Page 73 of Nothing Compares to the Duke
A little smile played at the edges of her mouth that warmed his insides far more effectively than the fire blazing in the corner of the small cottage.
“Come closer to the fire. You’re still trembling,” he told her. “And your skirt is still soaked.”
“I should clean up.” She held out her blackened fingers.
“Let me.” Rhys retrieved a towel he’d found in the cottage’s kitchen and knelt next to the chair by the fire where Bella had finally seated herself. He knelt in front of her very much as he had at the seaside. He took her fingers one at a time and scrubbed at them with the towel.
Her gaze on him was focused and intense.
He took care with her final finger, lingering because in truth he had no desire to stop touching her. When he finally finished, he lifted her hands up and kissed the back of each softly in turn.
Bella shocked him by turning her hand so that she could stroke his face, running her finger along the edge of his jaw, his chin, and then tracing the curve of his lower lip.
“Will you—”
“Yes,” he told her because whatever she asked of him he’d do. Eagerly.
She let out a trill of throaty laughter. “You don’t know what I’m going to ask.”
“I am yours to command.”
“Kiss me again.”
He stood in front of her and her gaze took him in from head to toe, lingering on his waist, his neck, his mouth. He let her look her fill before reaching for her hand and pulling her to her feet.
Cupping her face, he stroked the petal soft skin of her cheeks and looked into her eyes. Everything he saw reflected his own feelings. Desire. Attraction. Hunger. And something more he dared not name.
As he lowered his mouth to hers, her eyes fluttered closed. He told himself to go slow, but it didn’t work. He kissed her softly but then slid his tongue against her lips. He felt her jolt in response. When she opened to him, he tasted her again and again.
Her hands came up, clutching at his shoulders. He wrapped an arm around her waist and brought her body flush against his. Though he could feel her warmth beneath the fabric of her clothing, he wanted every stitch of it gone.
As if she read his mind, she whispered against his mouth, “Maybe we should get out of these wet clothes.”
Chapter Seventeen
Bella couldn’t pinpoint the moment she’d decided.
Perhaps it had been when he’d knelt before her and rolled down her stockings with a kind of tender reverence. Or when he’d said he thought her clever and she could hear in his voice and see in his gaze that he meant it. Maybe it was when he’d gently cleaned the soot from her fingers and then kissed the back of her hand more sweetly than any man ever had.
All she knew for certain was that she wanted him. She had for so long. But not like this. At eighteen, she’d been smitten. Blind to his faults, enamored with his masculine beauty, and charmed by the vulnerability he showed only to her.
Now her desire was something else. The intensity was new but so was the way she admired him. Not because she believed him to be perfect but because she knew he wished to be better.
“Have I shocked you?” she asked quietly. A tiny inner voice of doubt told her she’d misread everything.
He stroked a hand down her back. “Not at all. I only have one fear.”
“What is it?”
Lowering his head, he brushed his lips against her cheek before whispering in her ear. “That you’ll change your mind.”
He loosened his hold then, taking a step back, keeping just one hand at her waist. His gaze held warmth, desire, but she knew he was leaving this choice to her.
Rather than answer with words, Bella reached back and freed the buttons at the nape of her gown. She pulled at her bodice until it slid off of her shoulders.
For a while Rhys simply watched her hungrily, and Bella found she didn’t mind having his gaze on her. She was watching him too, gauging his reaction.
“May I help?” he asked softly.
