Sighing, she leaned forward and lowered her arms so he could shake the jacket free. He cast it aside and started on the buttons of her crisp, high-necked chemisette. Her breathing came more quickly now. His fingers worked lower, and lower still, and her breasts rose and fell. As though they were as eager to be displayed as he was to view them.

When he’d eased the last tiny button free, he drew the halves of her chemisette to the sides, baring her creamy neck and chest, her small breasts covered by the frailest layer of muslin and supported by tightly laced stays. The dark valley between her breasts held secrets and suggestions.

“Lovely,” he breathed, moving his hands to the small of her back so he could loosen the knot of her laces. He’d wanted to do this for so long. So many nights he’d lain awake dreaming of it—first on the rocky ground, then on the stony plinth, at last on the wood-planked floor. Every night, he’d tried to ignore the uncomfortable surface beneath his weary bones by filling his mind with thoughts of her. The gentle curves of her body, the exquisite softness of her skin.

And here she stood before him, half bared and fully willing, and he couldn’t work the damn knot. It wasn’t the tightness of the tapes or the limitations of his mangled hands. He was nervous as hell. Unable to make his fingers work, yet impatient to taste her, he bent his head and kissed the side of her throat.

She gasped, letting her head roll to the side.

Taking what she offered, he kissed his way up the elongated slope of her neck. Licking and nibbling at her delicate skin, suckling the tiny pearl of her unadorned earlobe.

“Oh, Rhys,” she sighed, tilting her head back.

The way she moaned for him … it made his blood catch fire.

“Oh my God,” she said, craning her neck a bit more. “Just look at the scrollwork on that ceiling.”

He froze. That was it. She’d just found the cure for his nerves.

“To hell with the damned ceiling,” he growled, tugging angrily at the ends of her laces.

She gave a sharp intake of breath as he momentarily cinched them tight. The knot gave way to him this time, and the stays fell away from her body.

“To the devil with tiles and drapes,” he said, whirling her to face him. He pulled down the neckline of her chemise, ripping it just a little in his effort to expose her breasts.

She swallowed hard, then gasped. Her eyes went wide as she took in the sight of her ruined shift and exposed bosom. Then the sight of him, naked and aroused.

“Close your eyes,” he told her, snaking his hand inside her chemise to palm her breast. He squeezed. “Close your eyes. Stop examining everything. Just feel.”

She obeyed.

He fumbled open the closures of her skirt and pulled it down over her hips. Then he divested her of her petticoats. Garters and stockings too—taking caution and pleasure in rolling the flannel sheaths down her slender, shapely legs.

Then she stood before him in only her chemise, her eyes still closed. He left her for a moment. Tracing a slow circle around the room, he extinguished all but a few candles.

There, much better.

“Rhys?” Her long, dark lashes trembled against her cheeks. “May I open my eyes now? I promise not to speak of tiles or ceilings.”

“Not yet.” With a swift yank, he widened the rent in her chemise until he could draw it over her shoulders and pull it downwards, all the way to the floor.

“That’s two shifts you’ve ruined now,” she joked, curling into herself to hide her nakedness.

“I’ll buy you a dozen more tomorrow, but for tonight …” He gently pulled her arms away from her body. “It’s my turn to admire the most beautiful, exquisitely crafted thing in this suite.”

And he did. He brushed a fall of dark hair away from her breast, pushing it behind her shoulder so it wouldn’t obscure his view. And then he stood back a pace and took a long, unhurried look at her body, from her elegantly turned toes to the arrow-straight part of her dark, shining hair. Tongues of candlelight licked over her pale skin. Her slender arms hung straight at her sides, bracketing the sensuous curves of her breasts and hips. As he watched, the rosy points of her nipples gathered to tight nubs. Between her thighs, a triangle of dark curls and shadow guarded her sex.

He’d never seen a woman so beautiful in his life. And that wasn’t an exaggeration. Rhys simply hadn’t seen all that many unclothed women, and most of those he had seen, he’d purposely tried not to examine too closely. Even so, he’d wager that women of Meredith’s loveliness were rare indeed.

Hell, even if they numbered in the thousands—she was the only one for him.

As he stared, his already-stiff cock hardened further. Until it literally pained him to look at her. Fortunately, life had gifted him with a formidable tolerance for pain.

“Rhys, please,” she said, twisting with impatience. “The water will have gone stone-cold.”

He could only hope. A stone-cold bath was what he needed right now, if he was to keep from spilling his seed all over the floor.

“Very well.” Gently, he took her by the hand. “Come, then.”

“I’m opening my eyes.”

“Of course.”

He helped her into the deep copper tub, testing the water first with his hand. It had gone a bit cool, but the tepid temperature felt good, considering the warmth of the evening.

He stood behind her as she eased into the bathing tub.

“Aren’t you joining me?” she asked, quickly sinking up to her neck in the lukewarm water.

“You first,” he said, crouching beside the tub and handing her a sponge. “It’s not big enough for two.”

The corner of her mouth quirked. “It is, if we sit close together. I thought that was the idea. We were going to make this fast.”

Rhys worried it would all be over before it started.

She put a hand to his cheek and pressed a sweet kiss to his lips. “Please. I want to bathe with you.”

A little groan escaped him. How could he refuse? Rising to his feet, he swung one mighty leg over the curved copper lip of the bathtub and plunged it into the cooling water. A wave surged from the spot, splashing water onto the floor.

“Never mind it,” she said.

So he managed to swing his other leg in, with the effect that he straddled her legs, and his rampant arousal bobbed right above her face. It didn’t seem to trouble her any, but just to be safe, he lowered himself into the water without delay, sending another, larger wave of water splashing out.

“Rhys, do you forget I’m a widow? It’s not like I’ve never seen a man unclothed before.” She reached for the soap and sponge, rubbing them together to form a thick, sweet-scented lather. “Although I’d be lying if I didn’t say you’re by far the most pleasing man I’ve ever beheld.”

She ran the sponge down the slope of his shin. He jerked with surprise.

“I’m sorry. Are you ticklish?”

“No,” he replied curtly, as if she’d accused him of something dastardly and weak.

She soaped his leg again, and once again his knee jerked.

She laughed. “I think you are ticklish.”

“Perhaps I am,” he admitted.

“Perhaps you are?” Reclining against the neck rest, she raised the sponge to her own arm and lathered it from shoulder to wrist. “You don’t know?”

“I suppose …” His voice trailed off as she tilted her head and soaped her neck. He stared, entranced, as a rivulet of foam trickled down between her breasts. Beneath the surface of the water, his erection throbbed. “I suppose I never had the occasion to find out.”

Her hand froze, trapping the sponge against her chest. “You never had the occasion to find out? I find that hard to believe.”

He shrugged. “I’ve never bathed with a woman before.”

“Yes, but surely you needn’t bathe with a woman to—” She sat up abruptly, causing a little splash of her own. “You said it’s been a long time for you.”

“Yes.” He drew out the word.

“Years, you said.”

He nodded.

“How many?”

Rhys had to think about it. “Eleven? That sounds about right.”

She stared at him. “Eleven years. You haven’t made love to a woman in eleven years.”

“I don’t know that I’ve ever ‘made love’ to a woman, precisely. But I tupped a fair number when I was a youth. Whores, mostly.”

“Mostly,” she echoed, beginning to soap her other arm. She seemed too distracted now to make a true performance of it, but that didn’t keep Rhys from enjoying the show.

“Aye, mostly.” He hoped his honesty didn’t offend her, but he didn’t see any way around it. This was his wife-to-be. If she asked him a question, he would tell her the truth.

About most things.

He cleared his throat and continued, “My first was a local girl, at Eton. She was curious, and I was … sixteen. But the experience was so damned horrid for us both, I kept to whores after that. No more virgins.”

“But how did ‘no more virgins’ become ‘no more women’?”

Dipping his head, he scooped water in his cupped hands and sloshed it over his face and neck. When he surfaced, he shook himself and said, “I joined the army.”

“Somehow I’d formed the impression that even soldiers can find time for women. You know, at least an hour or two here and there, over the course of a decade.”

“Most do.”

“But you didn’t.”

“No.” He suddenly realized that he might be making himself sound rather pitiful. Or worse, less than virile. He hastened to add, “It’s not that I stopped wanting women. Don’t misunderstand. But I spent most of those years fighting or recovering from injuries, so my options were limited by circumstance. And more than that … I guess I just decided I’d rather not lie with women who didn’t truly want me.”

She stared at him. “What woman in her right mind wouldn’t want you?”

He shook his head, uncertain how to explain it to her. To be sure, he’d had offers. Made by all the wrong women, for all the wrong reasons. Soldiers’ widows looking for a warm tent and strong protector. Married ladies of the ton who wanted to be tupped by a big, strapping, scary-looking brute, but who were just snobbish enough to eschew the footmen. Whores who couldn’t afford to be choosy.

He thought of Leo Chatwick, who could pick up a harlot in Covent Garden and have her half in love with him before the hour was out. Perhaps if Rhys possessed that sort of talent, he could have stomached paying for sexual pleasure. But the harlots seldom came to him willingly, and even when they did, they didn’t care to linger.

“Once I’d gone that long without bedding any women, it seemed worth waiting to bed the right woman.” Just in case it needed saying, he added, “That’s you.”

“Really?” Her face softened, set aglow with candlelight. “Rhys, that’s terribly sweet.”

Sweet? Well, he supposed he’d take sweet. It was better than pitiful.

She lifted one of her legs from the water and propped it atop his bent knee. Despite the cool temperature of the bath, he could have sworn drops of water sizzled between them.

When she leaned forward to soap her ankle, he took the sponge from her hand. “Let me.”

“I thought you’d never ask.”

Taking time to enjoy it, he dragged lather over every inch of her soft, supple calf and thigh. When he’d finished the first leg, she lowered it back beneath the water and lifted the other for his attention. As he stroked her, she hummed low in her throat.

Emboldened, he slid the sponge up her inner thigh. She caught his wrist and pulled his hand higher. Over the smooth slope of her belly, all the way up to her breasts.