and I let my eyes wander down his torso.
Goose bumps awoke all over me.
He was so beautiful.
“I don’t think anyone has ever called me that before,” he murmured, amused. And I realized I’d spoken out loud.
I grinned, nervous but excited for what was to come. “Should I undress?” I whispered.
His eyes flashed with hunger. “Let me help.”
I sat up and turned so he could unbutton my gown, my pulse racing at the feel of his fingertips brushing my silk chemise.
“Lie back.”
I did as he asked and gazed up at him in wonder as he pulled on the sleeves of the dress and then tugged the fabric down over my breasts. His eyes darkened as the thin chemise was revealed. My nipples were visible through the fabric. I flushed hotly, wondering if I pleased him as much as he pleased me.
The way his eyes turned molten suggested so.
“Rogan …” He practically growled with impatience as he slid down the bed, pulling the dress with him until I lay there in nothing but transparent silk.
I took hold of the chemise and raised it up as I lifted one leg out toward him, toe pointed. “Stockings next.”
Wolfe’s chest rose and fell in shallow breaths as he climbed back onto the bed on his knees. My eyes dropped to follow his movements, and I saw his arousal straining against his trousers.
I experienced another tug deep in my womb and let out a mewl of need.
“I’m trying to be gentle and patient,” he said, his voice hoarse as he reached for my outstretched leg. “But if you keep making noises like that, I might lose my mind.”
I bit my lip, rather enjoying the power I seemed to wield over him.
As if he read my thoughts, Wolfe shook his head, but he wore a teasing smile. A smile that darkened as he coasted his fingers up my calf, tickling the back of my knee, before coming to a stop on my thigh where the stocking ended.
Sensation shot along my skin in luscious tingles from his point of contact. The higher his fingertips tickled my thighs, the more it felt as if he were touching me between my legs.
I tingled there, too, and felt the wet of arousal.
“Wolfe,” I begged, wanting him to touch me there more than I wanted anything in this world.
“Patience.” He stroked my inner thigh, his jaw clenching.
And then he curled his fingers into my stocking and slowly guided it off my leg.
It was torturous waiting for him to do the same with the other.
When he was done, he wrapped his hands around my calves and then glided his hands up my legs as he kneeled between them. Our eyes held, my breath caught in my throat, as he moved up the back of my thighs until he reached my underwear.
“Your skin is like silk,” he whispered, hovering over me like some pagan god, the shadows of the room flickering across his muscled arms and torso.
I wanted to touch him, but he was too far away.
“Come to me.” I reached out.
Wolfe gave me a teasing smile. “Not yet. I want to kiss you.” His fingers curled around the edge of my underwear.
I gasped as he tugged on them but lifted my hips to help him remove them. “To kiss me”—my breath hitched as cool air caressed me between the legs—“you have to come closer, where my mouth is.”
He grinned. “Ah, but that’s not where I want to kiss you.”
A memory assailed me. I’d once accidentally walked in on one of our guests with a housemaid. She’d been sprawled across a desk in a palace study, skirts above her waist, with the nobleman’s face between her legs.
“Oh.” Suddenly, I understood.
I experienced another deep pull there.
Seeing I understood, Wolfe tossed aside my underwear and demanded, “Take off the chemise.”
I sat up to do so with urgency, very much impatient to experience this kiss. Lying back on the bed, naked as the day I was born, I waited, chest heaving.
Wolfe could only stare. His expression darkened as he took in every inch of me.
“Wolfe?”
He shook his head, as if dazed, and then his eyes came back to mine. His voice was thick with emotion. “There cannot be anything, anyone, or anyplace in this land, in any land, that matches your beauty, within and without.”
Tears pricked my eyes.
I’d never thought of myself as such, but he made me feel like the most beautiful being in the world in that moment.
“I don’t deserve this gift.” His hands coasted