Just to Have You (Blackwood & Friends #3)

Chapter Twenty-Nine

Chapter Twenty-Nine

Ben: "And you speak to your mother with that mouth? Shameful."

Griff: "My mother does not hide behind doors and corners to frighten me at every available opportunity!"

(B & G conversation on Polite Language 8 years prior)

As the words left her mouth and the soft robe lay in folds about her ankles, Amy suddenly realised how naked she was. Her sentiments had been overwrought with everything Oliver meant to her and she hadn't fully comprehended the effect of her disrobing before him... but she had, and she staved off the urge to yank the garment back up and cinch it tight.

He had never seen her naked before, nor she him. Their dalliances and caresses to date had been stolen moments in shadows, carriages and dusty bookshops, with most of their attire on, and even that one time so very long ago she had been so painfully shy at the time she had squeezed her eyes shut or averted her gaze entirely. And presently she became aware of just that as she bared herself to him in a none too subtle an invitation.

Especially since Oliver appeared to have frozen in place, his mouth slack and slightly open while his eyes glazed over behind the spectacles perched on his nose. And that is all he did for some time, and many seconds ticked by unerringly as he simply stared at her with the same, vacantly stupid expression on his face to the extent that she felt herself turn unbearably self-conscious.

She knew she was not built slim or delicate, rather quite the opposite with generous curves emboldening her hips and breasts, and parts of her positively wobbled at the slightest movement, and she was horribly conscious of just how unappealing those parts of her could be. A flush began to flare over her skin and Amy lifted her hands, intending to fold her arms over her breasts at his continued state of immobilisation that would put Michelangelo's David to shame.

As she did, he tensed and made a stiff jerk of his jaw to one side, indicative of his opposing her intentions to cover parts of her from him- and suddenly he changed.

Amy froze as the short distance of air between them became charged. His face hardened, his mouth a firm line against a rigid jaw that began to flex, all the while his eyes burned with intensity, devouring her form as he moved them over every exposed inch of her. It was so unapologetically bold the way he was looking at her now that her body reacted in kind to his perusal, a convulsion of heat and yearning coiling low in her abdomen.

When his examination was complete, those brilliantly green eyes met hers unwaveringly, imprisoning her with their lucidity as the bronzed light from the hearth caught the lenses of his spectacles. Wordlessly, he lifted an arm behind his shoulders and nearly ripped the loose shirt from his shoulders, tossing it to the side, tousling his damp hair even further.

Lord, would she ever tire of the sight of him? Shirtless and gloriously rumpled, as if he had just tumbled from the bed, was sure to murder any smidgen of propriety that still lingered tentatively on the peripherals of her sensibilities. Before she had time to admire him further, his hands dropped to the waist of his trousers, his fingers unfastening the buttons from their placards, and then the garment joined hers to pool about his feet.

She understood now why he had momentarily lost all control of his cognitive faculties because as she observed the graceful movement of his limbs as he stepped from his trousers, her gaze was riveted on his very hard, very large erection as it practically unfurled from his clothing. She had to remind herself that he had fitted inside her once before, that her body had adjusted to his girth and length and that she was certainly no naïve virgin to feel the shock that she did as she gazed upon him. She recalled stroking him a few days ago, how he felt wrapped in her hands and the way her fingertips had not been able to meet as they curled about him.