Pride and Papercuts (The Austens #5) - Staci Hart Page 0,102

For a moment, we stared at it, his thumb stroking the fine bones of my hand.

Our eyes met. Held. Spoke a thousand words in silence.

And he kissed me.

Our hearts were threaded together with that kiss, a kiss touched with the shaky disbelief that came with a dream coming true. It was an infinite kiss, stretching to the horizon of time, a river that wound on forever.

My throat closed with a sob that parted us, and my fingertips brushed my smiling lips.

He pressed his forehead to mine. Our eyes closed.

When I mastered myself, I leaned back so I could see his beautiful face. I traced the lines of the love I found there with my gaze, sweeping over the planes, noting every angle, committing every rise, every fall to my memory.

And when I was through, one side of my smile ticked up a little higher as I reached for his cravat.

The muslin whispered as I pulled the knot free and unwound the crisp fabric, exposing his neck to me. The strong column, the knot at his throat, the hollow at the base. Hungry hands slipped into the warm space between his vest and jacket, and he let go of my waist to shrug it off, tossing it behind him blindly. His eyes were on my lips, but he didn’t move for them. He wouldn’t, not until I was through, simply because he knew this was my wish, and he held my wishes above his.

One, two, three vest buttons and all the way down to the bottom, and then it was gone. But his hands cupped my arms, his eyes on fire, holding me still so he could kiss me. And all time for stillness was through.

The kiss never ended, only breathed and stretched and paused to taste skin or give space to watch wandering hands. Breathlessly, he turned me, unfastening my buttons with deft, steady hands until it slipped down my arms and to the floor. The tug of a string, and my stays were loose. A turn, and he untied the straps, first one, then the other. His eyes drank in the sight of me as he brushed the swells of my breasts, pinned and welling from my stays, with the back of his hand, his index finger extended, as if to prolong the sensation of my skin against his.

And I stayed still simply because I knew this was his wish, and I held his wishes above mine.

A firm pull, and the stays were loose enough to slide over my hips and to the floor with the rest of it. The pull of another tie, and my petticoat joined them.

I stood in the dim room in my thin chemise, set aflame by his appraisal, lit by the strike of a match when his gaze met my skin.

“A man shouldn’t be this lucky,” he said quietly, earnestly. “It leaves so much to lose.”

“Well, know one thing …” I stepped into him, feeling the heat of his skin through muslin. “If you always love me this fiercely, you will never lose me.”

His eyes closed as if he’d been pardoned from an unknown crime. When they opened again, they were devout in their promise.

“Until my last breath. There’s no other way to love you.”

Before I could speak, he descended, sweeping me into his arms, our lips a hot, yawning seam. I sank into the bed, held in place by his hips until my blind hands fumbled for the front buttons of his pants. He kicked off his boots—mine I’d left with my forgotten clothes on the floor—rising to his knees as he reached over his shoulders to rid himself of his billowing shirt. My hands were still blind for my eyes’ occupation with the stretch of his torso, the curve of his shoulders, then up to his face, his lids heavy with desire, his lips plumped from the work of mine.

He didn’t wait for me to free him, moving instead down the bed and to my legs. Broad hands followed the line of my legs, dragging my chemise up with them, tugging to signal me to shuck it. And when I tossed it away and lay back, I found him once again still and silent and reverent as he took in the sight of me, naked but for my stockings, vulnerable and at his mercy.

I could think of no other place I’d rather be.

With slow deliberation, he untied one blue satin ribbon of my stockings and rid me of it. Then the other—a