Chapter 7 #5
He smiled again and lowered his head to her breast. At the gentle touch of his teeth she gasped, and an involuntary shudder went through her.
“I’m sorry,” she said quickly. He would think she was repulsed.
He looked up. “What for?”
She couldn’t think what to say. “I … I don’t dislike what you were doing.”
His eyes filled with laughter. “Could it be, sweet wanton, that maybe you liked it?”
She started to nod and then remembered her hair. “Yes … yes, I think I did.”
“Hmm. If we work on it a bit, perhaps you’ll be sure.” He began the magic again with lips and teeth and wandering hands.
Soon Eleanor found it impossible to be still beneath his skillful ministrations.
She moved to let her own hands and mouth explore without conscious skill or control, but only with need.
Reality, memories, all everyday concerns fled before feelings and desires of the most inexplicable kind.
She allowed instinct to drive her to stroke and mouth and lick at his warm skin while something built inside her. Something of terrible power.
Swept into a storm, she sank her teeth into his shoulder. He caught his breath and a remnant of sanity returned.
“Oh, I’m sorry!” she cried.
He laughed and swung her up so she was held high above him, her hair draped around them like a tent.
“Are you hungry?” he asked, his eyes dark with passion.
“I don’t know,” she replied.
Her body thrummed and ached. Her eyes feasted upon his beauty stretched out beneath her. Unconsciously she moistened her lips, and he let out a shuddering sigh.
Slowly he lowered her, showing his strength, until he could lick at one nipple, already swollen with desire. She arched her back and moaned. She seemed to have no control over her actions any more.
“You’re hungry,” he murmured. “I’ll feed you if you promise not to bite.”
When he lowered her she kissed him for the first time of her own volition. His hands moved firmly on her back and on her round buttocks, pressing her down against him. He had said she was hungry, and indeed, she felt as if she was trying to consume him utterly.
Then he rolled them over. Slowly he slid his fullness into her, and she felt every inch. Places she had never known came newly alive. She discovered the food he had promised, the union she had really been seeking, and the pleasure she had thought not for her.
She had never imagined such feelings to be possible. There was a need that was the need of the whole world, and a pain that was exquisite pleasure. There was a place that she feared and intensely desired to visit.
Lost in this strange land, she panicked, threshing her head “I can’t … What…? Please!”
And he gentled her and took her over the peak. She had never even dreamed of what she found in that swirling void. She clung to him as the only reality, his riotous breathing matching hers, his flesh in her mouth and beneath her clutching fingers, his pounding heart thudding next to hers.
As reality returned they lay together. Eleanor dreaded separation.
How could they ever part? She felt as if something vital would be lost. Eventually, however, they moved apart, and he gently pushed the damp tendrils of hair from her face the better to see her.
She had no fear of what he would find. She had no need to pretend.
“It is like that every time for a man?” she asked.
“In a way, but not really,” he said, his finger tracing her jaw. “You are beautiful, my wife.”
He had never called her that before.
She was trying to think of something equally significant to say when he rolled onto his back to stare at the ceiling. Looking down at him a lump came to her throat. She could tell from his face the devils were back. What had she done? What had gone wrong?
She laid a hand on his chest. Now it seemed perfectly natural to touch him any way she wished.
“Nicholas? What is it?”
He covered her hand with his but did not reply for a moment. Then he turned to look at her, no laughter at all left in him.
“Eleanor,” he said, tightening his hand over hers. “Remember this. You are the most important person in my life. I’ll try never to hurt you. I’ll fail, but at least I’ll try.”
She pulled her hand free and let a finger trace lines of love on him. “I suppose we all hurt other people now and then, no matter how good our intentions.”
His hand came over hers again, stilling it. “Remember,” he insisted, “that I do care.”
“Of course,” she said soothingly. “And I care, so I will forgive these hurts you threaten me with.”
He raised her hand to his mouth and kissed the palm. His face, however, was even bleaker than before. Eleanor felt a chill begin. She was losing a battle here and yet had no idea of what was going on.
“I will hold you to that promise of forgiveness,” he said, and then slipped out of the bed.
Eleanor wondered for a moment if he was going to confess his mistress. She hoped he was. She could forgive him, and then all that would be over with. He clearly did not need the woman now.
But he shrugged on his robe and went into his dressing room.
Eleanor was again left to try to make sense of it all. For a little while she had thought it was all going to come right, that they had found the way together, but it was not so. It was surely better now, but not as perfect as she sensed it could be.
She sighed and told herself not to expect too much too soon. Today they had laid a foundation upon which they could surely build a palace of delights.
Lord Middlethorpe found Nicholas on his doorstep before he had finished breakfast. He shared the meal with him.
“Problems?” he asked, filling a coffee cup for his friend.
Nicholas sighed. “I think I have stepped blithely into a quagmire, Francis. As far as I can tell, this quixotic plot is real, and Therese is proving to be as easy to handle as a freshly caught eel.”
Lord Middlethorpe laughed. “I must confess there seems some justice in you coming up against a woman you cannot instantly beguile.”
Nicholas crumbled a piece of bread to nothing. “It’s no laughing matter, Francis. What am I to do about Eleanor? I made love to her this morning.”
It was not just the subject but something in his friend’s tone that made Lord Middlethorpe redden slightly. “Surely that is not remarkable?”
Nicholas looked directly at him. “Yes it is. I’d decided, since I’m obviously going to have to spend more time wooing Therese, damn it, that I should leave Eleanor strictly alone.
There’s something repugnant in going from a mistress’s bed to a wife’s.
But I simply found myself … I’m not used,” he said fiercely, “to being out of control.”
Francis knew that though Nicholas had a potent appetite for love, he never took women lightly and always treated them with respect. He could, after a fashion, understand his predicament. “Will you give up the business, then?”
Nicholas was destroying yet more bread and eating nothing. “How can I? Can I face the consequences if this damned plot should succeed?”
“Surely Melcham can find some other way of breaking it?”
Nicholas realized what he was doing to the bread and looked at the remains of the roll in exasperation.
“I intend to go to him today to discuss it, but I fear there’s no other way.
Therese is the only connection to the leaders we know of as yet.
He’s tried a direct approach, and even some harassment, but nothing has worked.
She’s making it clear that, for some reason, she will only deal with me. I’m likely to turn into a Bedlamite!”
Despite genuine concern, Lord Middlethorpe could not resist it. “Serves you right for being such a wonderful lover,” he said.
Nicholas Delaney threw the remains of a bread roll at his head.