Page 30 of What a Lord Wants

He held up the sketchbook, showing her the drawing. “Your hair.”

She stared at it, and what she’d thought were trickles of water turned into waves before her eyes. Then into waves of hair, but only a few wavy curls, drawn in such minutia that it covered most of the page. So detailed that she never would have been able to figure it out on her own, but now she saw it as plain as day.

“Yourhair, Eve.” He set the book down and reached slowly for one of her curls, rubbing it between his finger and thumb. “As unique as every other part of you, all of it coming together to form a complete and beautiful whole. If I didn’t paint all ofyou, the painting would feel disjointed. Wrong. The person gazing at it might never be able to put words to why it feels off, but it will.”

Despite the fresh guilt that swam inside her, she knew he was wrong. While he couldn’t finish it with her, hewouldfinish it eventually. He was Vincenzo, after all, and despite what he was telling her, he possessed the skill and talent to do just that. And it would be brilliant.

But he would be finishing it without her.

As if sensing her disappointment, he combed his fingers reassuringly through her hair. No simple touch now, but a lingering caress that spiraled a feminine yearning inside her.

“This painting is the most important work of my career. It deserves to be whole.” He murmured, his hand cupping her cheek, “It deserves you.”

She wasn’t certain when she knew that he was going to kiss her, whether it was at the flicker in his dark eyes as his gaze fell longingly to her mouth or when he held her face in the protection of his palm. Whether it was the raspy hum of his deep voice or when his warm breath tickled against her lips. But she knew he would, just as she inexplicably knew he would taste of linseed oil and pigment, of spice and wine…offreedom.

His mouth moved gently against hers yet with an insistence that made her tremble. As if he were kissing her to prove to himself that she was warm and alive, that she was real and not just a figure on his canvas. To touch the woman his eyes had studied for so many weeks.

“Eve,” he murmured against the corner of her mouth as he brushed his lips back and forth over hers. Not a kiss of burning desire, but one of tender cajoling. He was seeking the woman inside her through his kiss, and Eve felt herself awaken beneath it, even as she felt him tremble when his hands rose up to cup her face between them and hold her still as the kiss deepened.

A yearning sigh escaped her, the only permission he needed. He traced the tip of his tongue over the seam of her lips, entreating her to capitulate.

When she opened to him, her sigh became a low moan as he slipped inside to claim all of the kiss. A tingle spread slowly through her and made her lightheaded as his tongue circled hers. Then he took her bottom lip between his and sucked.

She gasped at the unfamiliar kiss.

But he stroked his knuckles over her cheek to reassure her, then caressed down her neck. He paused only to rest his thumb on the hollow at the base of her throat and feel her racing pulse before brushing his fingers back and forth across the ridge of her collarbone. As if he didn’t dare stray lower to her breasts, despite the way her nipples puckered into aching points beneath the corset in longing to be touched.

She’d been kissed before by young men in stolen moments at soirees and especially by Burton Williams when he’d courted her. But those kisses had been nothing like this.Neverwith such skill, never with such assurance that she would enjoy it as much as he did. None of the fumbling that Burton had done, as if he didn’t know where to put his hands or his lips.

But Dom certainly knew, and he had her yearning for more. More kisses, more touches—

Moreeverything.

When she shyly took his lip between hers, to suck at it the way he’d done to hers, a low groan sounded from the back of his throat. His restraint snapped. He shoved his hands deep into her hair and pulled her against him, stealing her breath away as his mouth took firm possession of hers.

Eve’s heart soared. This kiss was all she’d imagined it would be…her softness against his hardness, the heat of his body surrounding hers and warming her all the way through. She felt feminine and alive, and as beautiful as he claimed she was.

To make a man like Domenico want to kiss her and caress her—the heady sensation overwhelmed her, and she melted bonelessly in his arms.

He shifted on the chaise to bring her onto his lap. Perched across his thighs in her breeches, she scandalously straddled him. All of her trembled as she opened her eyes and gazed down into his face. The look of desire she saw there pierced her so fiercely that she shuddered beneath the heat of it.

She didn’t know what to do, what he wanted from her…but the urge to kiss him again was irresistible. So she leaned down, her long hair falling around his face as she once more took his bottom lip between hers and sucked. But this time, not at all tentatively.

His hands tightened on her hips, but otherwise he sat perfectly still and let her explore him. He let her mouth tease at his and her tongue lick deep inside. Let her fingers caress over the strong lines of his face, along his jaw and outer curl of his ear, then down his scandalously bare neck to the collar of his workman’s shirt. And lower still.

She hesitated at the buttons of his waistcoat, not knowing how much more she should explore. Or where the line lay that she simply didn’t dare cross.

But he reached up to undo the buttons for her. Then he took her hand and shoved it inside his shirt, to press it there to the warmth of his bare chest.

“When you were pretending to sketch me, you were looking at me,” he said in a husky drawl. “Don’t look now—touch. Touch everywhere you want.”

Her eyes fixed on his, never straying even when her fingertips curled into his chest, even when his breath grew ragged. She slowly moved her hand over him…warm skin over hard muscle, a dusting of coarse hair, and all of it punctuated by his pounding heartbeat beneath that raced with hers.

When her fingertip grazed his flat nipple, he sucked in a mouthful of air between clenched teeth. An aching thrill sped through her that made her do it again.

Urged on by the headiness of his reaction, she pulled his clothes open to bear him to her as far as his shirt allowed. Her hand grazed over his bare neck, his collarbone, the irresistible hollow between…She placed her mouth there, and his pulse fluttered deliciously against her lips.

But it wasn’t enough. She wanted more.