inside of her arm. She watched for a moment. “You’re very adept at buttons.”
A grunt as he worked.
“You don’t even have a button hook,” she said inanely, wishing she could take the words back before they’d even left her silly mouth.
He removed the glove from her hand, revealing her wrist, covered in ink stains from her afternoon at the offices, poring over lading books. She twisted the limb to hide the unsightly marks, but he wouldn’t let her. Instead, he studied them for a moment, his thumb stroking over the stains like flame before he returned her hand to his shoulder. Her now-bare fingers reached for the place where his collar met the warm skin of his neck, desperate for honest touch, and he released a rumble of pleasure when skin pressed skin. The ink was forgotten.
“First that,” he said.
Someone else must have replied, because surely it was not Hattie who slid her fingers into his curling black hair, pulled him toward her, and said, “And now you’ll give me what I want?”
But it was Hattie who received it, his kiss claiming her as one hand lowered to pull her tight against him, to lift her thigh over his hip, to press her against the thick ebony bedpost at her back.
His tongue stroked, entered, and she met him eagerly, matching his movements with her own, learning him. Learning this. She must have done well, because he growled again—the sound of her pure triumph—and he pressed into her, rough and perfect at the juncture of her thighs, drawing her attention to the ache there, an ache she felt certain he could cure. If only he’d—
He tore his mouth from hers with a curse—a word that seared through her, making her feel wicked and wonderful and immensely powerful. A word that didn’t make her want to stop what she was doing. And so she didn’t, lifting her hips to his again, increasing the pressure, willing her skirts gone.
His thumb pressed against her chin, lifting it high as he met her thrusts and set his lips to the soft skin there, nipping along the underside of her jaw to her ear, where he whispered, “Here?”
Yes.
He moved down the column of her neck. A glorious slide. A delicious suck. “Mmm. Here?”
Yes.
“More?”
More. She pressed against him. Was that her whine?
“Poor love,” he rumbled. He lifted her higher, her feet coming off the floor. How was he strong enough? She didn’t care. He was at the edge of her dress, the fabric too tight. Too constraining. Too limiting. “This looks uncomfortable.” He ran his tongue over the hot, full rise of her breasts, making them impossibly hotter. Impossibly fuller. She gasped for breath.
Not-Hattie spoke again. “Do it.”
He did not hesitate to obey, setting her to the high edge of the bed, his powerful fingers coming to the edge of the bodice. Her eyes opened and she looked down, his strong hands against the gleaming silk.
Sanity returned. He surely wasn’t strong enough to—
The dress ripped like paper beneath his touch, cold air chasing her shock and then—
Fire.
Lips. Tongue.
Pleasure.
And she couldn’t stop watching. She’d never seen anything like it. The most beautiful man she’d ever seen, entirely at her pleasure. The breath left her lungs as she watched, uncertain of what she loved best—the sight of him or the feel of him . . .
The sight of her hands in his hair, holding him to her.
The feel of them guiding him to her pleasure.
The sound of his assent, of his desire.
It was beyond anything she’d ever imagined. This man was beyond anything she’d ever imagined. At the thought, she dragged him up again, her fingers thrusting into his hair, pulling him to her until they kissed again. This time, though, it was she who licked over his full lips. It was he who opened to her. She who plundered. He who submitted.
And it was glorious.
His hands came to her breasts, his thumbs worrying the hard tips of them, stroking, pinching, until she gasped and writhed against him, lost to him.
And she didn’t even know his name.
The thought was ice.
She didn’t even know his name.
“Wait.” She pushed back from him, instantly regretting the decision when he released her without hesitation, his touch disappearing as though it had never been there to begin with. He stepped back.
She pulled her bodice closed over her protesting breasts and crossed her arms, her hunger returning with a great, yawning ache everywhere they’d touched. Her lips began to tingle, his kiss a phantom there.