her head. “I can’t.”
“You can. Touch them. They ache for it, for your touch.”
No, she wanted to cry, they ache for yours.
And then, as though he’d heard the thought, “Think of your hands as mine. That’s what I am thinking. I’m thinking of holding them, of feeling them spilling out of my palms, of lifting them and taking them in my mouth. Of licking and sucking them until you are weeping and wet.”
She whimpered at the words, her hands rising to the door, her fingers splaying wide on the wood, holding her upright against the onslaught of his thoughts. How could he say such things? This man who dealt in silence and grunts? How could he stand here, in a place he had declared not private enough, and say such filthy, wonderful things?
How could she want more of it?
How was he so calm? He destroyed her with every word, and somehow, he remained cool, his breathing even as ever, his only movement those small, devastating circles over her shoulder, across the back of her neck. “And you are wet, aren’t you, Hattie?”
There was nothing he could say that would make her confess that.
“I’m finkin’ ’bout what it’ll do to me when you say it, Hattie.” Nothing but that low growl, slipping into his Covent Garden accent. Nothing but the idea that even the thought of her desire for him might lay him low.
She bit her lip and pressed her forehead to the door. Nodded.
“Fuck.” The curse came on a whisper. “Out loud.”
“Yes.”
“Say it.”
“I am—you’ve made me—”
“Wait.” His groan interrupted her, and suddenly it wasn’t just one finger painting her skin with circles, it was his whole hand, running over her shoulder, down her arm, threading his fingers into hers. Tugging her around to face him.
And when she faced him, she saw the truth that his accent had hinted. He wasn’t calm.
He was wild.
“Finish it,” he growled. “What ’ave I made you?”
“Wet,” she said, and the word seemed to strike him like a blow, setting him to his knees on a long, devastating curse.
He sat back on his ankles and stared up at her, his hands balled into fists on his thighs. He lifted one, running the back over his lips, like a man starved. Dear God, he was stunning. The sight of him there, on his knees, turned her into need. Pure, aching desire.
She shook her head, confused. “Please, Beast—”
“Now, I’m thinkin’ you should lift your skirts.”
And like that, with that single, hinted command, sanity fled. She did it, her hands under his spell as he watched the hem of her dress rise, as though by sheer force of his will. Or perhaps it was her will. Because when the skirts passed her knees, she didn’t stop. She kept going. And he kept swearing, a litany of soft, filthy words in the quiet room.
“More, Hattie. Further. Show it to me. All of it.”
His hands at her thighs, spreading them until he found the open slit of her drawers. The sound of ripping fabric decadent and indecent, and she didn’t care even though she knew she should, and he was leaning forward, lifting one of her legs over his shoulder, and his fingers weren’t on fabric anymore but skin, and words . . . they spilled from him like a rainstorm.
“That’s it, love, such a pretty pussy.”
“You—”
“Mmm?”
“You shouldn’t use that word.”
“Would you like me to use another?” He blew a lazy stream of air against her.
She gasped in surprise and pleasure. “Do you know very many?”
“Mmm. Very, very many. And I shall teach you all of them, but tonight—right now—you are so soft and wet, and I want a taste so badly—let me have a taste?”
She was too eager to be embarrassed. She was wanton and wanting and it didn’t matter that she knew of this particular act only from the songs the sailors used to sing in the rigs when they thought she wasn’t listening. Later, she would marvel at the way her body seemed to know precisely what he would do to her. At the way her fingers found his hair, at the way his breath caught when she fisted them and he released a long, slow curse at the soft skin of her thigh. At the way she spoke up. “Yes, please.”
At the way he responded, his mouth like heaven.
He parted the folds and gave her what she’d asked for, setting his tongue to her, licking slow and steady, his tongue a magnificent gift, exploring every inch of