Page 148 of The Wallflower Takes All

Gabriel’s arm came around her. He drew her close, and the hard line of his body against hers sent a rush of heat through her so startling that she broke the kiss on a gasp.

He went still. “Poppy, if we go upstairs, do you understand what will follow?”

She touched his face. His jaw was tight beneath her palm, his restraint evident in every careful breath.

“I understand,” she said. “And I want to, Gabriel.”

For a moment he searched her face. Then he held out his hand.

She placed hers in it.

They climbed the stairs quietly, then moved through the dim passage like thieves. Poppy’s heart beat so loudly she was certain he must hear it.

At her bedchamber door, she paused. Her room had always been her refuge. It wasn’t grand, or fashionable, nor untouched by the Montfort habit of making do. The powder-blue coverlet had faded from years of laundering. Books stood in uneven stacks beside the bed. Ribbons lay in a small dish near the looking glass. A worn shawl Mama had given her long ago hung over the back of a chair. There had been nights after Papa died when Poppy had lain awake here listening to the house below fill with voices because silence frightened Mama more than noise.

This room knew too much of her.

Perhaps that was why she wanted Gabriel in it.

She opened the door.

He followed her inside and closed it softly behind them.

For a moment, the room was dark except for moonlight and the faint glow from the dying fire in the hearth. Gabriel stood near the door, no longer touching her.

She crossed to him first. Her fingers found his cravat, that beautifully ordered knot she had imagined disturbing far too many times. She tugged it loose slowly, watching his eyes darken with every movement.

“There,” she said, once the linen fell open at his throat. “Better.”

The corner of his mouth moved. Then his hands cupped her shoulders, and the humor vanished into something deeper.

“Turn around,” he said.

He unfastened her gown with painstaking care. Button by button. Hook by hook. The slow attention should have soothed her. Instead, it made every breath feel weighted with expectation. When the muslin slipped from her shoulders, he caught it before it fell and after she stepped out of it, he laid it over the chair, granting even her ruined gown a gentleness that made her throat tighten.

Her stays followed. Then her shift.

Poppy had never stood naked before a man. She had imagined she might feel ashamed. But with Gabriel, shame never came. He looked at her in silence, his gaze moving over her body with such unconcealed desire that heat gathered low in her belly.

“You are beautiful,” he breathed.

Poppy had been called pretty before. Lovely, when a gown suited her. Charming, if she had successfully smoothed some social awkwardness and made others laugh.

Beautiful, in Gabriel’s voice, sounded less like praise than surrender.

She reached for him. “Let me see you.”

His breath changed.

He removed his coat, then waistcoat, then shirt. Each article stripped away the proper solicitor until only Gabriel remained: broad shoulders, light hair ruffled from her hands, chest marked by breath and restraint. Poppy touched him lightly, learning him by fingertips.

He shuddered.

That delighted her.

“Poppy,” he said.

“Yes?”