Anything but a Gentleman by Elisa Braden

Author:Elisa Braden [Braden, Elisa]
Language: eng
Format: epub, mobi
Publisher: Elisa Braden
Published: 2017-12-29T00:00:00+00:00

*~*~*

Blast. She should have refused and demanded he leave her alone to don her faded gown and worn pelisse. Instead, after hours of feeling him burn her alive with his black gaze, after days of missing his rumbling voice and enormous hands, she had let her temper thwart her good sense.

She did not want him to see her hands, dash it all. But she did want to see him. So much that it might be worth her pride.

Breathless and overwarm, she examined the man from dark head to booted feet. She stood on a small dais, making the difference in their heights less exaggerated and giving her a better view. He wore a cravat. A waistcoat of fawn silk. A tailcoat of deep blue wool. Of late, his attire had grown increasingly fine, as though he’d decided if his house was to be furnished, he should dress accordingly.

Her gaze fell to his brown pantaloons. She supposed she might ask him to remove them. Surely he would decline such an outrageous proposal and abandon this foolish demand to see her hands. Pressing her lips together, she swallowed as she eyed the shadowy muscles of his thighs.

Probably best to keep his lower half out of the discussion. For now.

No, if she were honest, the part of him she most longed to see was the upper half. The shoulders. The chest. The belly. The arms. All bared to her.

“Your shirt,” she murmured, unable to take her eyes from said shoulders.

“My shirt?” His tone was either amusement or surprise. Perhaps both.

“Mmm. That is what I want. Your shirt.”

“Fancy them, don’t you? At least you’re askin’ rather than takin’ this time.”

Now that she’d suggested it, the desire to see him without a shirt had expanded out of all proportion. She tried to imagine what he would look like. Muscular and impossibly big. She’d seen renderings of statuary that might come close.

“Very well,” he rumbled. “Your gloves for my shirt.”

No, even statuary was not solid enough. Vital enough. Big enough.

“I’ll go first, eh?” He untied his cravat with impatient tugs, tossing it onto the settee. “Bloody thing was strangling me anyway.”

Her eyes were held prisoner by his hands, riveted by his every motion. Distantly, she replied, “Then why wear one?”

He answered with a grunt.

Next went his coat. Then his waistcoat, unbuttoned with the same deft efficiency he’d shown when she’d interrupted his work at Number Five. Finally, he wore only the white linen shirt.

He grasped the hem. Lifted it over his head.

And her knees nearly buckled. Oh, dear heavens. Not like statuary. Not like she’d imagined. Not even close.

Great slabs of muscle swelled and rippled from neck to waist. His shoulders, which would be wide simply by virtue of massive bones, were surely doubled by hard, rounded—

“Augusta.”

—slopes of muscle, which bulged again along his biceps—

“It is your turn.”

—and forearms. She’d seen his lower arms already, of course. Liberally dusted with black hair. Rippling with strength every time he flexed his hands. His chest was the same. Black hair.

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