Page 69 of The Good Girl's Guide to Rakes
“I want that, too.”
With the last hook finally undone, she moved away just enough to remove her gown, and then she wore only her stays, shift, and drawers. Her breasts rose up above the top of her stays, the thin fabric of her shift providing no barrier so he could look his fill of her.
She stared at him with undisguised lust. His cock was as hard as iron, his breath moving in and out roughly.
Celeste took a step toward him. To his astonishment, he stepped backward.
She frowned, then moved forward once more. Once again, his body disobeyed him, and he moved back. The chaise bumped against his calves, halting his progress.
“Don’t you...” She wet her lips, the sight of which arrowed heat through him. “Don’t you want me?”
“God, love,” he rasped, “I want you so much I’m half-blind with it. But . . .” Was he actually going to do this? Apparently, he was. “We need to talk first.”
“Talk?” She blinked. “In the books by the Lady of Dubious Quality, they almost never talkbefore.”
“This is the real word, and in the real world no one can simply make assumptions about what the other person wants. Not without a conversation.”
She set her hands on her hips, which had the unfortunate effect of making her chest thrust forward. How was he supposed to be rational when all he could do was salivate over her lovely breasts?
“Then let’s have a conversation,” she said.
“First and foremost,” he answered as levelly as one could when presented with a half-naked woman within touching distance, “do you want this? I need to hear the words that you want to be intimate with me.”
“I do,” she answered at once. “And... what about you?”
“Can’t remember wanting anyone more than I want you,” he rasped. He knew what desire was, but never like this, never this all-consuming hunger to be inside someone, tojoinwith someone.
A pleased flush stole across her cheeks and even spread across the bridge of her nose. Still, she said in a crisp voice, “I assume you know the basics of preventing conception.” At his nod, she said, “Then we’ll be safe, and fulfill our desires. It’s what you and I want.”
“And what about what your future husband wants?”
Her expression darkened. “This doesn’t affect him. It’smybody. I can do with it as I please. Besides,” she added fiercely, “I can have sex and still marry. Men do it all the time.”
“Much as I hate to point this out, it isn’t the same. The horrible truth is that women are held to different standards.”
“I reject those standards,” she threw back. “Even in Ratcliff, my choices were never my own. But this,” she continued, waving down to her half-clad form, “for now, this is mine. No matter what happens in the future, tonight, I want to rule my own body and my own pleasure. And I choose you for me.”
“Because tonight you’re the hedonistic Salome.” Lust and yearning coursed through him—forCeleste.
“Because Salome ismeand I’m her,” she countered. “She’s always been within me, and now I have the chance to inhabit all the parts of myself.”
“I’m glad,” he said in a low, urgent voice. “Glad that you don’t have to live apart from yourself.”
“For tonight, at least.” She tipped up her chin. “We’ve conversed enough. Do you want to fuck me or not?”
He jolted with arousal even as warnings shouted in his mind. “A better man would say no.”
“I don’t want a better man,” she said wryly. “I want you.”
“Touché.” He bowed, but when he straightened, all gentlemanly presence fell away. “Now turn around so I can get your stays off. If we’re doing this, we’re doing it right, and that means I want you naked.Now.”
Celeste’s heart beat so fast she was nearly faint. But she steadfastly clung to consciousness as she presented Kieran with her back.
He quickly unlaced her, and the moment he finished undoing her stays, she tossed them and her shift aside and spun to face him. She wrapped her arms around Kieran’s shoulders and kissed him. It wasn’t the most graceful of kisses, more enthusiastic and eager than skilled, but he didn’t seem to mind as his lips met hers with maddened need. Within a moment, they found their rhythm, a ravenous give-and-take. His tongue stroked hers and she opened eagerly for him, loving the animal rumbles of approval that reverberated up from deep within him.
His hands stroked along her back and then along the curve of her waist. One of his palms found her breast, his caresses summoning sensation so acute she gasped into his mouth.
“Holy fucking hell,” he swore. “You feel so good.”
