She focused on the tub, trying not to make a total fool of herself. “I’m just really tired, so exhausted I can’t think. I’m sure there’s a way for me to get out of the dress without asking you for help, but I couldn’t think of it.”
“Bébé, there is no need for you to be upset about asking for help. I don’t mind in the least.”
Elie crossed to the tub and thankfully worked the faucet, making sense out of the complicated knobs. At once steam began to rise as water flowed into the deep bath. He beckoned her to him.
“Come here and turn around.”
Elie sat on the edge of the tub, his thighs spread wide, leaving very little to the imagination. The towel didn’t hide much and he didn’t seem to care. He didn’t ask again, just sat there with the steam rising behind him and those dark eyes fixed on her face.
Heart pounding, she obeyed, albeit slower than she would have liked. It was very daunting to force herself to be so close to him when he wore nothing but a towel and he was going to undo the buttons of her wedding dress. She’d had far too many fantasies about this man.
She had little resistance against Elie Archambault. She had known that the moment his shadow had collided with hers. If she was honest, even before that, when she’d spoken with him in the café and later in the restaurant. How many times? She had read every article and collected every magazine she could find that featured him in it. When he was photographed coming out of the kink clubs, Brielle found her imagination running wild and she was always at the center of the fantasy with Elie as her dominant.
Brielle was terrified he could read her mind. Could an Archambault do that? Did they have that kind of psychic gift? All riders had gifts. She couldn’t control the blush that spread over her body so she kept her head down as she approached him and turned her back to him the moment she got close.
Elie wrapped his arm around her waist and drew her between his thighs. Thankfully, her dress was A-lined and had enough material to give her a bit of a respite so she didn’t feel his bare skin against her, but that didn’t stop the brush of flames as his knuckles touched her back when he began threading the buttons through the loops, allowing the material to part.
She hadn’t worn a bra because it was built into the dress. She worked out and dieted carefully, but she still had a more-than-generous butt. It was there no matter what she did. Firm yes, but still generous. And she did have breasts no matter what Elie had implied earlier. The fact that she did always made her look two sizes bigger than she was. In spite of what she was told, that was not the first place she lost weight. Her butt and breasts were always the last place.
Great. The moment Elie had the dress opened all the way down the back, he would see she wasn’t at all what he was used to. A small groan escaped before she could stop it. She was just too tired to censor the way she needed to.
“Ma femme, talk to me. What are you so worried about?”
He reached up and pulled the dress from her shoulders. She caught at it to keep it from falling from her breasts.
“You can’t wear your dress in the bathtub, Brielle.” There was a hint of amusement in his voice. “I’m not going to assault you when you’re this damn tired. Let me take off the dress and get you in the bath.”
He was going to see her naked body sooner or later. It wasn’t as if she could hide from him forever. She might as well get it over with. It wasn’t as if she really cared that much, did she? He’d apologized to her there in Jean-Claude’s sitting room. He’d written her so many letters of apology. He’d made it clear both to Stefano and to her that he had been attracted to her long before the Archambault family insisted they marry. Why did she have such a problem?
She dropped her hands and allowed him to peel the wedding gown from her body, leaving her in a barely there thong, garter, stockings and heels.
“Your heels add another three inches?” There was laughter in his voice.
“Not three,” she denied, casting a quick look over her shoulder.
She shouldn’t have looked at him. He skimmed his hands down her back and then shaped her bottom, cradling her firm cheeks, his thumbs sliding over her skin. Just the touch, skin on skin, sent electricity snapping through her nerve endings and arching over her, a deluge of flames falling like sheets of fire to envelop her in a scorching heat.
“Three,” he affirmed. “Don’t move.” His breath bathed her ear in warmth as he spoke.
She could see him in the mirror as he stood up slowly behind her, his much larger frame towering above her. Elie reached around her and took her hands in his, turning her body halfway so she was facing the large sink with the giant mirror.