Chapter Seven #3
His fingers slid along her flesh beneath the water, back and forth, in a soothing rhythm while he played at her nipple with the other hand.
There was something about being with this woman that helped him to relax when he’d never been able to do that before.
As James shifted into a more comfortable position behind her, he glanced his lips over her nape.
When he pinched her nipple and at the same time traced a fingertip around her opening, she gasped and wriggled against him.
A hissed moan escaped him, for she’d jostled his sensitive erection.
“Dear heavens, you are quite unpredictable.” A surprised squeal left her throat, for slowly, he penetrated her body with that forefinger. “Ah!” Her back arched when he withdrew his finger only to thrust it back into her passage.
“While I finger-fuck you, imagine those digits as my shaft,” he whispered against the shell of her ear. “Imagine me moving inside you, claiming you as mine, making you scream as I put you through your paces.”
“Haven’t you already done that?” As the breathless whisper seemed to dance on the air, she curled her fingers around the lip of the tub.
“Yes, but I’m not certain you understand that you belong to me. In every way possible.” When he added his middle finger to the first, he began to thrust them into her heated sheath, gradually increasing the pace as her hips slightly lifted and she rocked them to better receive his strokes.
The shiver that racked her body transferred to him. “If we cling to this insane idea of being engaged, what then? Will we truly marry?”
Would they? Would he even be here for a future?
“That remains to be seen. I try to exist one day at a time.” Still he tormented her nipples with the one hand, but his other paused, and she whimpered a soft protest. “Desperate, are you?” He removed his fingers from her passage to slide them along her flesh.
The moment he rubbed a fingertip over the swelling button at her center, Eloise bucked her body backward against him.
“Bastard,” she gasped. “You are using me to continue hiding from your truths.”
“As you are using me.” In time, she’d given him her secrets… yet he’d have to do the same for her. As he spoke, he rubbed his fingers along that nubbin with varying degrees of friction, and with each pass, her body trembled.
“I… I…”
“Break, Elli. Shatter for me. Let me see how your body enjoys my touch.” Would she mind the shortened version of her name?
James kept the pressure and friction on the pearl with his thumb.
He shifted again, all the better to thrust his fingers back inside her passage with single-minded determination that left her gasping and squirming in his hold.
“Arrogant prick.” She panted. “Don’t pressure me.”
He allowed himself a small grin, for she was still full of spirit.
“I’m a duke and allowed the privilege.” And he applied himself all the harder at sending her over.
His fingers flew over her button, plunged inside her body, and when he hit a particular spot deep inside, she nearly vaulted out of the tub.
“What of your responsibilities to your title?” she managed to gasp out as her fingers gripped his knees.
“What of them?”
“Surely you’ll need an heir.”
A frown stole away his previous good humor. “Perhaps. That is a discussion for another time.” The tepid water had put a chill into his veins, or perhaps it was the reminder of his mortality and looming decision to cease it, but he didn’t want to waste this arousal.
“No.” Eloise wrenched out of his hold, turned in the tub to face him, except she kept the blindfold on.
“You think to play with me, toy with me, but you are a duke, Blackhawke. I don’t care what happened in your past, if you don’t free yourself from it, there will be nothing left of you to take into the future. ”
“That assumes I’ll have one.” Though his prick was hard enough to drill through a wall, part of him was disappointed he couldn’t see her come undone.
“There is only the present. It’s easier, safer this way.
” He roved his gaze up and down her body while leaning back against the tub. “God, you’re beautiful sans clothes.”
“Don’t distract me.”
He grinned even though she couldn’t see it. “I’m not best pleased you cheated me out of the opportunity to hear you scream.”
She slipped her arms about his shoulders, layering her body to his.
The warmth of her breath skated along the side of his neck.
Frankly, it was more erotic than touching her.
“Then do better, Blackhawke. Make it so that I crave wearing the blindfold going forward. Grant me my freedom and see how high I’ll fly for you.
” She kissed him, then, moved over his mouth with a stubborn determination he knew all too well.
And he was very nearly lost, merely because of this one fascinating woman he couldn’t puzzle out.
James returned her kisses, splayed his hands over her back, slipped them down her spine to clutch the soft globes of her arse cheeks.
They both groaned but continued to devour each other.
Damn, but he could fuck her right now in the tub, but it was growing rather chilly and that wouldn’t prove beneficial for his erection.
Would she fly far away from him if he opened that cage?
Shoving the thought away, he urged her a bit away.
“Let’s remove from the water. I am not nearly done with you tonight.
” And he had the distinct sensation that he’d caught a tigress by the tail.
Now what to do with her? Was it fair to hold her to an engagement when he knew he wouldn’t meet the future long enough to marry her?
Or perhaps he should call forth a hasty wedding so at least she’d be taken care of for her future and reap the benefits of being his duchess, if only for a few weeks.
I owe her at least that.
Though the past few days had been a distraction from the darkness, he could feel it pressing back in on him, as if waiting there the whole time.
And that was the reality. It never went away.
Never would.