Page 43

By the time Peyton reached my belt, the shirt hung open, and she pushed it off my shoulders and let it fall to the floor. Then she stopped, both palms flat against my chest, and studied me for long enough that I began to wonder whether I should say something.

“I’ve described a great many men in a great many bedrooms,” she said at last. “I’ve never had to do it with this much of one standing in front of me.”

“Is that a complaint?”

“It’s a professional observation. I need a minute to touch you before I can come up with the right adjective.”

She smoothed her hands over my shoulders and down my arms, then back across my ribs, and I let her explore at her own speed, which took more discipline than anything I’d done at work all week. When she pressed her mouth to the center of my chest, I had to put a hand on the back of her head just to stay upright.

“My turn,” I said when she lifted her face, and I took hold of the hem of her cream top. “May I?”

She answered by raising her arms over her head.

The top snagged on her glasses on the way up, and for a moment she was stuck inside it with the frames hooked in the knit, laughing so hard that I had to hold the fabric away from her face while she worked them loose. When she came free, her hair was a mess, her cheeks were pink to the tips of her ears, and she looked happier than I’d ever seen her.

“I’m taking these off before something else happens to them,” she announced, and she did. “I can see you perfectly well from here. It’s everything past your face that’s a rumor.”

I folded the glasses into the case on the nightstand and set the hair clip she handed me beside them. When I turned back, Peyton had both hands behind her, working at the clasp of her bra.

“I’ll manage this one,” she said. “I’ve had years of practice with this particular hook and none whatsoever with anyone else’s.”

“Then I’ll stand here and enjoy it.”

The bra landed on the chair, on top of her folded cardigan. She made no move to cover herself. Her skin was so fair that the color had already spread from her cheeks down across her chest, and her breasts were small and firm, her nipples drawn tight in the cooler air of the room. I wanted my mouth on her so badly that I made myself ask first.

“Can I touch you?”

“Yes, please, and rather soon.”

I cupped her breasts in my hands, and the low, surprised sound she made went straight to my belt buckle. I rolled her nipples lightly beneath my thumbs, watching her face, and when she asked me to go a little firmer, I did.

“Yes, that,” she said, with her head tipped back and her voice not entirely steady. “I’ve never been sure whether the books exaggerated that part.”

“What’s the verdict?”

“The books were conservative.”

I bent and took one nipple into my mouth. Her fingers slid into my hair and held on, and she leaned into me, so I stayed there, moving from one side to the other until she began tugging at the waistband of her skirt with her free hand.

“The zipper’s on the left,” she said. “It sticks about halfway.”

It stuck exactly halfway, and I coaxed it the rest of the way down while she held on to my shoulders and stepped out of the skirt. That left the tights. I folded the quilt back to the foot of the bed, sat her on the edge of the mattress, and knelt in front of her to deal with them. I’d cleared a jammed choker cable in January with less trouble.

“They’re wool,” she said, watching me work the second leg over her heel. “Resisting is their whole purpose.”

“They’re doing a hell of a job.”

Peyton grinned, and I kissed her knee, and once the tights were finally gone, I kissed the other knee and followed a slow line up her thigh. Her underwear was cream-colored cotton edged with lace. She lay back on her own, propped on her elbows so she could watch me, and I looked up at her from between her knees.

I kissed her through the cotton first, slowly and with my mouth open, until the fabric was warm and damp and she’d begun to lift her hips toward me.

“You’re teasing me,” she said.

“I’m taking my time. You gave me permission.”

“I said you could take your time. I didn’t say you could take all of it.” Her words came out careful and precise, which I was learning meant she was working to keep hold of them. “Take these off, please. I want your mouth on me, and I want to feel your stubble on the inside of my thighs.”

I hooked my fingers into the lace and drew the underwear down her legs. Her skin was pink all the way to her stomach, and she was wet, and she lay still and let me look, which hit me harder than the sight itself.