did. He undid the buttons on the white gown—she knew he would never have tried to tear the cloth, but she could feel his impatience in every tiny, abrupt pop—tugging the sleeves down as he went and hungrily kissing her shoulders. Soon he had opened all the fastenings on her petticoats and she was standing in her shift and stays.
“I’ve always thought this part was far too complicated,” he said.
“I’ve known men who just cut through the laces,” she offered. There was silence.
She glanced over her shoulder. Solomon’s eyes were narrow with disapproval. For a moment she wondered if this reference to her past would destroy the mood, but he just said, “Good laces cost at least a shilling!” She laughed as he went to work on the knot.
When he had unlaced her stays and pulled them over her head, she turned once more to face him. For a moment he looked bewildered. “Serena, I—”
His voice was rough and throbbing and sad. She’d noticed from the moment they met how expressive his face and body were, how he smiled and frowned with all of him, how the way he leaned forward or scratched the back of his head could convey a world of meaning. Now he could smile and frown with her body, too. The want in his face and voice made her yank the shift over her head and toss it on the floor. He relaxed, his hands hovering for a moment above her skin before he touched her.
Serena closed her eyes. She made no sound, but she trembled and breathed hard as his hands and mouth moved on her breasts and down over her belly, his knees hitting the floor with an impact that jarred Serena from the soles of her feet to her fingertips.
He nuzzled her inner right thigh. “Third birthmark.”
Her throat was tight. When his tongue dipped between her legs, she gave a wordless cry and clutched at him to keep from falling. Oh God, Solomon. When he groaned into her it was like—there were no words for what it was like. She could feel herself crumbling beneath his hands like badly fired clay. She wanted—she had never—she—it had been so long and even then—
He stopped, suddenly, letting go of her and getting to his feet. “Open your eyes,” he said, but she couldn’t. She reached out blindly, seizing his braces and burying her face in his chest. She mumbled something and didn’t even know what—the only discernable words were Solomon and please.
“Serena, do you want this?”
She nodded hastily against his shirt.
“Say it out loud.”
She waited until she was certain of her voice before answering him, even though each second he didn’t touch her was torture. “What part of ‘Solomon, please’ do you find ambiguous?”
He broke away entirely, and she felt cold and naked. Of course, she was cold and naked. She kept her eyes tightly shut. “Not now, Serena,” he said. “I need a straight answer. I need to know you won’t hate me tomorrow.”
She opened her eyes, crossing her arms over her chest instinctively. Did he know how much it would cost her to make that admission? She would regret it, of course, but he was watching her so earnestly, his heavy breathing loud in the silence. The lamplight turned his hair deep gold. It glinted at her from the open collar of his shirt. If he didn’t take the shirt off soon she couldn’t answer for the consequences. And there was something so implacable in his rough voice—he really did care more about how she would feel in the morning, about how she felt, than he did about anything else. He knew what he wanted from her and he refused to settle for anything less.
Something in her responded to his stubbornness, and yet for an instant she wished he were Lord Smollett or one of the others, who wouldn’t ask her to say anything, who would just get on with it. And then she realized what she was thinking and disavowed it utterly and forever, because he was the only person in the world she wanted. Only him, and here he was. She couldn’t quite help smiling. “I’ll only hate you if you stop.”
That seemed to be enough for him. He bounced a little on the balls of his feet, and his dazzling smile made her stomach do flip-flops. Exhilaration tried to climb out her throat as he laced his fingers through hers and yanked her to him.
Then she remembered something. “Solomon, wait.”
“What?”
“I