A brief knock, and the door opened. Her belly clenched. Lucian stood frozen, his face in the shadows. A reddish glow delineated his still form, and for a mad moment, the Prince of Darkness came to mind. Then he closed the door and moved toward the bed, slowly, his expression calm, but she was instinctively pressing back into the pillows. His black silk robe exposed a V of bare chest and she hadn’t expected there to be a pelt. When he sat on the edge of the mattress, her breathing became embarrassingly loud. He didn’t notice. His gaze was roving over her unbound hair and it consumed all his attention, drew him closer, transfixed. He reached for a lock and lifted it carefully, his eyes examining the satiny strand as if it were some treasured artwork, and the unguarded reverence in his expression stunned her a little. He must have realized it, too, for faint color crested on his cheekbones and he pulled away. He drew the coverlet back from her trembling body and patted the space next to him. “Come sit with me.”
His voice was low and husky, and it made her shake harder. She moved awkwardly and settled at a proper foot’s distance away from him. With casual ease, Lucian slid his left arm around her waist and pulled her flush against his side as he leaned across her to pick up a champagne glass.
“No, thank you.” Her head was already swimming, from the fresh pine soap scent on his neck, from the intimate feel of a hard, warm torso against hers. At least he wore a pair of soft trousers beneath his robe.
He shrugged and returned the glass to the tray. His hand had moved down from the dip of her waist over her hip, and she was acutely aware of the proprietary splay of his fingers on her thigh.
His gaze glided to the flutter of her pulse in the side of her neck. The heat she found banking in the depths of his eyes burned through her courage as though it were paper. She may have made an anxious sound. He brushed a loose strand of hair back behind her ear, then lingered to caress the delicate spot below with his thumb.
“You know what is to happen between us?” he murmured.
His bluntness made her cheeks burn. “Yes.” She was still uncertain what to do. She had decided to ignore Ruth Smythers’s Instructions and Advice for the Young Bride.
Rough fingertips skated along the curve of her jaw, and the gentle friction against her soft skin sent sparks across her vision.
“You’re very pretty,” she heard him say, the words emerging clumsily and unpracticed. “In the church today … when I saw you, I thought you were the prettiest lass I’d ever seen.”
She said the first coherent thing that came to mind: “My dress was ghastly.”
He stroked her throat. “That so?”
“My mother,” she said. “She chose it. She chooses all of my gowns.”
“Have new ones made, then,” he said. “The kind you like.”
His warm hand curved around her nape.
“I should love a few new dresses,” she said weakly. The way he was looking at her mouth, dark and intent, made her lips tingle with a phantom touch.
“Order as many as you want,” he said, sounding amused. “But try to not mention your mother while we’re in bed.”
A nervous laugh burst from her. Was laughing allowed in bed? All thinking ceased when he leaned in and kissed her. His tongue lightly moved against hers, the sensation still so alien and intriguing, she held still to absorb it. So silky, so forbidden. His hands felt dangerously strong, but his mouth was soft. She tentatively matched his movements, and his grip on her thigh and neck tightened. It should have startled her, but a part of her liked it; she liked being held so firmly by him, but that, too, was confusing. The kiss slowly melted into another, and another, until a drugging heat sank through her lower body. Somehow, she was on her back, her head lolling in the crook of his arm while their tongues were sliding together. She was half-trapped beneath a heavy, muscled body, but he was intoxicatingly warm and solid, inviting her to cling to him. She didn’t; she turned her face away, panting and with her lips sensitive and swollen. He lowered his head to her neck. The featherlight touch of his lips against her pulse point kindled a throb between her legs, an elemental beat that lulled her deeper into hazy stupor. Too late came the awareness that he had undone the bows down the front of her nightgown. His fingertips were grazing over bare skin. She stilled under his explorations, her languor fading. His hand shaped around the heavy round weight of her right breast, and he made a sound low in his throat. His eyes locked with hers. “I want to see you,” he said hoarsely. “All right?”