hand to prevent the concealment.
“Oh, no,” he murmured. “This time, I will see everything.”
Everything?
A shudder shook Clara to her core. Sebastian began to retreat, still grasping her wrist, compelling her to match his footsteps as he guided them both to the bed. He fell backward, bringing her down on top of his long body and locking his mouth to hers once again.
Clara’s blood quaked as her breasts rubbed against his chest. Her hair fell in thick veils on either side of his face, enclosing them both in shadows dappled with shards of light. When she lifted her mouth from his to draw in air, she placed her trembling hands on his cheeks and stared down at him.
His dark eyes flared with heat—no self-restraint this time, only the hot, heady burn of desire. For her.
He captured her hand again and guided her palm over his chest, down his muscled torso to the thickness straining between them. Again she spread her fingers over his hardness, a fever filling her throat as he swelled against her hand.
“Take them off,” he murmured, moving her fingers to the buttons.
Clara’s breath hissed out in a rush. She sidled downward, her hair trailing like a paintbrush over his bare chest before she straightened, her bottom pressed to his thighs and her hands placed flat on his hips.
He was watching her. She felt his gaze like a hot kiss as he cast it across her crimson skin and the curves of her body beneath her shift. The faint thought surfaced that he was giving her a measure of control, as if to atone for the helpless subservience that had pervaded her life.
Until now. Until she’d purposefully asked Sebastian to marry her.
With a tremulous gathering of courage, she released the fastenings of his trousers, her urgency and trepidation stretching, then snapping like an electric wire. She let the trousers drop to the floor, a strange mixture of shock, curiosity, and pure want filling her like a cloud.
Sparks flew through her body when he nodded at her questioning glance, and she curled her hand around his smooth, taut shaft. They both watched her fingers, slender and white against his flesh, as she moved them in a hesitant rhythm that soon had Sebastian pushing his hips upward.
He made a muffled noise, half-groan and half-laugh, and flung his arm across his eyes. “Wait.”
Clara stopped, enthralled by the push-and-pull cadence of her stroking and his thrusts. “Are you all right?”
He gave another hoarse laugh and reached to ease her fingers from him. “More than all right. Come back here.”
She stretched the length of her body beside his, pressing her thighs together to quell the ceaseless throbbing that had begun the moment she unfastened the first button of his shirt.
Then he gathered the folds of her shift in his hand, his eyes never leaving hers as he pulled the cotton over her calves, her thighs, her hips…higher…higher…
Cool air brushed against her skin, knotting a tangle of trepidation in her belly. She’d never been so exposed, her slender limbs and hips bared to the dancing firelight and the heat of Sebastian’s perusal. He put his hand on her thigh, the intimate contact wringing a gasp of stunned pleasure from her as his fingers brushed the dark curls between her thighs then circled the shallow indentation of her navel.
Then he stopped suddenly, a ripple of tension coursing through his body, and Clara knew without needing to ask what had happened. She surfaced from the haze of passion and reached for his right hand, rubbing and kneading the stiff muscles until his fingers became pliable under her touch.
Holding his gaze, she placed his hand back on her body in a silent urge for him to continue his sensual ministrations. He did, his shoulders relaxing as he stroked his hand back down to the apex of her thighs.
God in heaven, she had never known the touch of a man could wind such a tight spooling of bliss. Her body strained as heat consumed her, beading perspiration on her brow and in the valley between her breasts. She wanted to arch against Sebastian, rub their naked bodies together with heedless abandon, beg him to touch her in shockingly intimate places. She wanted him to fill her and soothe the aching emptiness.
He murmured a request, lost in the sound of her heartbeat pulsing inside her head, but she knew what he asked and lifted her arms so he could slide the shift up over her head. He tossed the garment