He leapt to his feet and almost ripped the garments in his haste to remove them.

“ Slow down, Owen.” Elaine put a hand on his stomach and his shaft twitched enough that it tugged against his clothing.

He calmed his movements and somehow pulled the coat free without destroying it. As soon as he’d done that, she pushed him back down in his chair.

Elaine moved around behind the chair and leaned down over him. She nibbled his earlobe while tugging his shirt free from his breeches. “Arms up,” she commanded. As soon as he was bare-chested, she ran both hands over his chiseled muscles, teased his hardened nipples with her fingers, tangled them in the trail of hair down his navel until his legs were twitching with the strain of holding himself back.

She smoothed her hands lower still, until her fingers just slid beneath the top of his breeches, and he shot up from the chair, moving halfway across the room in a single movement.

“ This torment is madness.” His voice sounded carnal and animalistic, so much wilder than she’d ever heard him before. Owen stood, staring at her, his chest heaving an irregular pattern with the force of his tattered breathing.

With an air of audaciousness she didn’t know she possessed, Elaine lifted a brow. “Sit down, Owen. I haven’t finished with you, yet.”

Remarkably, he returned to the chair and sat, twining his arms through the wooden arms of the chair as though to force himself to remain still.

She moved back in front of him and straddled his hips, blazing a trail down his chest with her tongue. He sucked in a breath, his muscles quivering everywhere she touched him. When she circled one of his nipples with her tongue and then pressed her lips over it, suckling it inside her mouth, he shouted into the night.