

Phoebe smiled. “Rogue,” she accused softly, and moved around to his other side. After the rest of his neck and jaw was smooth, she put her face near his and covered her bottom teeth with her lower lip. “Do this.”

He complied readily, and she shaved beneath his lip with delicate strokes. As she worked around his mouth intently, using featherlight pressure, she sensed that West had surrendered completely, his limbs relaxed and loose beneath her. Perhaps it was wrong, but she was enjoying the situation immensely, having his big, powerful body under her control. It hardly escaped her notice that he’d stayed hard all through