Yanking his shirt from his waistband, he looked down, started sliding buttons free. Beneath the loosening linen, he shifted his shoulders, aware of muscles subtly easing in one way, tensing in another. A primitive want welling as the civilized screen fell.
I want him.
Dalziel’s tone had been lethal, yet no more than an echo of his own resolve. Whatever it took, he would find A. C. and ensure he was brought to justice. The villain had focused on Alicia, struck at her not once but multiple times; for him, there could be no rest until A. C. was caught.
Yet they did not, after weeks of searching, even know his name.
He shrugged off his shirt and felt the last shreds of social restraint fall from him. For a long moment, he stood, his shirt bunched in his hands, staring unseeing at the floor, inwardly watching the volcano of his emotions surge and swell.
The scraping of wood on wood snapped him out of his state. Alicia stood, pushing back her dressing stool.
He dropped his shirt on the chair; unbidden, he padded barefoot across the room to help with her laces.
She glanced at his face, then gave him her back. He could feel his need building; rapidly, with far less than his customary languid sophistication, he unpicked the knots, hooked the laces free.
He glanced up, met her gaze in the mirror.
Saw that she’d sensed the change in him.
She searched his face, then looked down.
Normally, he would have stepped back, given her space to remove her gown…he didn’t move.
Nor did she. Instead, she looked up, again met his eyes.
Her gaze was direct, questioning, waiting.
He dragged in a slow, deep breath, and reached for her.
Stripped the gown from her, let it and her chemise pool about her feet. Murmured darkly as he stepped close and wrapped his arms about her, locking her silken back to his bare chest, spreading his hands and claiming her glorious bounty. He shifted evocatively against her. Bending his head, he whispered, half in French, half in English, asking her to put her foot on the stool and remove her ruched garters and silk stockings.
Her breath shuddered as she breathed in, and complied.
While she did…he let his hands roam. Let them take and claim as his need willed, set his senses free to wallow and seize all she surrendered to him, would surrender to him, in that moment, and the moments to come.
One arm crossing her body, his palm covering one breast, fingers evocatively kneading, with his other hand, he lightly gripped her nape; as she bent forward to roll the first garter and stocking down, he traced her supple spine, possessively stroking down, over the back of her waist, through the indentation below it, smoothly stroking over the swell of her bottom, down and around to caress the soft, slickly swollen flesh between her thighs.
With one foot on the stool, she was open to him. He parted the soft folds and found her, flagrantly caressed, then worked two fingers deep.
By the time she’d paused, gathered herself, changed legs, when she finally dropped the second stocking to the floor, Alicia was hot, wet and quivering with need.
Her foot still on the stool, her body riding the repetitive probing of his fingers, she looked into the mirror, from under heavy lids met his gaze.
Breasts swollen and full, peaks tight and aching, her skin heated, her breathing already ragged, she waited.
Withdrawing his hand, he grasped her waist; the instant she straightened and her foot touched the floor, he turned her.
She’d expected something else. Instead, he stepped back, drawing her with him, with one hand unbuttoning the flap of his trousers, the only clothing he still wore.
The backs of his thighs hit the bed. He paused only to free his fully engorged staff from the folds of his trousers, then he lifted her. Ignoring her smothered gasp, he sat and brought her slowly down, setting her on her knees astride his hips.
With the broad head of his staff nudging into her body.
She could feel him there, throbbing, sense the promise of all that was to come. The hot, aching emptiness within her swelled.
She looked into his face, into his black, fathomless eyes. Raising her hands, she framed his face as his hands closed hard about her hips. Under mutual direction, their lips met. Clung, held.
Beneath his control she sensed all he held back, sensed the power, the desperate need.