Page 58 of Enticing Odds
Wide, dark, intense eyes stared back at him. Her lips were slightly parted, wet and swollen. Matthew listened to the uneven breath emanating from between them, watched her lovely chest rise and fall. He reveled in the moment, the overwhelming tension tightening his core, his cock straining against the fall of his trousers.
He wanted to ask her—how? How could she want him?
But then she took a step back and removed one glove, a sly smile upon those lips. Matthew wished to kiss her again, but he waited.
She removed the other glove, and, without looking away, tossed them to the side, where they landed upon a serviceable but unremarkable chair. She then went to work at unfastening her bodice. Her slim, graceful fingers were quick and assured about her neck, but the procedure was still agonizingly slow.
Damn ladies’ fashion, and hang its obsession with long lines of buttons, Matthew thought, his heartbeat echoing in his head.
He swallowed.
Then the bodice fell away, revealing a bright white chemise underneath an impossibly smooth and tidy corset. He tightened his fists, resisting the urge to go to her once more, to feel the lace of the trim, to palm the weight of her breasts and ghost his fingers over the hardened nipples poking against the thin fabric.
She turned away, shrugging out of the bodice and depositing it upon her gloves on the chair in the corner.
At that, he could wait no longer.
Matthew crossed the room and gathered her against him, kissing her temple, her hair, deeply breathing that floral scent. He wanted it to intoxicate him, to take him away someplace where his mind was empty of words, where he thought only in pictures and felt in colors.
“Doctor,” she said, gently trying to extricate herself. “Patience, patience,” she advised, twisting about to free an arm so she might reach for her hair.
“No,” Matthew heard himself growl in a thick voice he didn’t quite mark as his own.
“No?” Lady Caplin gasped incredulously, hairpin in hand.
But whatever scold she wished to deliver was forestalled; Matthew was beyond thinking like a man of reason. His whole life he’d been patient. Well, no longer.
He hoisted her easily, one arm under her legs, the other around her back, crushing her against himself, taking her mouth once again with a slow, deliberate determination. After a moment her rigidity melted away.
Matthew heard the hairpin plink against the wooden floor.
With his lips still upon hers, he crossed the short distance to the room’s tidy bed. He lowered her atop it, then joined her, bracketing her legs with his knees. He leaned back, but only to tear off his jacket and toss it to the floor. And then, keeping himself under only the most tenuous of control, just enough so as to not tear her garments and upset her, he fiddled about the waist of her skirts, undoing each hook with relish. She lifted herself obligingly, allowing him to slide them off in a rustle of silk and crinoline.
“I’m perfectly able to remove my own gown,” she breathed, pushing herself up on her elbows to watch him.
Matthew deposited the unwieldy mass of fabric upon the chair, then ripped off his own neckcloth and added it to the growing pile, before removing his shirt.
“At least, I am with that gown. Or at least…” Her words trailed off, her eyes softening as she regarded him.
Matthew’s skin heated under her scrutiny. He straightened up, desperate to ignore the throbbing of his body, the insistence of his erection.
“Oh,” she repeated, her voice lower, huskier. Idly she traced a finger along her neck, back and forth, lower and lower. “You’re marvelous,” she sighed.
The heat spread across his shoulders, the back of his neck. Did she jest? A lazy lioness, toying with her prey?
Matthew chuckled, a low, self-deprecating sound. “Surely not I, my lady.”
Her face changed. She sat up slowly, reaching for his hand.
“You question my judgment?”
She pinned him with her toffee eyes, strong and unyielding.
Matthew’s heart seized. Embarrassed, he removed his spectacles with his free hand, rather than open his mouth and look a fool.
Her gaze fell to his hand in hers. She gently thumbed his knuckles.
“I beg your pardon, it’s only just… well.” Matthew finally found his voice—halting and uncertain, but still his. “‘Marvelous’ seems somewhat of an exaggeration.”
