Page 80 of Counting on a Countess
“Woman of fire,” he murmured, holding one coppery curl between his fingers. “A phoenix.”
She’d been called many names on account of her bright red hair and used to wish she’d been born a brunette, but seeing the desire sharpening Kit’s features, she wanted only to be herself.
“Will your lips burn me?” he mused softly, his mouth hovering over hers. “Shall you turn me to ash?”
“Perhaps we’ll both go up in flames,” she answered breathlessly.
“We’ll burn together.” With one hand, he cupped the back of her head, and sensation bloomed at this simple touch.
Their lips met hotly. The time for tentative exploration was over. His tongue delved into her mouth and she stroked it with her own. She clung to his shoulders as he wrapped his arm around her waist and pressed their bodies close. They devoured each other. The kiss was wild, unchained from propriety or artifice. He felt hard and taut against her—the length of his thighs, his broad torso, the solidity of his arms—and she willingly fell into him as she spun into greater and greater pleasure.
Heat spread across her back, soaking into her skin. Only when silk fabric bunched and sagged did she realize he’d undone the fastenings at the back of her dress, and the warmth she felt came from the fire behind her.
She pulled back enough to send him a wry look.
He lifted a brow but there was no apology in his expression.
All his worldly experience didn’t matter to her anymore. A rake and a virgin—they were who they were. Yet they were also so much more than their conscribed roles.
“Help me out of the rest of it,” she whispered urgently.
Together, they stripped her out of her gown, her stays, and her petticoat. In a few moments, she wore only her chemise, stockings, and garters. When she bent down to untie them, he stopped her hands.
“Leave them on,” he said huskily, causing arousal to flood her body.
He eyed her greedily as she stood in a nearly transparent chemise. His gaze stroked along her breasts before skimming lower. She looked down and saw the red of her woman’s curls barely concealed by the fabric. Earlier, she’d been in a very similar situation when she’d stood before the fireplace in Kit’s room. She hadn’t covered herself then, and she wouldn’t now.
She tilted up her chin. “It’s time for me to see you, as well.” She toyed with the buttons of his waistcoat, dipping her fingertips between them to feel the fine lawn of his shirt and his body beneath.
A smile curved one corner of his mouth. “At your pleasure.” He quickly shucked his coat and let it fall to the floor, then went to work undoing his waistcoat. That, too, was tossed to the ground, which was also the fate of his neckcloth. Before she could admire him in his shirtsleeves, he pulled the garment off over his head, completely baring his torso.
“Oh,” she exhaled.
She’d seen shirtless men before. One didn’t live in the country without witnessing bare-chested men in the fields or working on their ships. And while some of those men’s bodies had been pleasing to her eye, none of them made her lose her breath the way Kit’s did.
He was lean and hewn, with each muscle sharply defined, from the breadth of his shoulders to his pectorals and lower to his flat abdomen. Blond hair curled over his chest and wound down to a thin line that vanished beneath the waistband of his breeches.
His was a body that had been forged by combat, and though he had left his service behind, he hadn’t lost his warrior’s physique or potency. The war had touched him in other ways. Puckered flesh denoted old injuries—a slash across his right bicep, a round mark on the back of his left shoulder from a bullet—proof that he wasn’t merely a reckless libertine but rather a man who had fought and survived.
Unable to stop herself, she stepped close and ran her hands over him. His skin was iron hot, and he seared her as she touched him. He went tight beneath her palms. When she stroked along his stomach, the muscles there contracted and quivered. He sucked in a breath.
“You’re putting me under a spell,” he said hoarsely as she fingered the dip above his hip bones.
“I’m exploring,” she answered. Her hand stopped just before she reached the column of his erection pressing against the front of his breeches.
“Let me be your guide.” He covered her hand with his. But he waited for her nod before he moved them both down lower, until she cupped his length. He rasped, “That’s my cock, love. And it wants inside you.”
Fire coursed from her hand up her arm and all throughout her body and between her legs. Urged on by a primal need, she stroked him, learning his size and shape. As she caressed him, he muttered curses and prayers. The look on his face was one of tormented bliss.
“I need to feel you,” she breathed, “with nothing between us.”
“Not yet,” he said with a rueful chuckle, “or this production will be over before the curtain rises.” His smile turned wry. “It’s been a very long time since I’ve felt anyone’s touch besides my own.”
The image of him stroking himself made her dizzy. Her breasts felt acutely sensitive and her nipples tightened.
“I saw so much at the club.” She licked her dry lips. “But I don’t know what to do next.”
His eyelids lowered. “Do you know what I’d like to do right now?”
