Page 49 of An Earl Unmasked
The guttural sound that came from Randal’s throat sparked her interest. She clutched at his lawn shirt. “Please.”
“My love, you don’t know what you are even asking of me.”
She leaned back, forcing him to face her. “Do you love me?”
“I do—I love you, Diana Malbury.”
“And I love you, Randal Wilson, Earl of Chestwick.” Diana cupped his face. “And while I am an innocent, I do have a fair idea of what Lady Barlington was…” Heat flooded her cheeks.This is what occurs when you demand what you want—awkward conversation and the risk of rejection.
Randal tightened his hold and, in one swift motion, stood. “Are you certain you wish to find out what it will be like to lay with me every night for the rest of your life?”
“Yes.” Diana nodded. “Aren’t you a little curious, too?”
Her husband-to-be chuckled. “Mayhap a tad.”
*
The woman wasgoing to send him to the madhouse. Randal laid Diana upon the bed in his chambers and strode back to the door to turn the key in the lock. When he turned back around, Diana had her skirts hiked up mid-calf and was about to drop her slippers onto the floor. He stopped midstride as Diana shimmied one garter and stocking down her thigh, over her shapely calves, and slipped the sheer material from her foot. She held the delicate items over the edge of the bed before they, too, floated to the floor and joined her shoes.
Diana repeated the motion again, drawing her garter and stocking down her leg. Mesmerized, he couldn’t move.
She rose to her knees and reached behind her. Seeing her struggle set his feet into motion.
In seconds he had crossed the room and was at her side. “Allow me.”
Diana smiled and turned, giving him full access to the three buttons at the back of her gown. He unfastened the first two with ease. By the third, his fingers shook with anticipation. Diana’s sleeve fell over her shoulder, and he pressed his lips to the delicate skin. His lips traversed across her back until he came to her other shoulder. She lifted her arms, and he raised her gown over her head. With only a thin muslin shift covering her pert breasts, Randal shucked out of his own clothing down to his lawn shirt.
Her curious eyes raked over him, pausing briefly at his hair-covered legs, then back up to the buttons at his chest. No woman he had ever lain with had seen him naked. Bayonets were sharp and rarely was there a surgeon to stitch him up. Branding was the fastest and most common way to stop from bleeding out. It also left the skin puckered and scarred.
Diana crossed her arms and pulled her shift over her head. Kneeling on the bed before him, she waited. When he reached for her, she leaned back and shook her head. She should be spared from the sight of his deformed body. He released a sigh at the determined set of her chin. Randal kept his gaze on Diana as he reached behind his head and hauled the material over his head by the collar. Instead of backing away, she shuffled closer and wrapped her arms about his waist and pressed her cheek against his chest, where his heart beat erratically.
Diana peered up at him. “I’ve wanted to feel your skin next to mine from the first time my fingers roamed over your body.”
Randal threaded his finger through her hair at the nape of her neck. One by one, he removed the hairpins in her coiffure until her long hair was free and flowed down her back. “And I’ve wanted to run my fingers through these gorgeous tresses.”
She rolled back to kneel on her heels. “Will you allow me to…”
His mind reeled with the multitude of possible ways he could finish her sentence. The one lesson he had learned was that he was no mind reader and the best course of action was to never assume he knew what she wanted. “Tell me what it is you want.”
“I want… I want to touch you lying down like the first time we met.”
He inhaled deeply.
To remain still and grant her wish would be a test of his will. There would be no hiding his erection beneath his clothing, for he hadn’t a stitch on. He’d want to touch her, except he had the distinct impression she wanted to explore his body uninhibited first. He skirted around Diana and rolled to lay on his stomach along the center of the mattress. At least in this position, he wouldn’t be entirely exposed. Eyes closed, he heard a rustle, and then Diana whispered in his ear. “I’ll try not to hurt you.”
He laughed into the pillow. Weren’t those the words he was supposed to utter to her?
Randal’s muscles tensed instinctively at the cool soft touch of her hands upon his back. He wasn’t expecting her to place weight on her palms nor the feel of her round bottom on his lower back. Turning his head to the side, he said, “Why are you sitting on me?”
“Am I too heavy?”
The inside of her thighs brushed against his sides. “Not at all. I was merely curious.”
She walked her hands down his back, then ran them up along his sides and over his shoulders and arms. “Do the scars still cause you pain?” She repeated the soothing pattern.
“No.” He rocked his hips side to side to gain a little space now that his cock was engorged.
“Please turn over. I want to see your chest.”
