But he was there, guiding one arm from the woolen dress, then the other.
And she let him. When he was finished, he said only, “Take the ropes.”
She turned herself over to him, grasping the ropes once more.
The dress was caught on her breasts, threatening to fall. He watched the way it held there, tenuous, and she wondered if he might be able to remove it with her gaze.
He ran a finger beneath the wool, gently, perfectly, and it pooled at her feet. She gasped.
“Cold?” he asked.
“No.” Hot as the sun.
He bent his head, taking the tip of one breast in his mouth, chemise and all, worrying it through the fabric, leaving it wet and aching for more. For him. He lifted his head, meeting her gaze.
“What else, Mara?” he asked. “What else do I make you feel?”
“You make me wish it was all different,” she said.
He rewarded the confession by sending her chemise to the floor, leaving her in nothing but her woolen stockings and those silly silken slippers that had matched the gown she’d worn the night she’d arrived, but had no place here. Now. He watched her for a long moment, drinking her in, keeping her warm, even as he blew a stream of cool air across the tip of her breast.
She sighed her pleasure, and he lifted his head, finding her. Seeing her. Just as she saw him. The way he desired her. The way he craved her. And when he ran the back of his hand across his lips like a starving man, she went weak-kneed, grateful for the strength of the ropes behind her.
“You make me wish I were different,” she confessed. You make me wish I were more.
He shook his head. “It’s strange; I don’t wish that at all.”
The words brought a cacophony of thought, too tangled for understanding. All she wanted was to say the right thing—the thing that would bring him closer to her. That would give her what she wanted. What she ached for.
The thing that would make him hers.
“Everything,” she whispered, finally. “You make me feel everything.”
And there, in the ring that was his castle and kingdom, he sank to his knees before her, wrapped one strong arm about her waist, and pressed his lips to the soft swell of her stomach before responding, “Not everything. Not yet.”
He trailed kisses from her navel to the core of her, to the wicked edge of the soft curls there, and he stilled. Lingered. “But I will,” he promised her, his tongue sliding along the soft, unbearably sensitive skin there.
She sighed, one hand moving to his head, sliding into his curls.
He froze, snapped to attention at the touch, turning instantly to capture the flesh at the base of her thumb in his teeth. Nipping gently. “The ropes.”
She stilled. “Why?”
He met her gaze, and she saw the wicked promise there. “The ropes,” he repeated.
She did as she was told, grasping the rough cords behind her, and he rewarded her, his hand stroking from her ankle up the long line of her leg, around the curve of her knee, up the soft, untouched skin of her inner thigh, above her stocking. He lifted the leg from the pool of her skirts with one hand, hooking her knee over his good shoulder, as though it weighed nothing at all.
Her cheeks burned with embarrassment as the rest of her burned with desire. She was horrified and desperate all at once. A contradiction, as ever it was with him.
“Watch.”
As if she could do anything else. All she could do was watch him.
Watch him see her.
“In the mirror,” he said, and her gaze shot to the enormous mirror across from them, she’d been so caught up in him that she’d forgotten it—forgotten that it could give her a view she’d never imagined. Never dreamed.
She was nude, bared to him and the ring and the mirror, her hands tangled in the ropes, and she looked an utter scandal, spread wide like a sacrifice at this strange altar. But it was he who was on his knees, shoulders wide between her bare thighs, one leg tossed over his shoulder in wild, wanton abandon.
Anyone could see them .
The knowledge of what was beyond that mirror should have devastated her. Should have frightened her. Should have scandalized her. But instead, it made her want it more.
What had he done to her?
“Temple,” she said, softly, closing her eyes to the vision. To its power. Terrified of what he would do next.
Terrified of what he would not do next.
And then he did it, spreading her wide, looking at her, seeing her in a way no one ever had. A way no one ever should.
And she loved it.
That hand—that glorious, magical hand—moved again, one finger sliding along the most secret part of her, exploring folds and valleys and ridges, sending pleasure coursing through her. She closed her eyes at the sensation, leaning back, the ropes creaking beneath her, their rough threads scraping along her back, coarse where he was soft. Harsh where he was gentle.
“My God,” he whispered, his words at once sacrilege and benediction as his finger swirled and stroked, stealing breath and thought from her. “I don’t know how I thought I could ever resist you.”
An echo of her own thoughts. This had been inevitable. From the moment she’d approached him on the street. From before.
And then his mouth was on her, and she could not think at all, his tongue stroking in long, slow licks, teasing and tempting and torturing even as it wrought pleasure she could not believe. “Temple,” she cried, lifting, offering herself to him. Giving herself up to him.
Trusting him.
Trusting someone for the first time in what seemed like forever.
He rewarded her with his glorious mouth, wrapping his arm around her waist and pulling her tight to him, closing his lips tightly around some unbearable, unthinkable place and sucking more deeply, licking more firmly, scraping with a barely-there pressure that had her crying out for him.
“William.” She sighed the name that she’d thought a hundred times in the dead of night. A thousand. Never once believing that he could unlock such glorious pleasure.
He stilled at the name on her lips, and she looked down at him, finding his black gaze across the expanse of her naked body, knowing that this was at once terribly wrong and ever so right.
He swirled his tongue against her in the most wonderful way, and her eyes slid closed, unable to bear the torture of the pleasure. He lifted his mouth then, just long enough to say, “Watch.”
She shook her head, color rising on her face. “I can’t.”
“You can,” he promised, turning his face to press a kiss to the high curve of her thigh. “Watch me give you all there is to give.”
He set his mouth to her again, and she did watch, her gaze sliding from their reflection to his beautiful face, knowing that it was immodest and scandalous, but unable to take her gaze from his. Unable to stop herself from letting go of the ropes and sliding her hand into that glorious dark hair of his, and holding him tight to her. Unable to stop herself from moving against him. Unable to ignore the flood of powerful pleasure that coursed through her when that movement made him groan against her.
Made him redouble his efforts, his tongue and lips and teeth moving in perfect concert, sending her high, higher still on a wave of unbearable pleasure, until she came apart against him, calling out his name, fisting her fingers in his hair, taking every last ounce of glorious feeling from him.
Never once looking away, not even as she rocked against him, the ropes behind her sighing with the movement.
He held her as she returned to him, as her feet found the floor once more and, unable to hold herself upright, she sank to her knees with him.