“Kiss me,” she begged again, before she said something foolish. Something she would later regret. Passion and pleasure, he had said. She could give him that, if nothing else. “Please, Tom. I want your lips on mine.”
She did not need to beg again. His mouth was upon hers, swooping, claiming, branding. Her arms wound around his neck, and she pressed herself nearer, her breasts crushed to the firm wall of his chest. The play of his lips was not gentle or tender this time. Rather, it was possessive. With this kiss, he marked her as his.
And oh, how she reveled in him.
She was awash in sensation. Tom’s warm lips on hers. His scent of pine and musk and everything she would always crave. His strength. His potency. He was life. Her golden Goliath.
He deepened the kiss, his tongue sliding sinuously against hers. His fingers were in her hair, making short work of all the elaborate efforts her lady’s maid had gone to in designing her coiffure. Hair pins were plucked. Scattered to the Axminster. Coils fell down her back, braids coming undone.
His fist tightened in her unbound curls, pulling her head back gently so he could devour her throat. She shivered as he rasped his teeth over the sensitive skin, then licked into the hollow where her pulse pounded. He kissed his way to her ear, nipping the lobe hungrily.
Hot breath skimmed over her. Making her wild. Making her weak.
The knowledge she would never again have this moment spurred her on. She pushed his jacket from his shoulders, and he set to work on her gown. Silk skirts billowed to the floor. She grew frustrated with the buttons on his shirt and began tearing at them in her effort to feel his skin. To run her fingers over the planes of his abdomen she loved so well.
Together, they finished removing it, and he shucked it to the floor. She took a moment to admire his chest, so masculine, so wonderfully defined. She had never thought a man’s form a thing of beauty, a work of art.
Until now.
Until Tom.
She would never tire of admiring him.
But Tom was not yet satisfied with his own progress divesting her of her layers. He persisted, whisking away her bodice, which had been fashioned separately from the skirts.
“Bloody hell,” he growled when he had revealed her corset at last.
Brilliant amethyst silk trimmed with black lace and embroidered roses. One of her purchases from Mrs. Loveton, made with him in mind. It had been finished earlier that day, and she had been thrilled at the chance to wear it for him. Beneath it, she wore neither petticoats nor chemise.
“Do you like it?” she asked, standing before him in nothing more than drawers, corset, and stockings.
As she inhaled, her bosom threatened to spill from the top of the indecent undergarment.
“I love it.” His big hands coasted over her breasts, making her arch her back for more contact. “My God, sweetheart, you are the most glorious woman I have ever beheld.”
She doubted it, but she certainly felt glorious when he looked at her the way he was now. Hyacinth reached behind her back to pull the laces. As she opened the knot, her corset went slack. With scarcely any effort, she unhooked it and tossed it to the carpet, along with their other discarded garments.
“Utterly breathtaking,” he murmured, lowering his head to suck a nipple into his mouth.
Sensation blossomed. She ached for him. Craved him.
He found the slit in her drawers, his touch grazing over her desperate flesh. He lapped at her nipple, drew a teasing circle around her pearl.
“Please, Tom,” she said again, clutching at him.
Making love with him was not new, but each time was a revelation.
And already, she was desperate. Needing him inside her.
He moved to her other breast, kissing the aching peak. “Tell me what you want.”
Wicked man, making her put the restless ache within her into words.
How could she?
His fingers continued their exploration, teasing her without giving her the completion she craved.
“Tom,” she protested.
He blew a breath over her nipple. “Hyacinth. Tell me. I want to hear you say the words.”
She would give him this. In truth, she could give him anything he asked of her.
“I want you inside me,” she whispered, cupping his hardness through the fall of his trousers.
He hissed out a breath, his hips jerking in response. “Yes.”
When he sucked the peak of her breast into his mouth, she could not stifle her moan. He