all right?”
Ignoring his questions, Olivia padded across the carpet, her bare toes sinking into the plush pile. “Is . . . is Hudson here?”
Hamish’s gaze narrowed. “No, I dismissed him.”
“Good.”
She moved closer, and Hamish stiffened. “I think you should go back to your room,” he said in a voice laced with warning.
“Really?” She stopped before him, and for once he had to tilt his head back to maintain eye contact with her. Lowering her voice, she continued, “Are you certain that’s what you want?”
Her hands moved to the sash at her waist, and she loosened the knot. Even though she trembled inside and her knees felt weak, she could do this. She had to, for both their sakes. “Because I know exactly what I want. And I mean to have it.”
Hamish’s tongue darted out to swipe along his full lower lip, and his long fingers curled around the arms of his chair. “You know I want you, lass. But it’s not as easy as—”
She placed a finger against his wide mouth. His lips were firm yet satiny smooth, his breath hot. “Yes it is, Hamish. I want you. You want me. We’re married. We can do whatever we like.” Tugging the sash loose completely, she opened it so he could see her. All of her. “We can strip bare and pleasure each other with nothing but our hands and mouths like lovers do,” she murmured. “There’s no one to naysay us.”
Hamish swallowed, and his gaze grew heavy-lidded as he studied her body. Her naked breasts with their tightly furled, dusky pink nipples. The softly rounded swells of her hips and belly. The dark triangle of curls at the apex of her thighs.
At the sight of her husband’s hunger, Olivia felt a dark thrill arrow through her, straight to her sex. Her folds pulsed with longing.
“How do you know about things like that?” he whispered hoarsely.
She laughed, suddenly feeling powerful. Hamish was becoming aroused too. Already she could see his member stirring beneath the quilted satin of his banyan. He clearly liked what he saw.
“I’m not a child,” she said softly, shrugging off the rest of her robe. It slithered to the floor, pooling at her feet. “And . . . and I have friends who are married to rakes, remember? Your friends. I might be inexperienced, but I’m not completely naive.”
To her astonishment and delight, he laughed, a rich, throaty sound. “All right then, lass. I’ll play along for the moment,” he said. “Show me all these wicked things that you’ve heard of. Do your worst.”
“I intend to do my best.”
Olivia reached across Hamish and snagged a cushion from a nearby chair. Dropping it on the floor, she sank to her knees before him.
“I see you do mean business,” he said, spreading his legs so she could shuffle closer.
“You doubted me?” She slid her hands along his thighs, noting how the dense muscles hardened beneath her palms.
“I certainly don’t now.”
“Good. By the way, you’re wearing far too much.”
She wanted him gloriously naked. With hands that trembled only a little, Olivia spread his banyan wide. And then she bit her lip. Not to tease Hamish, but simply because she was utterly captivated.
Her husband was a work of art. The leaping firelight played over his body, highlighting the wide span of his shoulders that all but filled the back of the wing chair. The swell of his hard pectoral muscles with their light dusting of dark hair. His ridged abdomen, the flat plane of his belly, and the intriguing crests of his lean hip bones. His heavily muscled thighs. And lastly the erect staff of his enormous manhood. Thick and long with a ruddy head, it jutted proudly from a storm of black curls as though tempting her to wrap her hands around it.
To explore every magnificent inch of him.
She looked up through her lashes at Hamish, hoping beyond hope he wasn’t laughing at her.
She needn’t have worried. There was no trace of a smile playing about his wide, sensual mouth. His dark gray eye glittered between half-mast lids, watching her every move. Encouraged by his look of avid attention, she reached out a hand and tentatively cupped his ballocks before curling her fingers around his shaft. He was hot and hard and silken all at the same time. When she gave him a tentative squeeze, he sucked in a sharp breath.
“Olivia . . .” Her name, spilling from his lips, was little more than an incoherent groan.
“Don’t think of me as