Page 71 of Teach a Rogue New Tricks
“Green,” he said, but he really meantyou. That’s what he’d fill his room with—her scent, her laugh, her smile. Only her. He kissed her nose. Tonight, he’d fill the room with memories of her because he would never have what he wanted more and more by the moment—her clothes draped over chairs, her books scattered across tables, all the little accoutrements and accessories of daily living. He wantedthosewith her.
He wouldn’t have them because she wanted something else, and he refused to be selfish when it came to Ada Cavendish.
He turned her about until she faced away from him, then set his hands at the base of her neck and made short work of the top button of her gown. It had been some time since he’d disrobed a woman, but his fingers had not forgotten the trick of it. They undid another three then four until her gown gaped and dropped off her shoulders, and the amount of her radiant skin available to his touch grew. Shoulder blades like wings, an elegant spine disappearing into muslin. He kissed his way down it.
“You can help,” he said between kisses. “Send me things. From your travels, your grand adventures.”
“What kinds of things?” A breathy question as her head tilted to the side.
“Bloody rocks for all I care.” As long as her palms, at some point, had warmed them. “Send something that tells me what you enjoyed most about the place. How you smiled or gasped or laughed at this painting or that building, or some animal. And I’ll place it on that desk with all the other rocks from all the other places you’ve been.” He kissed back up her spine and settled his lips at the base of her neck where it sloped into her shoulder.
“There will be many. Places.”
“I’m counting on it. I’ll count my rocks, one, two, three.” He dragged his lips up the curve of her neck and whispered in her ear, “Less talking now, though, love. Let me give you mementos ofthisadventure.”
She shivered, and the movement melted the gown right off her. She stepped out of it and turned in his arms. The moonlight made a ghost of her sheer shift.
He hooked his finger over the neckline and pulled, further revealing one round breast and dark nipple to the night. He ducked his head and sucked it between his teeth. She gasped, her head falling back on her neck.
He cupped the back of her neck with one hand, pressing her body to his with the other. He lifted his head and took her mouth with a fervor that felt like a fever, aching and hot.
With heavy breaths he said, “Send books, too. Ones I have no damned idea how to read.”
“Yes,” she promised, her hands threading into his hair.
Her eyelids fluttered down, hiding her gaze. “I am experienced. Yet… I am not. Your many mistresses will have known how to fulfill your needs, but I—”
“My needs be damned. What doyoulike?”
Her eyes popped open, full of doubt.
He traced his thumb across her collarbone. “Do you like that?”
She nodded.
He pulled his thumb down the plump side of her breast. “And this?”
Her eyes closed on a body-racking tremble. “Yes.”
He ran the pad of his thumb over her nipple. “And this?”
“Oh, yes,” she moaned.
“Good. I like it, too.” The words scratched against his throat, escaping raw into the midnight air. “What else do you like?”
She pulled her bottom lip between her thumb and forefinger, deep in thought. “I would like you to… undress.” Her gaze dipped to his naked neck, the patch of revealed skin where his shirt hung open. “Yes. Undress”
“Very well.” He stepped away from the bed and fully into a beam of light shining through the window.
The moon illuminated everything perfectly—her, the bed she sat on, the barren room, himself. He was a man who had done dastardly deeds, a man who was sorry for it with his entire soul, a man trying to be better, and certainly a man who would strip naked to his very soul to please the woman standing before him.
* * *
Ada twisted her hands in her lap. They itched to push the neckline of her loose shift up over her shoulder, hiding her semi-nakedness, but she would not since she’d just asked a man to undress before her. She could not very well cover herself up under such circumstances. Wouldn’t be fair.
Besides, she still wanted his mouth there, on her breast, where it had been before. If she left it visible, he couldn’t forget.
Standing in a puddle of moonlight, Cass pulled his shirt over his head. And as his fingers worked quickly at his fall, she studied the ripple of muscle at his shoulders and biceps, the tight planes of muscle at his chest, and the ridges of his abdomen, swallowed by the dark fabric of his trousers. A dusting of dark hair covered his chest and trailed down his belly, disappearing into the trousers as well.
