Chapter 12 #4
“You won’t.” Even as she spoke, she knew she was lying—she knew she was going to become hurt, hugely so.
Her heart told her that. But everything had vanished, all logic, all of her plans, her resolve, were gone.
There was only a dully lit, sparsely furnished and cheap room; there was only her and Sean.
“You need to go back to Adare.” His eyes were intense, brilliant, on hers. “You need to marry Sinclair.”
“And you need to go to America. I know that. But what does that have to do with today, tonight?” she asked softly.
He just stood there, breathing hard.
She was breathless, too. “Sean?”
He was begging her now with his eyes. “I can’t give you…love.”
“I’m not asking for you to give me anything more than pleasure,” she whispered, and in that moment, she meant her words. He blanched. “I am asking you for pleasure, Sean. I need you to give me pleasure, now.”
And his face turned crimson, his gaze silver and bright. He moved, groaning.
Eleanor cried out and then she was in his arms and their mouths were open and fusing. His body was pressing against hers. “Elle,” he gasped against her mouth, already unbuttoning her shirt. “Elle.”
Eleanor gasped as his hands covered her breasts, beneath shirt and chemise. Briefly he tore his mouth from hers to look into her eyes. He smiled.
She was stunned, but there was no time to think. He arched her backward over his arm, kissing her hard and furiously. And then he half lifted and half dragged her to the bed, climbing over her and finding her nipple with his mouth.
Exquisite sensation, part pleasure, part pain, shot though her. Eleanor felt faint and she began to seek the wild pleasure that was cresting over her. She wanted Sean to hurry.
And he was fumbling with her trousers. She felt him pulling them off, her drawers vanished.
His mouth moved back to her face, her lips, her throat, her breasts.
His hands were shaking, covering her skin in the wake of his mouth.
Eleanor could not stand the sheer pleasure his mouth and hands were inflicting; her body had become so turgid, she thought it might break.
Suddenly his hands settled on her hips, anchoring her to the bed.
He started exploring the flat expanse of flesh around her belly button with his mouth and tongue.
Eleanor tensed; his mouth was causing the flesh of her sex to expand impossibly, to throb with a terrible urgency.
She wriggled helplessly beneath his laving tongue as it delved lower and lower still.
She gasped when he began to stroke the cleft of her sex.
She went still, while her heart threatened to explode in her breast, her body surging.
Eleanor began to break apart and as she shattered, his tongue became bold and insistent, reckless and adept. She shattered again and again and he fed her cries relentlessly, until she had nothing left to give.
He lifted himself up and moved over her. She looked at him and he met her gaze, his eyes impossibly hot. “I need you,” he said roughly.
She knew and she smiled, cupping his cheek.
He slid one strong arm beneath her, bent and kissed her again, the kiss filled with urgency but controlled, restrained. Then he reached down to free himself. And his heavy loins pressed swiftly against hers. Eleanor gasped, new stirrings building rapidly again.
And Sean hesitated. Eleanor met his searching gaze. “Are you certain?” he asked.
She touched his face, the curved scar there. “Yes.” She had never been more certain of anything, she realized.
Sean nodded, eyes drifting closed. Sheer need written all over his face, he moved against her, pressing into her warmth. “Elle.”
Eleanor took his face in her hands—his beloved face. “You won’t hurt me,” she whispered. “Hurry, Sean, I love you!”
He cried out. Sweat—or tears—trickled. He kissed her, and then began to move, eyes tightly closed. The love swelling in her chest was replaced with something urgent and intense. Eleanor held on to his shoulders, the tension spiraling quickly, impossibly, and then it broke apart.
Sean gasped, moving harder and faster, as she spun wildly through the room, the ceiling, the universe. His cries became harsh, mingling with hers, and he reached completion, too.
Eleanor slowly floated back to the bed and the earth.
She held his damp body as he moved to his side and she began to think.
She was afraid that she loved Sean as he was, as much as she loved the man he had once been.
In fact, no matter how he had changed, she had never loved him more.
She kissed his moist cheek, afraid of what might come next.
His body had been utterly limp and relaxed. Now he stiffened. His head lifted and their gazes met. His stare turned blank. “Are…you all right?”
Eleanor was alarmed. How could she love the man he had turned into? How could she not? And where did that leave her? Even though he had so much passion, that wasn’t necessarily love and she had promised herself that she didn’t need his love—she only needed him whole and healed again.
“Elle…Eleanor?”
And she hated it when he corrected himself. “I’m still Elle, just grown-up.”
His stare was odd and unhappy.
Eleanor reached for her shirt, drawing it closed over her breasts. She slid her bare legs under the sheet, pulling it up to her waist. “Yes.” She swallowed, smiled. “I am fine. That was…lovely.”
His eyes held hers.
She somehow kept smiling.
He didn’t smile back. But he hesitated, as if he was uncertain, too.
She forced lightness into her tone. “I am fine. Making love—I mean, sharing your bed—was wonderful. And that is all it was, of course. That is all I want, I mean.”
He stared at her as if she were the Loch Ness monster.
Her smile vanished. She fought the rising hurt. “Because that is all you want. Passion, a bedmate, a lover.”
He sat up, turning aside so she couldn’t see him straighten his breeches. Then he glanced at her. She was now hugging the sheets to her neck. “I want you safe…that is what I want.” He stepped from the bed. “I’ll go for water so you can bathe.”
She didn’t want to bathe. She knew she must not push. “You want me safe—at Adare.”
He started for the door. “Yes.”
She knew she must not add, with Sinclair. But one conclusion was inescapable. He was very attracted to her, but if he had any deeper feelings for her, he would not be able to send her home to her fiancé. If he had any deeper feelings for her, he would want to take her to America with him.
At the door he suddenly turned. “You are impossibly beautiful…Eleanor.”
She tensed. She did not like his expression or his tone, and she knew a “but” was coming.
“You deserve more than a night…in my bed.”
She didn’t hesitate. “Yes, I do.” And she almost wished she hadn’t verbalized what remained in her heart.
He was so clearly unhappy and resigned. “I’m sorry,” he said.
Eleanor pulled the covers higher and watched him walk out once again.