She felt herself pale. “That sounds dangerous.”
“Gets most of the coal, causes almost half of all fatal accidents,” he confirmed. “It also means the mine is even less viable than I thought, because much of the yield stems from an extraction technique I’ll not support.” He tossed his waistcoat onto the next chair and attacked the knot of his cravat. “And to conceal the low yield, Rutland hadn’t even had the tunnels mapped.”
“Please don’t enter these tunnels again,” she said. “Please don’t make the men go in, either.”
He paused, the cravat ends trailing around his neck. “Why?”
“Because it is dangerous.”
“Ah.” His smile was crooked. “Don’t fash. The men who go are experienced.” He pushed his braces off his shoulders. “And I would leave you a very wealthy widow.”
Her stomach clenched with a visceral emotion. His wickedly handsome face gone forever, his gravelly voice no more … He gripped the back of his shirt and pulled it over his head, and the sight of hard muscle and soft chest hair quieted all thought.
Lucian uncorked the bottle and poured oil into his palm. The scent of rosemary filtered through the air. He reached back, and the slide and flex of his biceps while he massaged his neck was a work of art.
“Do you need assistance?” Her voice came out husky.
He paused. The knowing darkening in his eyes knocked the breath from her.
She went to him on unsteady legs. He hadn’t moved; when she assumed a position behind the chair, his hand was still curved around his nape. He bared it to her with a slight hesitation, and her fingers hovered. He smelled of herbs, of fresh water and the hills, like a creature from the wild in the shape of a man. A well-made man. She touched him, causing a slight ripple of tension. His skin felt slippery and cool beneath her fingertips. She gave a tentative stroke toward the curve of his shoulder, leaving a glossy sheen. A scar marred the back of his right biceps, and she moved her hand down and stroked the twisted skin with special care. Stories were mapped out on this body. If she took Lucian inside her, she would know him in ways that an exchange of thoughts alone would never afford her.
She reached over his shoulder to pick up the bottle, and he leaned back, against her breasts. The room swam before her eyes. She straightened and poured more oil, and pressed her palms into heavy, knotted muscle. “You’re impossibly hard,” she said.
“You could say that,” came his dry reply.
Oil welled between her fingers; heat welled in her belly. Her massage unraveled into an aimless, mindless caress. Lucian reached back and caught her wrist. He pulled her hand down to his chest and held her there, and the fast thuds of his heart beneath her palm quickened the yearning beat of her own.
“I’m not making it any better, am I?” she whispered.
His voice was dark and low. “You have made everything better.”
He laced his fingers through hers and guided her to his side, then onto his lap, until she straddled him. She took him in, the smoky gray of his eyes, and his curls, black-blue like Scottish nights, and she knew it would be like riding a storm.
He dipped his head. It was a careful contact, a light bump of his mouth against hers, searching, like a question. She parted her lips in answer, and then she was lost in a slow, openmouthed kiss. Her fingers sank into his hair, reveling in the thick, silken texture. His hands were on her body, gliding over delicate fabric in warm, soothing strokes until she softened. He held her in his gaze, reading her, when he put his hands under her hems and palmed up along her thighs.
She said out loud what crossed her mind: “You are very good with your hands.”
Dark delight sparked in his eyes. He settled his good hands on her bare bottom and squeezed, and rays of heat fanned through her thighs down into her toes. She arched with a sigh, and he leaned in and pressed a kiss to her throat. “You’re very good to touch,” he said.
He ran his hands up her spine, taking her chemise with him, and the robe, and briefly, the world was a cloud of muslin. She should have felt shy, but Lucian’s gaze drifted over her soft naked shape with such hunger, it made her want to lean back and purr. When he passed his hand over her breasts in a gentle reacquaintance, she pressed a little closer. Feeling the strength in his hands made her feel weak, a new kind of weak she knew only with him and the only type of which she desired more.
Unexpectedly, he rose with her, and she gave a squeak when he sat her bottom down on the cool wooden surface of the table. He stepped between her thighs.