His Lordship's True Lady (True Gentlemen #4)(51)

Lily had wondered why a woman who had so much to lose had misstepped so recklessly, but the answer was in her arms.

Pleasure bloomed everywhere Hessian touched, everywhere he kissed. His expressions of desire approached reverence, and everything neglected, judged, and uncertain in Lily reveled in his loving. Anger threaded through her too—at Walter, at years of deception, at parents who’d left her alone too young—though she knew bitterness for false courage by another name.

She had now and would make no apologies for allowing herself one impetuous hour.

“Everywhere,” Hessian murmured, pressing kisses to the swell of her breasts. “Flowers. You. Soft.”

Lily tugged his shirt from his waistband, and his kisses stopped.

The breeze teased at her in novel places. The trickling water became loud in the contrasting silence. Lily pressed her forehead against Hessian’s shoulder, praying that his scruples weren’t about to destroy her fantasies.

“I haven’t yet spoken with your uncle,” Hessian said, tracing a finger along Lily’s eyebrows.

“That can all wait until later.” Much, much later.

Such a smile illuminated his eyes—tender, joyous, and so very naughty. “Later, then.”

Lily had thought that she and Hessian had been intimate. Their kisses had been so bold, their embraces leaving little to the imagination, but she’d known nothing. The touches themselves mattered not half so much as the passion behind them.

Hessian scooped Lily up and laid her down on the bed. His handling of her was possessive and unapologetic. The lover held her, not the titled gentleman. He sat at her hip and yanked off his boots, then hung his waistcoat on the back of the chair, took off her shoes, and unbuttoned his falls.

“Hurry,” Lily said. “Please hurry.” Before she lost her nerve, before she denied herself what might be the most glorious hour of her life.

Hessian’s version of hurrying was maddeningly deliberate. He undid more of her buttons, while Lily lay on her back, the old quilt twisted in her fingers. Then he unlaced the drawstring on her chemise and, finally, the laces on her jumps.

“You are like a holiday gift,” he said, leaning forward to press his mouth over her heart. “Layers of lace and loveliness, but the best part of all is simply you.”

No, the best part was him, caressing her bare breasts, making her ache, using his mouth in diabolically sweet, wicked ways.

“You will drive me mad, Hessian.”

“I certainly hope to,” he said, sitting up. “You deserve madness.”

Then he was above her, braced on his forearms, and Lily wished she’d taken the time to undress him. He hadn’t so much as turned back his cuffs, hadn’t undone his damned cravat. That made her wild, and she set about addressing her oversight.

“I should have—” She unfastened the gold pin holding the whole business together. “Better. Hold... don’t go anywhere.”

“As if I could.”

*



Lily’s gaze was distraught as she stabbed Hessian’s cravat pin into the mattress near the top corner of the bed.

He hadn’t the patience to wait for her to undo his linen, for he’d tarried too long admiring her breasts, wallowing in the taste and scent and feel of her. Soft, soft skin. Luscious, subtle fragrances. Curves and hollows and wonders beyond his imaginings.

He gathered her in his arms, thanking heaven for stolen moments, and cursing all the modistes in Mayfair for skirts, petticoats, chemises, and every other frustration made out of fabric.

Lily raised her knees, which got matters somewhat organized, then she bit Hessian’s ear.

“I’m trying not to rush,” he muttered. “Do that again, and I won’t answer for the consequences.”

She sucked the spot she’d bitten, and Hessian retaliated by sliding her skirts up, up, and up, which he might have thought to do—had he been able to think—before falling on her like a beast.

Lily lifted her hips, so male hardness met female heat, though fourteen thousand froths and billows prevented any actual touching.

Hessian’s palm connected with a smooth, muscular thigh, and he nearly shouted with rejoicing. No drawers. I am saved.

And he’d managed not to say that out loud.

Lily got him by the hair and tilted his head so she could kiss him. Her kiss tasted of determination and passion, certainly, but Hessian detected desperation as well. He wanted to believe he sensed desperate desire, though the setting was wrong, the timing was wrong, the very bed was all wrong.

Clearly, he had no instinct for casting off the dictates of convention. What manner of romance could flourish in a bare, cramped—?

Lily kissed him again, softly. “I have dreamed of you like this.” She smiled at him as if he’d laid her on a bower of rose petals, not a glorified cot in a gloomy corner of his conservatory.

“You dreamed of linen sheets, sunbeams, a long afternoon, surely.” He’d give her that, many times over. Along with champagne, French chocolate drops, and erotic poetry.

“No, Hessian. I dreamed of you, close and soon to be closer. Only you.”

He laid his cheek against hers, and bless her for all time, she tugged skirts and petticoats and all that other whatnot aside, until no barriers remained. She arched up, he settled in, and they were skin to skin where it mattered.