“It’s beautiful,” she said.
“Irises are.”
Her eyes flew from the flower to his face. She couldn’t help it.
He held out his hand. “Come,” he said. “We should eat.”
It was an apology. She saw it right there in his outstretched hand. She just wished she knew what he was apologizing for.
Stop, she told herself. Stop questioning everything. For once she was going to let herself be happy without needing to know why. She’d fallen in love with her husband, and that was a good thing. He’d brought her unimaginable pleasure in bed. That was a good thing, too.
It was enough. It had to be enough.
She took his hand. It was large and strong and warm and everything a hand ought to be. Everything a hand ought to be? She let out a little burst of absurd laughter. Good gracious, she was growing melodramatic.
“What is so funny?” he asked.
She shook her head. How was she to tell him that she had been measuring the perfection of hands, and his topped the list?
“Tell me,” he said, his fingers tightening around hers. “I insist.”
“No.” She kept shaking her head, her thoughts making her voice round and full of mirth.
“Tell me,” he growled, pulling her closer.
Her lips were now pressed together hard, the corners desperately fighting a smile.
His lips drew close to her ear. “I have ways of making you talk.”
Something wicked jumped within her, something greedy and lush.
His teeth found her earlobe, softly scraping the tender skin. “Tell me, Iris . . .”
“Your hands,” she said, barely recognizing her own voice.
He stilled, but she could feel his smile against her skin. “My hands?”
“Mmm.”
They spanned her waist. “These hands?”
“Yes.”
“You like them?”
She nodded, then gasped as he slid them lower, cupping the gentle curve of her bottom.
He brushed his mouth against her jaw, along her neck, and then back to the corner of her lips. “What else do you like?”
“Everything.” The word spilled forth without warning, and she probably should have felt embarrassed, but she didn’t. She couldn’t. Not with him.
Richard chuckled, the sound full and solid with male pride. His hands moved to the front of her body, each one grasping a dangling end of the bow knot she’d tied in the belt of her dressing gown.
His lips touched her ear. “Are you my present?”
Before she could respond, he gave a sharp tug, staring down at her with hot desire as the robe came loose.
“Richard,” she whispered, but he had already moved on, sliding those wonderful wonderful hands up along her body, pausing for an agonizing moment on her breasts before reaching her shoulders and pushing the robe away. It felt to the floor in a cloud of pale blue silk.
Iris stood before him in another one of her decadent trousseau nightgowns. It was not a practical garment; it would not even pretend to keep her warm at night. But she could not remember ever feeling so womanly, so desirable and daring.
“You are so beautiful,” Richard whispered, skimming his hand back down to her breast. His palm teased the tip, moving in a slow circle over the silk of her gown.
“I’m—” She cut herself off.
Richard look down at her, one finger touching her chin until her eyes met his. His brows rose in question.
“It’s nothing,” Iris murmured. She’d almost protested, almost said that she wasn’t beautiful, because she wasn’t. A woman did not reach the age of one-and-twenty without knowing if she was beautiful or not. But then she’d thought— No. No. If he thought she was beautiful, she damn well wasn’t going to contradict. If he thought she was beautiful, then she was beautiful, at least on this night, in this room.
“Kiss me,” she whispered.
His eyes flared with heat, and his face dipped toward hers. When their lips touched, Iris felt a jolt of desire at the very core of her womanhood. He’d kissed her there just a few hours before. She let out a little moan. Just the thought of it made her weak.
But this time he was kissing her lips. His tongue swept in, tickling the sensitive skin at the roof of her mouth, daring her to respond in kind. She did, her desire making her bold, and when he groaned and pulled her more tightly against him, her body thrilled with power. She moved her hands to his chest and shoved his coat from his shoulders, tugging it down as he yanked his arms from the sleeves.
She wanted to feel him again. She was beyond wanton; it had been mere hours since the last time, and already she wanted to pull him down to her bed, to feel his weight pinning her against the mattress.