This was to be her decision entirely. He was playing both the rake and the gentleman; the rake because he was asking in the first place and the gentleman because he fully understood the risk was all hers. Would she take it? In that moment, she knew she would.
This step would be an irrevocable break from Society’s rules but then again, she’d never been one of ‘them,’ never followed those rules very well anyway. She would be a hypocrite to hide behind those rules now when she’d broken so many of them already tonight. On a more personal level, it would be the height of hypocrisy to deny that what she really wanted stood before her.
She was fully cognizant, too, that her decision came with responsibility. She would have to make the first move. This powerfully attractive man with his dark hair and summer-blue eyes had put himself at her disposal. The thought was heady and empowering. Elisabeth moved her hands to his shirtfront, meeting his eyes with her own. There was something indefinably erotic about watching his face while she undressed him. Her fingers worked the buttons free in a deliberate descent that left her hands resting on the waistband of his trousers.
His hands covered hers, warm and strong. ‘Wait,’ he whispered, his mouth nuzzling her neck, while he shoved his arms out of his shirt. He stepped back from her and her mouth dried. He was even more magnificent than he’d felt beneath her fingertips. Muscle corded his upper arms and defined his torso; masculine ridges and planes tapering to narrow hips and the treasure that lay between them.
Dashiell bent down to remove his shoes, black pumps for evening with a silver buckle.
‘So much better than boots on occasion.’ He gave her a wicked smile as he straightened. No wonder people were tempted to sin. She had no idea a man could look so beautiful beneath his clothes. It was a manly beauty, to be sure, a beauty vastly different in its nature than that ascribed to a woman. There was strength to it, and hardness, too, that bespoke confidence.
‘Are you ready to see more, Elisabeth?’ His voice issued the intimate invitation in sensual tones that made denial impossible. She could no more stop now than she could free the planets from their orbits. She was well and truly caught in the gravitational pull of his body’s promise.
She wouldn’t have stopped even if she could have mustered the will. This choice wasn’t about rebelling against her parents, or even about rebelling against Society’s rules. It was about simply being Elisabeth Becket and Elisabeth Becket wanted this.
Dashiell pushed his trousers down past his hips, giving a graceful kick out of them at the last that left him entirely naked to her gaze. For all her study of the stars and the dazzling sights of the universe, nothing could quite equal the mystery of ‘man revealed’ standing before her in all his aroused glory. Life’s macrocosmic origins might lie in the skies but its microcosm was right here, in him and in her.
‘Come here, Elisabeth.’ He reached for her, drawing her to him. It was shockingly easy how his mouth found hers as if they’d been lovers forever. Her arms were about his neck and she gave herself over to his kisses. She let his hands have their way with her clothes; the shirt, the trousers not terribly unlike his own, until she felt the cool air of the room on her bare skin. He bore her backwards to where the chair and hassock combined to make a nominal bed and followed her down, tugging her trousers over her calves and onto the floor.
They were skin to skin, his body covering hers, offering its warmth. She had never done anything so decadent in her life and she revelled in it. Every touch of his seemed to bring her to life, to make her aware that all that had gone before this moment had been nothing, that she’d lived merely a half life, waiting just for this.
His mouth was at her breast now, his tongue caressing her nipple into decadent arousal.
The core of her burnt for him. She arched her hips against him out of instinct, urging, encouraging. There simply had to be more. If there wasn’t, she would die.
Dashiell’s own breathing came in ragged pants as he rose up over her, bracing himself on the strength of those well-muscled arms and settling himself between her thighs with unerring accuracy. She felt him nudge the entrance to her core and then the first push into her, into completion.
Above her, Dashiell hesitated, amazement on his face when his thrust met with resistance. He drew back infinitesimally, clearly surprised by the discovery of her innocence.
‘Elisabeth, are you sure?’
She recognized the effort such an enquiry cost him. ‘I want it to be you,’ Elisabeth whispered. ‘Please, Dashiell.’
Her body did not panic. He belonged there, joined with her. His mouth found hers, muffling the mixed sounds of surprise, of startlement, even relief that he was finally there, and an unfamiliar stab of pain.