Page 19 of Cold November Rake

"You do not want to be stuck here any longer than you must," he guessed.

"No, it is not that." She did not sound convincing.

"In that case, we can start right now."

Temperance blinked. "Now?"

He nodded, then raised a brow in challenge. "Unless you have changed your mind?"

"I have not. I just don't want to hurt you."

He shrugged. "You will not hurt me." At least, not more than you already have... "I am as ready as I will ever be and as capable as I ever was."

"Are you sure, because⁠—?"

"If you do not want to, you may simply say so," he cut in, crossing his arms over his chest.

"Oh, I want to," she insisted. "And I am also ready."

He wrinkled his nose. "That does not seem so to me."

"Oh, no?" She raised a brow, then slowly looked him over, her gaze stopping at the front of his breeches. His arousal twitched in response.

Good Lord.

"I can see you are ready, though," she said. Then she took hold of the skirt of her nightgown, pulled it over her head, and let it fall to the floor in a quiet pool of white. "And now so am I."

For a moment Sutton was too dumbfounded to speak or move.

The candlelight poured over her like warm honey, outlining her against the dark room. Her golden hair, loose and tumbling around her shoulders, gleamed like something out of legend.

She stood with her chin lifted and her shoulders back, as if daring him to find fault and knowing he could not.

God help him, he had imagined this moment more times than he would ever admit, and none of his imaginings had come close.

He could not decide where to look first. Her breasts, full and lush, their peaks drawn tight and beckoning from across the room? The slope of her waist, the gentle flare of her hips, the soft fullness of her thighs?

His gaze decided for him, settling on a tiny freckle between her breasts, a perfect dot he wanted to know the taste of.

He wanted to consume her. To taste the salt of her skin and run his hands over every inch of her until there was nowhere left to explore. To sink to his knees and press his mouth between her thighs, to drink her in until she writhed in sweet agony against his lips.

The ache pressing against his breeches was comic in its insistence.

He realized that he had been staring at her for several seconds, frozen like an imbecile, and that she was watching him watch her.

She did not cover herself, did not shrink or blush. Instead she lifted her eyebrows, a silent challenge blooming across her face.

Ignoring the pull of the stitches at his side, Sutton reached for the buttons of his breeches. He undid them, let them fall, and stepped out of them, his heart pounding as he crossed the space between them.

"No kisses," he repeated, his voice low, a warning to himself as much as to her.

He stopped in front of her, close enough to feel the warmth rising from her skin. He cupped her cheek in his palm, and with the pad of his thumb traced her lower lip.

She nodded. "No kisses. No gentleness. No pretense."

He swallowed. "Right."

He dropped his hand, and her breath hitched, a small, unguarded sound that went straight through him.