Stilling under her touch, his dark eyes flashed with desire as they searched carefully over her face. “Whatever you wish.”
Every bit of her urged her to lower her gaze, but she would not be meek. She wanted this.
“Will you hold me?” She could hardly believe what she was about to say, but she said it anyway, “On the bed?”
His gaze gentled even as desire fired within it. “Are you certain?”
“Yes.” She let her muscles relax and held on to him not with any sort of fear, but with the surety that Edward would never harm her. Not as so many had done before him. “I can’t promise you any more than that.”
Though his body hummed with need, he said, “My only wish is your happiness. It always has been.”
Mary was certain Edward’s motives were guided by some pain that was integral to his soul. He truly believed all he longed for was her happiness. She would not argue the point. Not when he was regarding her with such desire and tenderness. She nodded assent for both of them and said, “Come, then.”
He took a step back, letting his muscular arms trail through her fingertips. He slipped his hand around hers, then started for the bed. Something, instigated by any other man, that would have driven fear into her wits.
She tugged against his hand. “Wait.”
“Mary?”
“I wish . . . I wish . . .” It was impossible for her to give words to her need, so she reached to his waist and before she could stop herself grabbed fistfuls of his white shirt and slipped it free of his trousers.
He held absolutely still as she worked the fabric up his torso, his jetty eyes riveted to her face.
“Lift your arms,” she said softly.
At her command, he slowly raised his arms above his head. The muscles of his waist and chest rippled into new valleys and peaks of living iron. It was a miracle of creation in a fluid series of movements. Mary’s mouth opened slightly as she took in his beauty.
She’d never seen anything like him. Her own breasts, covered in verdant silk, caressed his stomach lightly as she stepped closer, reached up onto tiptoe, and tugged the shirt above his head.
Gallantly, he bent so she might whisk it from his body. The fabric hanging limply in her hands was heated from his skin. She was suddenly overcome by a desire to bury her face in it and drink in his scent, but then she let the shirt drop to the floor. After all, she needn’t turn to his garments for his warmth. He was there for her to touch as she pleased.
With her eyes she devoured his muscles, sinuous planes, and dusky taut nipples, and she could just make out the faint tracing of veins in his strong arms. Arms that could crush or give succor to her, depending on his whim.
A slight trail of dark hair started at his navel and headed down into his black trousers. She couldn’t help but think of the keepers for one moment. They had been foul and cruel with bodies given to indulgence and domination. There had been nothing beautiful about them.
Edward was a thing of beauty and she wanted to see all of him. To see the clear difference between him and the keepers.
Wordlessly, she reached for his buttons. Hands shaking, she slipped the ivory circles free. She unfolded the flap baring the soft skin stretched taut over his pelvis and the darker hair just above his sex.
With every touch, her heart thundered in her ears. She kept expecting him to grab her and tear her clothes off, but he stood silently under her ministrations, giving her complete and free rein over him.
Empowered, she felt herself slide her hands into the waistband of his trousers and work the molded fabric down his thighs. The black wool peeled from his powerful legs. She couldn’t quite bring herself to look at his sex yet. That part of the male anatomy had been a tool of pain. Right now she only wished to contemplate the other, more appealing parts of his flesh.
The fabric caught about his knees and to move it any farther, she’d have to kneel . . . and . . . A laugh rippled from her throat.
“Are you laughing at me, sweetheart?” His voice was a whiskey rumble in the firelight.
She swallowed back another laugh but couldn’t quite manage to conceal her mirth. “Of course not, but . . .” She leaned away from his glorious warmth and pointedly looked up into his bemused face. “I suppose it would have been more logical to remove your boots first.”
“Oh, my sweet Mary, what does logic have to do with you and me?” He reached out and tucked a lock of hair behind her ear. “Would you like me to remove them?”
She savored his intimate touch. “No.” She wished to keep going in her new sense of discovery, not stand by placidly and watch. “But I would be grateful if you sat upon the bed.”
He considered his trousers bunched about his knees and then looked to the large four-poster bed across the wide room. A slight look of consternation creased his brow before he smiled wickedly. “Whatever my lady commands.”
And he began to waddle.
It was the only word for his ridiculous movement. Edward Barrons, Duke of Fairleigh, waddled, half naked, to his bed. Only someone of his nature could have still appeared dignified while his bound boots shuffled across the burgundy rug.
Mary clapped a hand over her mouth, suppressing a giggle. Then she caught sight of his hard buttocks, the muscles shifting and tightening with each step, and her urge to laugh died away. There was something about the way his body moved that evoked the deepest need within her. How could it be so hard yet lithe?
He placed his hands atop his thick, snowy covers and hoisted his knees up onto the bed, giving her a quick view of his arse. She quickly averted her gaze so she would not bear witness to anything she wasn’t quite ready for.
He shifted about on the bed, then called, “Is this what you wished?” Palms resting on the bed, he eyed her carefully, waiting for her will.
She eyed him, her hands clasped before her. “Yes. Now stay right there.”
“Certainly.”
Mary crossed the space quickly before her burning nerves could play false with her. Only, this time, she couldn’t quite avoid looking at his sex as she neared his long, treelike legs. It wasn’t completely erect, of that she was certain. The length was hard, but not pressed up against his belly. Rather, it bobbed in the most amusing manner. As she gazed on it, it seemed to be aware of her attention. It gained ever so slightly in size, swelling the head and stretching the girth.
Good lord, the way it moved . . . She had nothing like it upon her own body, and there, just responding to her gaze—well, it seemed impossible that she had ever been afraid of such a thing. For as it moved, it seemed to be greeting her, asking in a hopeful manner for her attention.
“You don’t have to do this,” he said softly.
She jerked her attention away from his groin and up to his face. It was creased with an odd mixture of concern and desire. “You mistake me, Edward.”
“I do?”
“It is interest, not fear, that has me so transfixed.”
“I’m glad I don’t frighten you.”
“You see, I’ve never been able to look upon a man on my own terms. It has always been on his.”
For a moment, Edward’s face darkened, as if he would go out right then and kill the men who had harmed her. Instead of expressing fury, he said, “I promise, I shan’t touch you. I won’t do a damned thing you don’t ask me to.”
“And if I asked you to stand on your head?”
Edward began to scoot toward the edge of the bed so he might stand again. “It shall look rather ridiculous, but if it is what you require—”
She pressed her hands to his bare shoulders, urging him not to move. “No, no,” she said, laughing. “But I am glad to know you would go to such lengths at my command.”
“Any lengths, Mary, to see you happy.”
“Oh, Edward.” She focused on his soft lips, recalling their pleasure and longing for them again. “You say such foolish things.”
“I say only what is true.” He smiled a lopsided smile. “Not something I can always claim.”
She’d never seen such a boyish expression on his face. And it was for her. Somehow in her presence he’d found a part of himself he must have lost. The realization was difficult to take in. She’d long ago thought she’d never be worthy of a man like him. Not after what had happened to her. But when he looked at her like that, she hoped. Oh, god, she hoped.
And for the first time in as long as she could recall, her heart ached with longing to be loved. He could love her. Couldn’t he?
It was an absurd thing to wish.
“Yes, well . . .” She yanked her gaze from his face and forced herself to look at his boots. “First things first.”
She leaned back a little and placed her hands together, eyeing him with the tenacity of a determined schoolmistress. “Will you extend your legs, sir?”
Without a word, he stuck his long legs into the air. “Are you sure you don’t desire help? Boots are devilish tricky.”
She arched a brow at him. “I think I can manage a pair of boots.”
“As you say.”
Mary approached his large foot, sizing up the piece of ornately sewn leather with a mixture of determination and suspicion. She grasped the heel and toe of his right boot, then tugged at the polished bit of handy work. To no avail. She scowled down at the offending item. It was all that stood in her way of beholding Edward entirely nude and she would not be defeated.
She readjusted her grip and yanked. The boot remained in place but
she
nearly fell upon her face, she’d tugged so hard. “Good grief!”
His mouth twisted up in decided amusement. “Corsets are your curse. Boots are mine.”
Mary wiped a hand over her forehead. Good lord, no wonder gentlemen required manservants.
“May I?”
“No,” she countered firmly.
He clamped his lips shut, though the corners were twitching.
She could do this. She’d gotten herself out of an asylum, crossed half of Britain companionless, and learned to fire a pistol with enough accuracy to blow a man’s head off. She could certainly manage to slip off a pair of gentleman’s boots.
She blew out a breath, then came to a less than dignified decision. Hoisting up her skirts, she swung one leg over his two extended ones. Her hoops bobbed and swayed in a most alarming manner, nearly sending her keeling over like a sail lost to a good wind. Still, she managed to plant her slippered feet onto the floor and grip the damnable boot. Gritting her teeth, she yanked forward with all her might. For one second, she was certain the leather piece of torture wouldn’t yield, and then with a slight sucking sound it popped free and she wheeled forward, boot in hands.
She faced him with triumph. “You see!”
He beamed at her, white teeth flashing. “I do indeed. You have vanquished my boot with admirable aplomb.”
She dropped the boot with a satisfying thunk to the floor. “One more.”
He gave a nod, clearly wise enough not to offer any more assistance.
Mary quickly mounted his other leg and whisked the second boot off with a much surer motion. She smirked at the black object.
“May I lower my legs now?”
“Of course.” She dropped the boot to the floor to join its mate. “And now you are free for me to look upon—”
“My trousers.”
“Oh. Oh, yes.” She’d forgotten his black trousers were still about his knees and calves. An unpleasant sensation danced at the edges of her memory, threatening to ruin the whole moment. But this was Edward. Not
them.
Mary drew in a slow breath. There was nothing for it. If she wished to draw the trousers off herself, the easiest way would be to kneel.
Her head floated strangely as she lowered herself to the soft rug. Tentatively, she gripped the wool about his knees, then tugged it down his calves and over his feet. His knees were at her eye level . . . and his groin. She couldn’t quite fight the strange, exhilarating desire to trail her fingertips up his calves and thighs to that hard organ and investigate.
“Only what you want, Mary,” he said, his voice rough but controlled.
Only what
she
wanted. She smiled to herself. “Lie back for me.”
Edward swung his body horizontally onto the soft bedding and lay relaxed, one arm propped beneath his head and the other casually at his side, as if lying nude before a woman’s gaze was the most natural thing in the world.
Perhaps to him it was.
Mary bit her inner cheek and worked it for a moment. What she wished to do warred hard within her as she recalled past experiences. “I’d like to touch you but I don’t . . . I don’t wish you to touch me in turn.”
“Of course.” He gazed up at her with half-closed eyes, those sooty depths hot under his hooded lids.
Mary took a step forward, the hem of her skirt brushing the bed. Then, inch by careful inch, she extended her hand. Slowly, she placed her palm over his heated thigh. She splayed her fingers, marveling at the strength beneath her touch. Smiling to herself, she tickled her fingers over the coarse black hairs on his leg. It felt so different, so much rougher than the silkiness of her own hair.
Methodically, she raised her hand up his thigh to his hip. The skin was much softer there and she felt the bizarre urge to press her lips to the spot. She shoved the notion aside and slid her hand to his carved belly.
Suddenly his sex tightened and seemed to bob toward her hand as if in need of her approval and affection. Her brows drew together in confusion. “Why does it do that?”
A low rumble of laughter shook his chest. “Don’t ask me how, but it knows you are there and it hopes you will maneuver your fingers down and touch it.”
The hard organ, stretching now toward his belly, reminded her of a pet longing for a caress. It was so odd, the way it swayed toward her outstretched hand.
“Do you wish to touch it?”
She eyed his cock, not sure whether to think it a dangerous thing or something worth investigation. “Yes and no.”
“Why no?”
She couldn’t explain to him. The degrading words simply wouldn’t form, so she said simply, “Unpleasant associations.”
“Just because one dog bites you doesn’t mean they all will.”
A twist of outrage shuddered through her. How dare he try to make light of her horrors. And yet, what he said was true. Edward had never given her any reason to fear him. “Fine, then.” She reached out and grabbed him.