Chapter Four #2
The moment his tongue touched hers and silk glided along satin, her body reacted.
A bizarre longing pushed through her veins the longer he dueled and bossed her tongue with his.
Despite herself, Eloise experimented with kissing him back, had every intention of biting his lip before she was lost, but he wrenched away.
“Bloody hell.” His breathing was as ragged as hers.
“Shit, I hadn’t thought…” In the gloom of the rainy day, his eyes were as dark as midnight, the blue irises a deep sapphire, but there was a certain hunger, a bit of uncertainty in those depths that made her breathless.
“Will you let me do wicked things to you?” Unidentified emotion graveled his words as he peered down at her.
“As I said, I won’t rape you today, but it will go better for you if you agree. ”
“Agree to what?” she asked in a choked voice, for her opposite emotions confused her as they bounced back and forth between fear and desire.
“Pleasure. Forming a bond of sorts.”
“Oh.” Despite despising him, her respect for him rose, and she slowly nodded. “Yes, Your Grace.”
“Good. But do call me Blackhawke if you must use the title, or James if you wish for more intimacy.” When he offered a faint grin that somehow disarmed her, he leaned into her, put his hands to her shoulders, hooked his fingers in the bodice of her dress, and then he yanked the upper portion of the garment down.
“Untie me.”
“I don’t think so. It is one of my… quirks, if you will. There is something quite delicious in having a partner semi-helpless, dependent on me for… everything.”
While her throat went dry, she shivered as the cooler ambient air wafted over her bared skin. “Why?”
“Why not? I have found it enhances pleasure for both me and my partners.”
“And you need that control.” It was naught but a guess.
“Yes.” Shadows filled his eyes. “It helps to keep me anchored when life spirals.”
“Oh.” Still, fear twisted down her spine as Eloise held his gaze, but behind that fear? There was a queer little curiosity and anticipation.
“Relax, Miss March. I may be a beast, but I don’t hurt women.” He took her breasts in his hands, and the odd combination of the chilly air coupled with the warmth of his skin against hers made her gasp.
“Eloise.”
“What?”
“Call me Eloise, since we are well beyond formalities.”
The more he squeezed and massaged those globes, the more fires erupted in her blood, but when he brushed the pads of his thumbs along her nipples, they immediately hardened into tight little buds, and wild sensation streaked through her body to lodge in her core.
“Oh!” Despite being raped by the French officers, she had never been with a man in such an intimate setting, and those horrid men certainly hadn’t finessed those couplings.
It took her by surprise, and the fact she felt anything beyond the deadness inside? So fascinating and a bit terrifying.
“So satisfying,” he whispered, but that didn’t distract him from continuing to tease her breasts. “Your breasts fill my palms perfectly.”
What was happening? Eloise could barely keep up with her spinning thoughts as she tugged on her bonds. “Are you doing this to me tonight to hide from your feelings?” Did it matter, when every strum of his fingers on those sensitive tips ushered her closer to heaven?
“I don’t know.” The shock in his eyes was noticeable before he shuttered it behind a blank expression.
“I ask because I have hidden from my own for so long.” Never had she admitted that to anyone.
For long seconds, he played with her breasts while she fought the urge to moan. Then he finally answered her. “It is good to know I am not alone in that, but this attraction between us can be a refuge for us both.” Then he applied himself to teasing and torturing her nipples.
She gasped when he closed his lips around one turgid tip, and as he swiped his tongue along the surface of that nipple, she nearly lost her grip on reality.
Of its own volition, her back arched and she pulled at her bonds.
Everything seemed magnified simply because her wrists were tied. “This is…” There were no words.
“What has happened to you, Eloise, to make you hide? To put such fear into your eyes?”
The genuine concern in his voice when he’d previously acted like a prick had unexpected tears welling in her eyes.
“I can ask the same of you.” When he didn’t answer, she continued.
“Grief and guilt and anger take many forms. That I can tell you as truth.” Then her words dissolved into moans as she gave in against her better judgment and concentrated on what he was doing to her.
“What happens when those distractions are no longer enough?” he asked in a low voice as he rolled her nipples with his fingers. “And the memories, the guilt, the nightmares come anyway?”
Her ability to think was nearly gone; a shiver of need went down her spine. “Finding peace is paramount. Do what you can to chase it, I suppose.” Had she given herself the same grace?
“Which is why we are both here.” He kissed her with a savagery that made her crave his touch even more. As he did so, he continued to tease her. The longer he worried her nipples, the more unrelenting pressure built and stacked low in her belly.
The unfamiliar sensations left her adrift, stole away her breath. She shouldn’t allow him this familiarity, but being helpless before him made her think about her own needs when she hadn’t done that for years.
With a hand about her nape, he plundered her mouth with another string of deep, drugging kisses while the other hand continued to roll and pinch one of her nipples until she was gasping, drowning in a myriad of sensations she couldn’t keep ahead of and certainly hadn’t known she could experience after everything.
With quick movements, he shoved up the skirting of her dress while nipping her sensitive nipples.
“You must leave off,” she gasped out, for if he didn’t, she would surely dissolve into a puddle on the bed.
“You need this as much as I do, so we will not stop until you have been sent flying,” he said as he went down her body.
Then he kneeled and yanked her legs apart.
The fabric of her skirting bunched at her waist, which put the lower portion of her body on full display to his gaze.
“This strong connection between us vexes me.”
“Agreed.” She shivered in both anticipation and fear. “Lust, perhaps or spite.”
“It’s all one needs, at times.”
Eloise’s whole body trembled. “I am not experienced in any of this.” Would he think her a country bumpkin?
He regarded her with hooded eyes, but said nothing.
Then the dratted man glided his fingers along her flesh made slick from his teasing, back and forth in a mesmerizing rhythm.
“So damned wet, but I’ll hold to my promise.
I won’t fuck you… yet.” Before she could utter a response, he’d coaxed her swelling nubbin out of hiding and rubbed it.
This was scandalous by every stretch and especially for a woman who despised this man, but with each pass of those talented fingers, shivers of raw need danced over her skin, fracturing throughout her body into every nerve ending.
If he could bring her that close to the edge without much effort, what else could he do?
And why did she want to know? God, Eloise, he is your enemy.
Over and over, he worked that tiny bundle of nerves, and when she couldn’t hold back a moan, he grinned.
“Dear heavens.” She curled her fingers around her bonds.
How was it that he had nearly sent her into bliss with hardly a touch?
And what did that say about her? Had that incident years ago made her a trollop?
Where this should have been degrading and embarrassing, it was as if she were suddenly trying to… bloom. How was that possible?
James gripped her inner thighs and splayed her open, lifting her body slightly. “Damn, but you are magnificent.”
Those words filled her with unexpected warmth. Anticipation battled with fear in her belly. This was so very wrong, yet… “You plan to put your mouth on me?”
“Oh, yes.”
“But, I—” Her voice cut off in a squeak as he put his mouth to that button he’d already bedeviled.
He chuckled and the vibrations sent her into another level of delight and wonder. “I’ll wager you’ll enjoy this.”
From the moment he employed his lips and hot tongue to her most sensitive, private parts, Eloise lost the last vestiges of her sanity.
“This is…” She couldn’t catch her breath, for with each nibble, every nip, all the swipes and strokes of his tongue, she was hurled higher and higher into pleasure, into a world she was unfamiliar with and had never thought possible after what had happened to her in France.
Without warning, she began to sob, for she realized he wasn’t exactly forcing her but giving her pleasure instead of showing power even though she was restrained. Lost in a bizarre and confusing cloud, she oddly relaxed as best she could with her bonds.
How is this happening?
Never had she thought to feel anything let alone… this.
The duke didn’t talk or converse, at least not with words. He merely continued with his work to separate her from reality.
What was wrong with her? It was odd she was even allowing herself to feel pleasure.
Thought she was incapable of that even when she’d tried with her own fingers over the years, but the duke was a man bent on tossing her over, and she hovered there, trapped, waiting with a hammering heart and a divided spirit for whatever happened next.
“James, please leave off!” But he didn’t. Not even when she begged him in a strained, hoarse whisper. Neither of them noticed her use of his Christian name.