CHAPTER FOUR THE WIDOW IN RED #4
Eleanor’s finger traced the seam of his sleeve toward his wrist.
“You said a widow should appear comfortable with her escort’s touch.”
“I did.”
“How would she respond in private?”
“That depends upon the escort.”
“You.”
Gabriel looked at her mouth. The memory of their last kiss moved through him with punishing clarity.
“This is not necessary.”
“Neither was touching my knee.”
“That prevented you from asking a reckless question.”
“No. It informed me that you disliked another man’s attention.”
“I disliked the risk.”
“Demonstrate the distinction.”
He should have stepped away. Instead, Gabriel placed one hand at her waist. The red silk was warm from her body. Eleanor’s breath changed, but she did not move.
“That,” she said, “is merely dancing.”
Gabriel’s fingers tightened.
“You have become critical of the curriculum.”
“I was promised advanced instruction.”
“No. Frances was promised advanced instruction.”
“She was disappointed.”
Gabriel slid his hand upward. Slowly. His palm followed the curve of Eleanor’s side, passing over the narrow line of her waist and along her ribs.
The silk offered almost no resistance. He could feel each breath beneath it, the slight tremor she tried to hide and the increased speed of her heart as his thumb neared the underside of her breast. He stopped. Eleanor’s eyes had darkened.
“Do you want me to continue?”
“Yes.”
The word was quiet but immediate. Gabriel moved his hand higher.
His palm covered her breast through the gown.
For one second, neither breathed. Eleanor’s breast filled his hand, soft and warm beneath the fitted silk.
Her nipple had already tightened, pressing against the fabric and into the centre of his palm.
Gabriel’s body hardened with painful speed.
He had touched countless women, some casually, some tenderly and many with mutual appetite.
He had known the weight of breasts against his hands, lips and chest in beds across half of Europe. Nothing had prepared him for Eleanor.
Perhaps because she looked at him while he touched her.
Not coyly. Not with practiced surrender.
She watched his face as though every response mattered.
Gabriel moved his thumb over the hardened peak.
Eleanor’s composure broke. A breathless sound escaped her, low and involuntary, and her fingers closed around his sleeve.
Heat surged through him. He stroked her again.
Her head tipped back slightly, exposing the pale line of her throat. Gabriel bent and kissed her.
The first contact was hard enough to destroy any claim of instruction.
Eleanor opened to him at once, and the hand gripping his sleeve moved upward, catching in the front of his coat.
Gabriel’s palm remained cupped around her breast while his mouth consumed hers.
She tasted faintly of wine and something sweeter from supper.
Her tongue met his without the uncertainty of their first lesson, and the confidence of it nearly undid him. Eleanor opened his coat.
The movement was clumsy only because desire made haste of it. She pushed the dark fabric from his shoulders, and Gabriel allowed it to fall upon a chair behind him. Her hands spread across his waistcoat. He felt each finger through the layers.
“Is this part of the lesson?” she whispered against his mouth.
“No.”
“Should we stop?”
Gabriel kissed her again instead of answering.
His mouth moved from hers to her jaw. Eleanor drew a sharp breath as he kissed the sensitive place beneath her ear, then the side of her neck.
Her skin was soft and warm. Gabriel tasted the rapid beat of her pulse.
She clutched his shoulders when his mouth descended toward the exposed curve of her breast. The neckline of the red gown was no longer a professional consideration.
He kissed along its edge. Eleanor’s breath came faster.
“Gabriel.”
He had been called by his Christian name in bedrooms, gardens and carriages. Never had it affected him as it did now, spoken in Eleanor’s quiet voice with desire roughening the final syllable. He lifted his head.
“Tell me to stop.”
She looked at him.
“Do you want to?”
“No.”
“Then why should I?”
He had no defence against that answer. Gabriel lowered his mouth again.
He kissed the upper curve of her breast while his thumb continued moving over the other through the silk.
Eleanor arched toward him, and the response drew a groan from his throat.
The gown’s neckline prevented further access.
Gabriel placed two fingers beneath the edge and paused. Eleanor’s eyes met his.
“May I?”
“Yes.”
He eased the silk lower. Not far. Far enough.
The upper half of her breast emerged, pale against dark red, and her nipple appeared at the edge of the fabric, flushed and tight.
Gabriel stared. Eleanor’s fingers trembled against his waistcoat, but she did not cover herself.
He bent and touched his mouth to her. Her cry was small and quickly swallowed.
Gabriel drew the hardened peak between his lips, tasting her skin while his tongue moved slowly over it.
Eleanor’s hand went to the back of his head, holding him there, and the gesture sent desire through him so violently that he had to brace one hand against the table behind her.
He suckled more firmly. Her hips shifted toward him.
Gabriel felt the movement against his thigh and imagined lifting her onto the table, spreading the red skirts and discovering whether she was as wet as the sounds escaping her suggested.
His cock pressed hard against his trousers.
Eleanor became aware of it. Her hand moved from his shoulder down his chest. Gabriel lifted his mouth from her breast. She looked dazed, her lips swollen and the bodice lowered enough to expose what his mouth had left damp.
“Where may I touch you?” she asked.
The question nearly ended him.
“Anywhere,” he said, then forced himself to add, “that you choose.”
Eleanor’s hand travelled lower. She explored the shape of his chest through the waistcoat, then the hard line of his abdomen beneath it.
Her fingers reached the waistband of his trousers.
Gabriel’s breath stopped. She looked at him, waiting.
He covered her hand with his. For one instant, he considered moving it away.
Instead, he guided it downward. Eleanor’s palm settled over the rigid length of him through the fabric. Her eyes widened.
Gabriel closed his own briefly. The pressure was slight. It felt unbearable. She traced him with uncertain curiosity, following the shape from base to tip. Gabriel’s hips moved before he could prevent them, pressing harder into her hand. Eleanor’s breath caught.
“You are—”
“Do not finish that sentence.”
“Why?”
“Because I have limited control left.”
Her gaze moved from his face to the place her hand covered.
“Does this please you?”
“Yes.”
“How?”
The scholar had returned at the least convenient moment. Gabriel adjusted her grip, curling her fingers more firmly around him through the trousers.
“Like that.”
Eleanor stroked once. A rough sound escaped him.
Her eyes darkened with discovery. Again.
Gabriel’s head tipped back. She learned with terrifying speed, varying pressure, feeling his reaction and correcting without needing more instruction.
Each slow movement of her hand drove heat through him and made restraint increasingly abstract.
His hand returned to her breast. Eleanor gasped as he rolled the wet nipple between his fingers, and her grip tightened around him.
They stood pressed together beside Sabine’s library table, breathing too hard, her gown displaced and his coat abandoned while music drifted faintly through the closed door.
Gabriel kissed her again. This kiss was slower and somehow more dangerous.
He moved one hand down her side, over the curve of her hip and into the folds of her skirt.
The temptation to gather the silk, lift it and slide his hand between her thighs nearly overwhelmed every promise he had made.
Eleanor pressed closer, her hand still moving over him.
Gabriel could feel his release approaching. He caught her wrist.
“Stop.”
Eleanor went still. The loss of pressure was painful.
She looked at him with flushed confusion. “Did I hurt you?”
“No.”
“Then why—”