Page 61 of After the Spy Seduces

“If you change your mind, I can sleep outside on the deck,” he teased flirtatiously.

“No, you won’t.”

Her breath turned shallow and fast as his hands slid down her back to the row of tiny buttons. His fingers slipped them free, one by one, until her bodice sagged loose around her bosom. “I’ll take one of the blankets, curl up under it, and be fine. You’ll have this whole bed to yourself.”

“No, you won’t.” She inhaled sharply when he tugged at the lace zigzagging through her short corset, tangling it around his fingers as he pulled it free.

He couldn’t help grinning at her. Or stop the tingle that tickled at the backs of his knees and slowly crept its way upward, heating everywhere her body touched his. “Then I’ll just sit out there in my coat.”

“You won’t do that either.”

The tingle reached his groin and turned into a pulsating ache.Neverhad a woman refused her way into his arms before.

But then, no other woman was Diana Morgan.

“Then what will we do if I stay right here, hmm? What pleasures can I give you?” When the corset slipped free, he slid his hand into her bodice and beneath her shift, to capture her breast against his palm. “What can I do to make you scream?”

She leaned into his hand to press him harder against her and panted out, “Anything…you’d like.”

When he toyed with her nipple, a moan escaped her, and the erotic sound sparked a burning inside him. “You’re awfully sure about this.”

She opened her eyes and stared into his. He couldn’t prevent the tightening of his chest at her expression, so delicate and vulnerable. So much affection.For him. His grin vanished beneath the intensity of it.

“I’m awfully sure about you,” she whispered. Then she cupped his face between her hands and leaned down to kiss him.

A fierce yearning unlike any he’d ever experienced before overcame him, along with acute anguish to know that they would only have these few precious hours. But he needed her— No, so much more than that. Hissoulached for her, the way that deserts ached for rain.

He reached to remove her dress.

“Christopher, wait.”

He froze, fearing she’d changed her mind after all.

A soft plea for understanding glistened in her eyes. “I know who you really are now—how kind and courageous—and that’s the man I want to give myself to tonight.” She touched her lips to his and whispered so longingly that the soft sound made his heart stutter. “I’ve never been more certain of anything in my life.”

What she wanted washed over him with an electrifying jolt. For over ten years he’d played the part of a rogue and rake, never letting his true self be revealed to any woman, not even when he was buried inside her. He’d kept his heart distant. Always.

But Diana wanted so much more than just his body. She wanted to strip away every pretense right along with the layers of clothing, until he was exposed in every way. The enormity of it terrified him.

When she reached inside her bodice to cover his hand with hers, squeezing his fingers in a reassuring gesture, all of his doubts vanished until there was only certainty that tonight was good and right. Until there was only her.

“I want you, Christopher.” She caressed a thumb over his bottom lip. “I want to make love toyou.”

His eyes stung, and he couldn’t stop the tremble that shook him.

“So let me,” she whispered, so softly that the words were barely more than a breath.

Her eyes never leaving his in the shadows, she reached down to take her hem in her hands and slowly peeled her dress up her body.

Diana liftedher arms as she pulled the dress over her head and off, then dropped it unwanted at the side of the mattress. The corset fell away next, leaving her only in her thin cotton shift and stockings.

She sat on his lap, still straddling him, yet shamelessly so, even with his growing erection pressing against her inner thigh. When a tremble shivered through her, it wasn’t from nervousness but need. He had no idea how much she wanted this. But she planned to show him exactly that.

She slowly untied his neckcloth and let it fall to the mattress. Then she took his jacket lapels and pulled them over his shoulders and down his arms. At that moment, with his arms behind him, imprisoned in the jacket sleeves, she gave a throaty laugh. Why not tease him the way he’d done to her?

She leaned forward to place a lingering kiss against his bare neck and mused, “I think I like you like this.”

He grimaced. “Helpless?”