Page 78 of Secrets of Graves and Gold

Ivy’s shiver is all delight. “I guess you are feeling better.”

“The only thing hurting me is that I’m not inside you already.”

Her chuckle comes out breathless. “Then you’d better get on with it, hmm?”

She pries at my clothes as avidly as I tug off her dress. I toss the plain thing she deserves better than to the side and let her peel my tunic off me. But when my gaze returns to her, my hand stills on the hem of her chemise.

She’s more wounded than I am. Fresh bruises mottle her upper arms as well as one standing out against the pale skin over her collarbone. There’s a scratch that looks just scabbed over at her elbow and another on her thigh.

Ivy halts too, peering down at herself and then glancing at me with a wry but tight smile. “I don’t look much like your noble ladies, I know.”

Does she assume that’s what I’m thinking? That I’d even care?

With a dismissive growl, I pin her down on the blankets again. “You’re beautiful just as you are,” I say, working her chemise slowly up her chest.

Ivy arches an eyebrow. “You don’t need to say that. You’ve already got me half-undressed.”

“I’m not saying it because I need to.” I yank the chemise the rest of the way over her head. Then I drop my hand to her hip so I can undo the straps of her thigh sheaths and strip off the pants she’s wearing as an underdress.

I want to see every delicious part of her.

“There’s no woman I’d rather look at. I love this strength.” I drop a kiss to her bicep. “I love how hard you fight.” I brush my lips across a bruise. “I love all the cleverness and compassion in this pretty head of yours.” One more kiss to her forehead.

When I ease back, Ivy stares at me for a moment as if startled.

“I love you,” I add, in case I need to emphasize that specific fact.

The smile that lights up her face is bright enough to make my heart skip a beat. She trails her fingers along my jaw.

Her voice comes out soft but steady. “I love you too.”

It’s the first time she’s said it. For a second I can’t breathe, I’m so overwhelmed by the rush of emotion.

Then I’m tipping over her, capturing her mouth while I wrench her drawers off her, groaning in approval when she unbuttons the top of my trousers.

We’ve come this far. She trusts me enough to give me a piece of her heart.

As I kick my pants aside, my gaze catches on the gleam of metal by the wall. A flicker of memory passes through my head of the rasp of desire that colored her voice the first time we came together, when she told me she liked that part of me.

I grasp my prosthetic and twist it into the harness, watching Ivy. The flush that darkens her cheeks that suggests my gamble is a good one.

With past lovers, I’ve never worn any prosthetic except the wooden hand-shaped one. My former fiancé recoiled from even that.

But Ivy, as she pointed out, isn’t like any woman I’ve been with before. None of them were quite what I needed.

I shift my position to Ivy’s right and stroke the curved metal loop down the middle of her chest. Ivy licks her lips.

I grin at her. “I seem to remember that you enjoy me making use of both ‘hands.’”

Her flush deepens, but she answers without hesitation. “I do.”

“Then I’d like to see just how much you can enjoy it.”

As I graze the edge of the prosthetic over the peak of one breast and then the other, a whimper works its way out of Ivy’s throat. Her nipples stiffen at the contact.

I tease them a little more, gliding the metal back and forth and then rotating it in a tantalizing circle. Ivy’s breath has gone shaky. At every eager noise that escapes her, my erection strains against my drawers.

Her reaction fuels my confidence. Eyeing her even more closely, I slide the prosthetic down over her belly to her sex.

---