That, they’d already agreed, albeit without any declaration other than their passions.
So tonight, there was no need to rush, no sense of urgency to infuse their touch.
Not yet.
As if he could hear her thoughts—as if he shared them—he raised one hand and, with one fingertip, traced the line of her cheek from temple to jaw. Even as that single finger slid beneath her chin and nudged it upward, she was rising on her toes…
He bent his head and brushed his lips across hers. Once, then again, then his lips settled, and he kissed her.
Gently.
Yearningly.
With an invisible beckoning she felt tug at her soul.
She’d forgotten—overlooked—the fact he was a master, that in this sphere, he was openly classed as an expert.
As the warlock she’d sometimes thought him, with his strange, pale green eyes.
He wove a web of sensuality about her—slowly, with touches that mesmerized, with caresses that burned.
She followed his lead and returned the pleasure, and he allowed it. He proceeded slowly enough for her to take her own time managing their reins. Keeping them relaxed as they ambled along a road they’d already traveled, but this time, they went slowly enough to fully appreciate the landscape on both sides.
While their lips supped, tasting, exploring, reassuring, he drew off her bonnet, languidly tossed it on the nearby chair, then shrugged off his greatcoat and let it fall to the floor before he helped her shed her cloak.
Sometime later, he sank to his knees before her. “Lift your skirts.”
The rumbling order was only just discernible; without rush, she obeyed. She gathered the folds of her carriage dress and ruffled petticoats and raised the hems—high enough for him to reach beneath, glide one palm up the back of her leg, then release her garter and roll her stocking down. He undid the laces of her half-boot and eased both boot and stocking from her foot. Then, still moving to that slow, regimented beat, he repeated the process with her other leg, baring it and leaving her standing barefoot.
Smoothly, he rose, and she let her skirts fall.
Practicing such restraint raised tension of a different sort, of a type she sensed would later break through their control and compel them, but for those moments in which they stood communing in the moonlight, that seemed an entirely reasonable toll to pay.
She pressed against him, her hands sliding up the wall of his chest to lightly grip his shoulders.
His arms closed around her, then crushed her to him.
Their lips met, and hunger leapt.
And she rejoiced.
And the kiss flared.
Hot.
Too hot.
As if both sensed the danger, the threat to their control, they drew back, and together, broke the kiss.
He trailed his lips to her ear, then down along her jaw, planting nibbling little kisses that distracted her senses and helped her to step back from the fiery lure.
Their breathing gradually steadied.
Determined to succeed in this novel endeavor, to maintain the measured tempo of this heady new dance, she drew in a slow, steadying breath and set her fingers to the folds of his cravat. She drew out the heavy gold pin with its large pale peridot, the gem the same color as his eyes. After anchoring the pin in his lapel, she eased the ends of the cravat free of his waistcoat and shirt.
While her fingers unraveled the simple knot, the winding folds, she felt his fingers sliding free the buttons that ran down the back of her carriage dress.
His lips were curved when, in the waning moonlight, they again brushed hers.
Again, left hers hungering.
Needing an anchor, a more definite distraction, and judging from the increasing tension gripping him that he might welcome the same, she murmured, “Once we break the news to our families, all hell will break loose, socially speaking.”
“Mmm.” His lips drifted to her temple, his breath a wash of heat across her cheek. “Do you think they’ll be surprised?”
Wry cynicism colored the words.
She uttered a short laugh. “I doubt it will be any great shock.” The last word turned breathless as his fingertips—just the tips—brushed her bare skin as the back of her tightly fitted carriage dress gaped.
This slowness, this lack of rush, this measured pace, was tensing her nerves and heightening sensation in a wholly novel way—on a plane of elevated intensity.
A fresh challenge.
She felt his lips trail down her throat. She tipped her head back and, in an effort to cling to control, gabbled the first thought that came to her. “And yet no one ever tried to steer me your way.”
He raised his head. The moonlight etched his features as he caught her hands and drew them from his now-loosened cravat, then he reached for the shoulders of her dress and drew the bodice forward and down, sliding the sleeves down her arms.