Page 65 of Heartbreaker

“Here?” He barely recognized the word that came out low and broken as his fingertips teased over her breast, finding the tight, pebbled nipple beneath her bodice. Worrying it until she squirmed in his lap, and they both were gasping. “Do you like this?”

“Yes,” she answered. “Yes, I like it.”

He rewarded her with a kiss. “What else would you like?”

“I want...” He hung on the silence after the words. Whatever she wanted, he’d give it to her.

And then she stood up, dammit.

He reached for her. “Where are—”

But before he could finish the question, she was working at the tie of her skirts, magically, magnificently untying something and unbuttoning something else and they were gone, leaving her in nothing but the bodice of the dress and a pair of fitted trousers in a lush green silk. She climbed back onto his lap, as though she’d done it a hundred times before, and he said, “I find myself immensely grateful to your dressmaker.”

She laughed, her knees tucking into the chair beside his hips as she sat back on his thighs.

He gripped her hips and pulled her closer, stealing another kiss, leaning down and tracing the line of her bodice with his tongue, sliding his hands up over the long line of her torso until her hands found his once more, moving them to capture her breasts, to test the delicious weight of them.

Her beautiful eyes slid open. “More.”

“More, what?” he teased.

“More, please.”

It wasn’t what he expected, but good God, it was whathe wanted. It made him desperate to give her anything, everything she asked for in that breathlessly needy voice. He found the front lace of her bodice. Worked the ties until they barely kept her covered. Grasped the edge of the garment, the backs of his fingers stilling against the hot skin of her breasts. Torturing them both.

“Henry,” she gasped, and his given name was almost enough to send him over the edge.

Almost.

“Ask again.”

She looked to him. “Please.”

“Mmm,” he growled, and gave her what she wanted. What they both ached for, pulling her bodice down and finding her nipple with his mouth, soothing the straining tip with soft licks and lingering sucks, reveling in the whispers she couldn’t keep from him.

“God, yes,please.”

And every time she said that word—that delicious, decadent word—every time she asked for him, he sucked again, licked again, gave her what she wished, until she was panting her pleasure, her nails in his shoulders as she rocked on his lap, the heat of her a gift and a punishment against his straining cock.

Releasing her, he yanked the half-tied bodice up, over her head, wanting to touch her, to gain access to more of her skin. She lifted her arms and let him, and he held them there, in one hand, high above her head, tangled in the fabric and ties, while the other stroked down over her skin, testing its heat, marveling at its smooth perfection.

“Look at you,” he said softly, turning her toward the firelight, reveling in the swells and curves of her. He set a finger to the heavy pendant he’d finally revealed, a brass cylinder between her breasts. He looked up at her. “Full of secrets.”

“I shall trade them for yours.”

He almost agreed. But he had other plans that evening. “You are beautiful.”

She shook her head. “You make me think I could be.”

She was wrong, of course, and he set about proving it, kissing and licking and sucking his way across her body, stroking over the dip at her waist, the soft skin of her side, the pretty swell of her belly.

And she let him, stretching long in his grip, sighing her pleasure when he licked at the underside of her breast, squirming when he teased her. She was so responsive, he forgot everything beyond that room in the long minutes she let him explore her.

He felt the scar before he saw it, a two-inch-long raised line at the bottom of her ribs on her left side.

He didn’t mean to linger on it. Indeed, as soon as he realized what he’d found, he told himself to leave it. To ignore it. It was old and healed and not his business.

Maybe he could have, if she hadn’t flinched, as though his touch had brought back a memory. Someone had hurt her. And though the scar might have healed, she was not through with the pain.

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