“Essentially, yes.” He laughed. It intrigued Devlin that Miss Grace Hamilton was speaking entirely about him. It was something he was not accustomed to—generally he let women prattle on about their worlds, content to listen to the lilt in their voices as they spread gossip.
He should go. It was his intention to protect her reputation, not destroy it by taking up residence in her bedroom. But as he was about to bow and bid her farewell, he saw the glint of a tear in the corner of her eye and knew her courage was about to fail her.
“And what can I do?” she asked. “Become a governess? Oh, wait—my schooling is almost nonexistent and most ladies want young women of impeccable reputation for their children. Perhaps I’m qualified to scrub the floors—”
“Gently bred women rarely are. I’d never employ one to tend my home.”
“Mr. Sharpe, this is serious. I—” Her lashes swept over her eyes and one sparkling diamond of a tear rolled past her slim nose.
“Don’t.” He was on his feet in an instant and in front of her, his gloves off. With his index finger, he brushed away the tear, his rough fingertip gliding over her soft, glowing skin. His finger shook. Slightly, but he felt it.
Unable to resist, he brushed his wet fingertip across the curve of her cheek to her slightly parted lips.
She arched up on tiptoe and her palm cupped his jaw. Damn, he hadn’t bothered to shave today, enjoying appearing at the ballroom with a day’s growth of beard, though it itched. He hadn’t worn facial hair since he’d sported a neat beard as Captain Devlin Sharpe.
He had been a pirate, but there were treasures that he refused to plunder. A wide-eyed eighteen-year-old was one. “This is not wise, Miss Hamilton.” He caught her hand, squeezed gently, and drew her fingers away from his face.
Her moist, full lips parted, leaving him breathless.
“I want this,” she whispered. “I want to erase the bad with…with—”
“Grace—”
She put her fingers to his lips and he, who had captained a ship, who commanded a gang of unruly thieves, shut his mouth. He wanted too much to hear this and his heart was in his throat as she whispered, “With you.”
3
Mr. Sharpe’s hands deftly undid the knot in her corset ties, then slid up to loosen the lacing, and Grace made a simple decision. She would not think. She wanted this. Her body was molten, her arousal slick between her thighs.
Earlier she had given her innocence to the wrong man, to an arrogant and vicious man.
Mr. Sharpe was not a vicious man.
She believed it—
No. She’d promised she would not think. She would simply do.
Wriggling out of her loosened corset, she let it fall to the floor. Undressing before a stranger was not something she should feel so comfortable with—
No. No thinking.
Grace lifted the hem of her shift but stopped at her upper thighs. Her drawers were gone. Lord Wesley still had her drawers. She had not collected them before she snatched up the key and ran from his mocking laugh. I wouldn’t marry you, love—good Lord, you are an impoverished nobody. But I do like the idea of acquiring a new mistress. The remembered words hurt. She hoped the fiend had burned her drawers but feared he would hang them at his club, a souvenir of his beastly behavior.
“Don’t think.”
Mr. Sharpe’s deep whisper, the ripple of his warm breath across her neck, sent a shiver of desire down her back. Had she tensed beneath his touch? How had he guessed at her thoughts?
“I won’t,” she answered, breathless, and she moved from him to whisk off her shift and let it flutter to the carpet. There, she was nude. He could see every inch of her back—the slope of her shoulders, the curves of her very plump bottom,
He made a low sound in his throat, like a growl. “God, you are perfect.”
Instead of turning back to him, she walked to the bed. Only three feet, but it felt like eternity. She was aware of the sway of her hips, the jiggle of her derriere, the foolish way she stubbed her toe into the floor due to lack of attention.
She was so aware: of the harshness of his breathing, the warmth of the fire, which allowed her to prance naked with nary a goose bump, even of the sensual textures of her room. Soft velvet hung around the bed, and the counterpane was embroidered silk. A fur throw was flung across a chair’s arms and the soft carpet gave way to the smooth, cool floor.
And as she reached the edge of the bed, she also felt an awareness of her own body she’d never known before. It was as though she could feel her skin breathe. Her nipples stood proud, flushed a dark pink. Her quim throbbed, hot and creaming and yearning to be filled. At the bedpost, she turned, and saw him stripping off his clothes with graceful, deliberate motions. His coat and waistcoat were gone, and, as she watched, startled, he lifted his shirt.
White linen skimmed up over bronzed skin.
Grace clutched the bedpost. His rippled abdomen came into view. Soft golden hair curled over the flat plane of muscle. He shifted, revealing a glimpse of his navel.
Suddenly she wanted nothing more than to drop to her knees and kiss his indented navel, rim it with her tongue and taste his skin. She wanted to stroke those hard, cobbled muscles and explore—
She had to fist her shaking hands.
He lifted the hem of his shirt to his shoulders, his motions casual and unconcerned, as though he did not know she ogled his every move and now had her left fist pinned between her teeth.
She was certain he did know—he flexed his hard, sculpted pectoral muscles before her eyes—but his shirt hid his face and the grin she knew would be there. His nipples, she saw, were dark bronze and as hard as hers.
Then he threw the shirt aside, revealing his entire naked torso and the wicked glint in his vivid blue eyes.
Huge and powerful, his was a body that should intimidate. His shoulders were broad and straight, strong enough to carry a cannon, she suspected. She could imagine him climbing the rigging of a ship, risking his life and laughing all the while.
His well-hewn body did not frighten her, but it made her moan with honest need.
What living, breathing woman did not appreciate a handsome chest? But she had never yearned so much to touch a man’s body before.
She let go of the bedpost and walked toward him, pleased to see his hands pause on his trouser buttons and his Adam’s apple bounce with a swallow. Her breasts swayed as she moved. He looked at them, and his blatant appreciation made her feel bold. “Do you like them?”
He let go of his trousers and bent to the hollow of her throat. His tongue flicked and she squealed at the shock of sensation. Gently his tongue swirled, trailing down, inch by precious inch, toward her breasts. She shivered at the amazing sensitivity of her skin. Her nipples shocked her by standing harder, growing long and pink.
She could not believe she was letting a man she did not know do—
No thinking!
He rose. Met her gaze. “They’re beautiful, love.”
His golden hair fell about his face and floated over her bare skin. Casually he blew strands away from his lips and even that simple, unconscious, sensual motion ignited her desire.
She could not believe her naked breasts were only an inch away from his hot, bare chest.
“You are beautiful here—” He brushed a kiss to her chin. “And here.” Giggling, she shut her eyes as his soft lips neared. His lips touched her lashes, and she marveled at how erotic it was to feel that caress.
Wet