Goddess of the Hunt (The Wanton Dairymaid Trilogy #1)(66)

He ought to object. Words stuck in his throat. He stared, mesmerized, as she untied her belt. Then crimson velvet rained down like hellfire, and Jeremy knew he was damned, damned, damned. No high-necked virginal nightgown. No nightgown at all.

Just Lucy.

Every part of him longed to go to her, but his feet were bolted to the floor. His jaw worked, but he couldn’t speak. If there was any sound in the room besides the wild pounding of his pulse, he couldn’t hear it. She had him utterly bewitched. She’d rendered him immobile, deaf, and dumb.

But he was mercifully not struck blind.

He’d devoted an inordinate amount of time in the past two days to picturing Lucy naked. He had amassed a fair amount of evidence to inform this mental image. He knew how she felt pressed up against him. He’d touched almost every part of her, albeit in the dark. But nothing had prepared him for the glorious sight ofall of her.

Her body was like no other woman’s he’d seen. And he’d seen his share of unclothed women. But be they ladies or courtesans or women of the stage, compared to Lucy, they all shared an almost indolent softness. A fragility that somehow rang false. Lucy was rounded in places and sleek in others. Firelight delineated the sculpted tone of her shoulders and arms. Her br**sts were round and firm; her belly tight and flat. Supple, sweetly curving hips flared into firm, muscular thighs. She was softness and strength. Power and mercy.

A goddess.

And then she held out her arms and called to him. And he heard her. Even through the thick haze of desire, he heard her—because she spoke straight to his heart. His feet were in motion before he’d drawn breath. In a moment, he had her swept up in his arms. A second after that, they were tumbling onto the bed. And as he lowered her onto the soft nest of pillows, she whispered it again. The word he’d been longing to hear from her lips for so long it felt like forever. The one simple call he was powerless to deny.

“Jeremy.”

CHAPTER SIXTEEN

Lucy fell backward onto the bed, the heavy weight of a man on her chest and a ponderous burden thrown off her shoulders.

Thank God that had worked, she thought. There were no cards left in her hand afterthat . Was there some way to feel more naked than naked? If so, she had felt it. For a long, terrible moment, she’d begun to doubt he’d respond at all.

But respond he finally did, and in quite thrilling fashion. Now his lips and his tongue were responding all over her. And something hot and hard was making demands of its own against her thigh.

He was everywhere at once. One hand kneading her breast, the other cupping her bottom; his mouth doing indescribable things to the soft hollow beneath her ear. He wedged his thigh between her legs, and she gasped at the sensation of smooth buckskin and hard muscle pressed against her delicate flesh. He ground against her. Sweet, aching pleasure spread up through her belly and down to her curling toes.

“Jeremy.” His name fell from her lips again and again as he rained hot kisses over her neck. It was important for her to say it aloud, for the same reason she’d come to his room, placed his hand on her breast, brazenly dropped her robe. So he would know—soshe would know—that she wasn’t a passive player in this turn of events. No one could force her to slip a thimble on her finger, much less a betrothal ring. Lucy may not have had a proposal, but she did have a choice.

And she chosehim .

“Oh, Jeremy,” she sighed against his ear. He was rolling her nipple under his thumb and dragging his teeth over her earlobe, and her whole body began to hum with wanting.

She ran her hands down his back, savoring the feel of solid muscle beneath soft linen. Then she fisted her hands in the fabric and tugged it up, wild to get closer to him. Desperate to feel the smooth heat of his skin against hers. She had worked his shirt almost up to his shoulders when he suddenly pulled away. He sat back on his heels, straddling her leg.

Lucy’s hands fell to her chest, covering her br**sts. She watched as he gathered his shirt, yanked it over his head, and cast it aside.

She let her gaze wander over him. Slowly. Greedily. Possessively. He was hers. All hers, tonight and thereafter. Every muscled ridge of his shoulders and chest. The dark, curling hair that tapered down to his navel, then trailed lower still. And the fascinating, pulsing prominence in the front of his breeches. Lucy was greatly tempted to stare. With some effort, she pulled her gaze back up to his face, framed with black, ruffled hair and anchored by clear blue eyes, now dark with desire.

Dark, and focused intently on her hands. Or thereabouts. It took Lucy a moment to realize it was probably not the sight of her hands that captivated him, but rather what heaved beneath. She let her palms slide slowly to her sides, revealing her br**sts.

He sucked in his breath.

Her ni**les hardened under his gaze, contracting to taut, aching peaks, straining toward him, begging for his hands, his mouth, his tongue. If he didn’t stop staring and start touching her soon, Lucy felt certain she would go mad.

She reached up for him, gliding her palms up the thick trunks of his arms and letting her fingers feather over his chest. He groaned and leaned over her, caging her between his elbows. Lucy gasped at his sudden, enveloping heat. Sliding her hands around his neck, she pulled his lips toward hers.

He suddenly resisted. “I haven’t bathed.”

His expression was so adorably earnest, she had to laugh. “I don’t mind.” She pulled his face down to hers and rubbed her cheek against his jaw. The rough beginnings of a beard rasped against her skin. She brushed open-mouthed kisses up to his ear. “In fact,” she whispered, licking his earlobe, “I like it.”