He scowled. “Why the devil would I need a corset?”
She shrugged, eyes wide. “How was I to know?”
Her gaze moved back and forth between his shoulders, and then slowly down his chest. Then, her eyes shot back up to fix on his own.
Not disgusted. But not yet comfortable, either. “Are you still willing to do the same?”
She nodded shyly as she gathered her shift in her lowered fists, and then shimmied until she, too, could pull the garment off over her head.
At first, he didn’t see her at all, only undulating stars. Slowly, however, she came into focus. Breasts that went on forever. A neatly nipped little waist. A delicious nest of soft curls between her already pinked thighs.
He raised his gaze to her face. She hadn’t been searching his face for a reaction as he had hers. Instead, her lower lip had disappeared into her mouth, her gaze fixed in fascination on his right bicep.
Of course, he flexed.
Her quick, sharp inhalation waseverything.
“I’ll never complain about my physique again.”
“Why should you complain?” She looked confused. “You’re finely formed.” Then, her gaze dropped. “Althoughthatlooks as if it could cause you discomfort.”
Discomfortdidn’t encompass what he was feeling by half. “Ignore him for the present.”
“Ignore?” Her brows went up. “Not possible.” She went right on speaking to his prick. “Eliza said you would, ah, thrust your”—she swallowed—“yourcockinside of me.”
Damn. He might have just seeped.
“She also said only the first time would be uncomfortable. But—” She shook her head. “I think… I fear…”
He sat down on the bed and pulled his reluctant wife onto his lap. Ah, the heavenly sensation of her bare bum against his thighs. Gradually, she relaxed against his chest. Nothing like skin against skin to provide comfort.
“Let’s leave your sister out of the bedroom, shall we?” he suggested gently.
“I’m sorry. I—I thought she might have been wrong.”
“She wasn’t.”
“Then I hope she wasn’t wrong about the earthshattering pleasure, either.”
He couldn’t help a rough chuckle. Just what was Adrian doing with his wife?
Neville tucked Millie beneath his chin and caressed her back. Adrian had probably done everything Neville could think of, and possibly more. After all, the man used to disappear into the Lyon’s Den’s upper rooms for hours at a time on a nightly basis.
Next to that, his meager two sexual encounters seemed inadequate tutorage for the task at hand. But one’s ability to please didn’t lie in the number of partners one had had, but the effort one expended and the depth of one’s desire.
This, he knew, without ever having been told.
He drew back and lifted her face. “Earthshattering.” He sealed the promise with a kiss.
“Now,” he smiled, “get back on the bed so I can have my wicked way with you.”
“Finally.” She mock-sighed, as she crawled backwards toward the pillows. “The swiving.”
“Is that your preferred term?”
“Slightly more elegant than grind.”
“Say that again and there’ll be preemptive thrusting.”