Tempting the Bride - By Sherry Thomas Page 0,58
the heart of the Sahara.
Helena already knew that her husband was a man of many talents. Now she added supremely deft fingers to that list of gifts. She had no idea he’d opened the bodice of her dress all the way to her waist until he was pushing the sleeves down her arms.
She slapped him lightly on the hand. “This is for dallying with all the other women when you should have been chastely waiting for me.”
He kissed her again. “What penance will you order for me? Will you make me fall to my knees and worship you between your beautiful thighs?”
The place between her thighs quivered rather forcefully at his suggestion. She couldn’t say a word in return.
“Yes, I believe I shall do just that,” he murmured.
“You’d better do it very, very well.” She somehow found her voice. “Or I’d consider it not done at all.”
He spoke directly into her ear. “I love it when you order me to do precisely what I want to do.”
The brush of his breath, the nip of his teeth on her earlobe—she trembled with the unexpected rush of pleasure and shoved her fingers into his hair.
He kissed her neck. “I never knew I wanted a woman to tug at my hair—until you.”
She pulled him to her by his hair and kissed him hard. “Like this?”
“Dear God, exactly like that.”
So she did it again, her throat, on its own, issuing little noises not very different from those Millie had made when she and Fitz had been going at each other in Helena’s room.
Distantly she heard a thud and realized it was the sound of her corset hitting the floor. She pushed him back. “You will not remove another article of clothing from me until you remove a few of your own.”
He grinned as he yanked out his necktie. “You are such a pushy woman.”
“I am.” Her hand lifted to play with the curl at her ear, only to remember she had no hair to flirt with. No matter, she tossed aside her turban and batted her eyelashes at him. “But I am only ordering you to do exactly what you want. I’ll bet you’ve been waiting to show off your ‘perfectly built’ body for years.”
His jacket fell to the floor, followed by his waistcoat. He glanced at her sidelong as he extracted his cuff links. “Are you ready? You won’t swoon on me, will you?”
She gave her lower lip a long, slow lick. “Make me, darling.”
His shirt disappeared. She sucked in a breath—he had not exaggerated. Everything was shapely: his shoulders, his arms, his flat, well-muscled abdomen.
“Decent enough.” She exhaled. “Now the rest.”
Which she was suddenly most eager to see.
He tsked and came closer. She might be slim, but she was tremendously tall and not precisely fine-boned. But he lifted her out of her dress as if she weighed no more than a good pair of gentlemen’s riding boots. “I’ve wanted to see you naked for far longer. You’ll just have to wait for your turn.”
“There had better be sky-high praises waiting for me,” she warned him as he divested her of her petticoats. “I do not disrobe for anything less.”
“Young lady, you had better earn those sky-high praises.” He caught her lips for another kiss. “The youth of today are spoiled with unmerited applause, and I have no intention of giving a single compliment before it is warranted.”
He opened all the buttons on her combination and pushed it down to the floor. Then he took two steps back, squinted, and studied her. She grew nervous as the seconds passed. She didn’t have the most womanly of figures. When she’d been a child she’d been all sharp knees and sharper elbows. Her breasts were probably the smallest pair God had on hand. And He never did send hips, leaving her with a body about as curvaceous as a plank.
The man before her let out a breath. “I don’t know if this constitutes sky-high praise, but I will tell you this: I’ve spent many, many years imagining what you look like without your clothes. And I have a very fine imagination, one of the best in our generation, I daresay. And you, in person, have put that imagination to shame.”
Her heart pounded at the hunger in his eyes. He kept looking at her, his gaze hot, his breath uneven.
“Well, don’t just stand there.” Her voice, too, had become uneven. “Do something.”
Before she’d quite finished speaking he’d already closed the distance between them and placed his