“I can’t be such a horrendous sight as all that,” he said, holding out a hand. “You’ll make me lose all my manly confidence if you stay over there much longer.”

“You want me only to look?”

He nodded, holding her gaze. “For starters.” She crossed the room, step by step, never taking her eyes from his face. “The dressing gown can come off, madam. Your nightgown could house regiments.”

“It’s warm,” she protested.

“So the nightgown stays on,” Darius said, “but I’m warm too.” She stood by the bed, unbelted her robe, and then carefully folded it at the foot of the bed. When she looked like she was planning on blowing out the candles, Darius circled her wrist with his fingers.

“Come here, Vivvie, now. Please.”

She nodded, swallowed, and climbed on the bed, then settled back against the bolstered pillows, keeping her eyes front. “Now what?”

The possibilities were myriad, though none of them exactly in keeping with his preferences. “I don’t know. I could discuss with you the Christmas traditions at Longchamps or maybe exchange childhood Christmas memories with you? But if that holds no appeal, there’s a spot on my back…” He sat forward and crossed his legs tailor fashion. “I can’t reach it, and when the weather is cold, it itches damnably.”

“I know the one.” She risked a glance at him, and when he felt her looking at him, Darius slid over onto his belly.

“Maybe you’d give it a scratch, hmm? Ladies have the most effective fingernails for that sort of thing.”

He lay there, facedown, naked as the day he was born, offering himself to her in a way he’d never offered himself to her more avaricious predecessors. Offering himself and hoping she’d accept what he offered.

“Here?” Vivian’s nails raked lightly in the middle of his back.

“God, yes, and a little higher.”

She obliged, her touch becoming more confident. “Like that?”

“And lower.” She moved her hand down the length of his back. “Lower still.”

“But that’s your…” Her hand fell away. “Does somebody beat you?”

“Regularly.” He shifted up onto his side and cursed himself for being forgetful. “You very nearly had your hands on my backside, Vivvie. Well done.”

“Get back on your stomach.”

He obliged, slowly, dreading what was coming but unwilling to dodge it.

“This must hurt,” she said, her hand skimming over his buttock. “And these are not fresh marks. Darius, why does someone beat you?”

“For diversion.” He rolled to his back, wishing she weren’t who she was, not wanting her to be anybody else. “For profit. It isn’t something you need to fret about, and they never go at me very hard—they haven’t the strength to do real damage. How about if I tell you I have an itch on the front of me, Vivvie?”

“No doubt you do,” she said with some asperity. “You’re a man, after all.” But her eyes strayed—finally, finally—to his groin, where his parts lay quiescent against his thighs. “You don’t.”

“I have a lot of control.” He smiled at the puzzlement on her face. “I have enough control that you can tell me, at any time, for any reason or for no reason, to leave you in peace, and I will. Touch me.”

“I just did,” she said, her gaze remaining on his genitals.

“Touch me where you want to, not where you feel safe touching me.”

She shook her head.

“Pleasure, Vivvie. It takes a little courage to allow yourself pleasure, and all I’ll do is lie here.” He folded his arms behind his head to emphasis how harmless he intended to be—for her.

“I’d rather you were blindfolded.”

He considered her words and understood them. She was not asking to control him, so much as she was asking to protect her own privacy and dignity.

“So blindfold me. The belt of your robe will do, or there’s a handkerchief in my pocket.”

“You’d let me do that?”

He got off the bed, fished in the pocket of his discarded breeches, and handed her the handkerchief. She took it, frowning, but when he sat on the edge of the bed, she tied it securely over his eyes.

“On my stomach or my back?”

“Your back. May I touch you?”

He climbed across the bed and settled on his back. “Wherever you please, however you please, but if I feel you get off the bed, I’ll know you’re blowing out the candles, Vivvie, and that’s not allowed.”

She went still and muttered something in unladylike tones under her breath.

“Naughty, naughty, Lady Vivvie. Give me your hand.”

She did, and he placed her palm on his chest.

“Consider this an adventure,” he suggested, finding he considered it an adventure. Of all the times he’d been in bed, with all the bored wives, merry widows, and fast ladies, they’d none of them required coaxing or reassuring or any real thought. Vivian was genuinely shy, and the novelty of it was peculiarly challenging—almost touching, in fact.

Still, he’d not permitted himself even the beginning of an erection, lest he spook her. He was generously endowed, he knew it, had heard it from too many pleased women to doubt it, and took perverse glee in denying both Blanche and Lucy the use of his cock.

“Your chest is so different from mine.” Vivian’s palm smoothed over his sternum then up across his collarbones.

“Not so different.” He exhaled slowly. “I can’t nurse a child, but my nipples are sensitive, just as yours are.”

“Sensitive, how?”

He trapped her fingers in his and used the tip of her third finger in a light, glancing circle on one nipple.

“Give me your other hand,” he said, arching up into her touch. Her fingers laced with his. “Keep touching me.”

He settled her free hand on his groin, over the soft length of his cock, and held it there when she would have pulled away. In silence, she slowed the movement of her finger on his nipple, and he knew she was watching his flesh contract.

“Don’t stop, Vivvie,” he whispered. “This is merely another little experiment.”

“Can I switch sides?”

“Switch sides, use your tongue, bite me, but don’t stop yet.”

Under her hand, his cock was coming to life, filling and lifting, becoming sensitized just from her single finger circling so lightly on his nipple. He felt her breath on his chest and wondered if she were having a closer look or considering the use of her…

Oh, Jesus. Her tongue, soft, warm, wet, swiped over his other nipple.

“Did I hurt you? You gasped…”

“Again,” he whispered. “Nice and slow, take your time.”

She took direction well, to his consternation and delight. Her tongue was slow, sweet, and tentative at first, then bolder, and then—holy, ever-loving Christ—she suckled at him, gently, curiously, and Darius felt his pulse begin to beat steadily in his cock.

“Look at this.” He shifted her fingers, to wrap her hand around his length. “You did this, with your mouth and your hands, Vivvie. You gave me this much pleasure.”

She sat back, and the loss of her attention to his chest was a grief, but he could feel her gaze on his cock, so he let his hand fall away and he lay there, keeping his hands at his sides by sheer will.

“May I touch you—here?” She did not address him by name, a minor, telling frustration he stored away for further study.

“You may touch me if you bring the candles closer to the bed first.” He felt her hop off the bed and congratulated himself on a second lucky guess.

“How does this feel, to you?” She was sitting at his hip, and though she wasn’t touching him, she was arousing him with her curiosity.

“I’m blindfolded, love. You’ll have to touch me if I’m to know what part you’re asking about.”

“This.” One whisper-light drawing of her finger up the length of his erection. “It can’t be comfortable.”

“The feeling is one of yearning. It can be sweet or sharp, it can be nearly soothing, or burn. Touch me more, and I’ll tell you how it feels.”

She held still for a moment, and then around the edges of his blindfold, Darius felt the light get stronger.

Her fingers circled him, measuring his girth.

“I like that,” Darius said. “I like a firm touch, especially around the base. Move your hand up, along the shaft, and just there, under the tip. The tip is particularly sensitive, and that spot, more sensitive still.”

“What do you mean, sensitive?”

“Easily aroused.”

“Like your…”

“Nipples,” he said the word slowly, teasingly. “My balls are sensitive too.”

“These.” She slipped her hand down, and he raised his knees and spread his legs to give her room to maneuver. He did not dare tell her he was proud of her boldness.

“Those.” Darius sighed at the pleasure of it—she was unfailingly, beguilingly gentle. He’d missed gentleness in bed desperately and not even known it. “One good, hard squeeze, and you’d have me retching on my knees. They’re that sensitive.”

She didn’t squeeze, she caressed, a soft, fondling pass of her fingers that learned the shape of him as it pleased as it… stirred.

“So odd, your manly bits.” He couldn’t see her smile, but he could feel it. “This is all very interesting, but now what do we do with it?”

“We needn’t do anything.” He lifted his hips though, for she’d gone back to sleeving his cock with her fingers. “I just wanted to acquaint you with my equipment, so to speak.” Because William, in five years of marriage, apparently hadn’t bothered.

“I have a question.”

“I won’t hurt you.” He found her hand and brought it to his lips. “You’re wondering how this will fit, how it will work, and I can assure you, you’ll enjoy it.”

“Give me leave to doubt,” she said, wrapping her hand around him. “I think your dimensions have increased even while I’ve been touching you.”

“You’re built for bearing children. I won’t hurt you.” He was taking a vow, whether she comprehended it or not.

“I’m built for bringing forth children in pain,” she reminded him. “Angela says Scripture does not exaggerate.”

“And how many children does your sister have?”

“Three.” Her hand paused. “With another one on the way.”

“This won’t be awful, Vivvie.” He arched into her touch again. “I’m not moving my hands.”

“I didn’t say you were.” She stroked him again while her other palm passed over his nipple, and he had to fist both hands hard to keep from dragging her over him. “Why do women spank you?”

“How do you know it’s women?”

“All right.” She caught a rhythm, her hands synchronizing on the respective parts of his body. “Why do you let anybody hurt you?”

His wits had been ambushed by honest arousal, and he lacked the mental focus to dodge her question. “It makes them feel good, and it’s profitable. And it doesn’t hurt that much.”

She fell silent, thank a merciful god.

“If you keep that up,” he whispered, “I can spend, Vivvie. You don’t have to do this.”

She didn’t stop, so he tried again.

“If you just want to play”—his hips were moving in counterpoint to her hand—“I can hold off, but…”

“It’s sharp now, isn’t it, the yearning?” she said, her tongue grazing his nipple.

“And sweet.” His hand ached to caress her hair, to smooth the curve of her shoulder, to guide her breast to his mouth. “Very sweet.”

“Spend,” she whispered the word just before she passed her tongue over his nipple once more, and though he forced himself to hold off a few moments more, that was truly all he could manage. His balls drew up tight, his spine tingled, and pleasure, hot, fierce, sweet, and achy welled out from his groin as he came.

“Jesus… God…” He shivered with it, bowed up, pushed hard against the snug pressure of her fingers, and let it drown him, the sheer relief of it bringing a lump to his throat even as his body went limp and sated against the bed. “For that, you have to kiss me.”

She let go of his cock. He felt her balance on her hands and knees over him then give him her mouth. It was good this way, with her above him so he could sip and kiss and take from her while his heart slowed its pounding and his breathing calmed. And the blindfold comforted too, giving him a kind of privacy, keeping his eyes and the secrets they’d reveal safe from her scrutiny.

“Darius, are you all right?”

For that question, he gave her a little of his heart. There was concern in her voice, and her hand smoothed his hair back, the first spontaneous caress she’d offered him. God, she was dear…

“I’m undone. Wonderfully undone, but my blindfold could be put to use elsewhere, if you’ll allow it.”