Chapter Ten #3
“I wonder.” He took her wrists in his and gently held them behind her back, which thrust her modest breasts forward.
“You want control in everything, for you consider that the same as tamping emotions.”
“I do.” How did she understand him so well?
“I rather doubt that is who you truly are, though.”
“You don't know me.” He held both her wrists in one hand and with the other, he took a breast, squeezed it before moving to tease the nipple into a tight bud.
A soft moan issue from her throat. “I know enough. You killed my fiancé.”
“Perhaps, but I am your fiancé now.” He rolled that distended tip, wanting to have her squirm on him. “The war changed everything, made me this man.”
“While that is probably true, you are using that trauma to hide behind because you are frightened and haunted, and hiding or avoiding it is easier than feeling it all now that it’s over.
” When she pulled at her temporary bonds, he immediately released her wrists.
“You think the only way to stop all of that is to take your own life.”
“As if I’m the only one hiding behind what happened to me in my past.”
She laid her hands on his chest, leaned a bit over him, which gave him greater access to her charms. “Yes, of course I’m hiding. What happened to me was terrible. It changed everything, made me hate everything for a long while.”
Though he was quite primed to fuck her, he wanted to hear more. “What helped you?”
“I don’t know that I’m cured. In fact, I’m convinced I’m as broken as you in many ways except physically.
” Then she dipped her head, kissed him and spent a few seconds moving over his mouth before wrenching away.
“Wanting revenge, concentrating on that allowed me to forget some of my past, but because I was so focused on that I feel I lost so much during the years following Jean-Claude’s death, my mother’s death…
” Her swallow was audible. “The death of my future, even. Because I shoved those things down deep, I lost other, happier memories, and that is the saddest part.”
That was a startling insight. “I’m sorry, Elli. Life is sometimes unkind.”
“And we must live through it anyway in the hopes of someday.”
“But—”
“No more talking, Blackhawke.” Again, she leaned over him, kissed him. When she undulated her hips, ground upon him, he gasped from the sharp sensations already crashing over him. “What I want from you doesn’t have anything to do with words.”
In this, her needs aligned fully with his.
Putting his hands on her hips, he kissed her back with an intensity that would leave no doubt in her mind that he wanted this as well.
As always between them, it was as if a match were set to dry tinder.
Heat threatened to consume him; his blood turned to lava.
Sliding his hands to her breasts, he bedeviled her nipples.
She made sounds of pleasure and encouragement, but the second he applied a few light pinches to those tips, she wrenched upward, not in annoyance, but with desire.
“Dear God, you’ve almost sent me over.” Eloise lifted onto her knees and resituated herself to align with his shaft, then taking his length in her hand, she guided the tip to her drenched opening.
“Send me flying, Your Grace,” she whispered, and seconds later, she plunged down upon his erection, not stopping until she was fully impaled.
Their moans blended together in the silence.
The way her honeyed heat sheathed him, the feel of her body as she strained on his prick, the outline of her naked form in the darkness all worked at his undoing, yet there was something more there, something elusive he’d not expected.
Shoving it from his mind, James once more gripped her hips, guided her in how to move atop him until she found a rhythm she liked.
Her hands dropped to his shoulders as she leaned over him, rocked her body back and forth while he thrust upward into her.
The unbound dark waterfall of her hair added contrast to her pale skin, and she almost resembled a wraith in the gloom.
Oddly, she wasn’t the malevolent sort he was accustomed to. Oh, she’d no doubt haunt him in ways he couldn’t anticipate, but at least they’d be welcome memories.
“Oh, yes…” Seconds later, she straightened, her hands on his chest, and she bounced up and down his length.
At this rate, he wouldn’t last long, but he tried to ignore the needs of his own body in favor of pleasuring hers.
When her jiggling breasts caught his attention, he took them in hand, rolled the nipples while moving his hips in time to hers.
The rasp of their breathing echoed in the silence; the slick glide of his prick through her passage nearly drove him out of his mind.
But when she reached her hands backward to caress the inside of his thighs.
That feather weighted touch separated him from reality, and he couldn’t hold back.
“Elli…” Grasping her about the waist, James pulled her off his body and laid her on the bed. “I need more contact.”
She snorted but encircled his shoulders with her arms as he came over her. “And control.”
“There is that.” As he kept the bulk of his weight on forearms, he kissed her, holding her trapped and contained—protected—within the cage of his arms, and needing still more, he cupped her cheeks, held her head between his hands while his fingers slipped into her hair.
When he continued to kiss her, to make love to her mouth, he thrust inside her heated passage once more.
Another blended moan broke the silence.
Over and over, he stroked into her, trying to go slowly, to savor the act, but that simply wasn’t possible, not with her. His hips flexed, his thrusts went faster, deeper, and when she wrapped her legs around his waist, it sent him ever deeper.
“Hurry, James…” One of her hands wrapped around his bicep while the other she slipped between their bodies to rub her nubbin.
Fuck, had she learned that from him? Felt safe enough with him to go after what she wanted without shame? It stoked the flames and ushered him closer to the edge.
Without words, he continued to thrust. “Tell me you’re nearly there.”
“I am… Ah!” She shattered, then, and it was the most spectacular thing. As she dug her fingers into his arm, he kissed her, took the cry into himself, and seconds later, he stroked into her one last time before he, too, hit release.
Or rather was consumed by it in a heated vortex.
It roared over him, through him with a wave so intense it was all he could do to hold onto Eloise as his shaft jerked and pulsed.
Eventually, when the storm abated, he collapsed into her soft body, his chest heaving, sweat once more coating his skin.
When he rolled onto his side, she remained on her back with an arm flung above her head.
“It is so unfair that you are so potent and completely flawless every time we come together.” Her voice held a breathless quality. “I’d say you were perfect, but we both know that isn’t true.”
For the first time in recent memory, he allowed a full and honest grin in her company, for the darkness hid it. “You would rather I came prematurely, forget how much friction to use on your button, then?”
“Don’t be more of an arse than you can help, Blackhawke.” A sigh came from her as she cuddled into his side. “And don’t go far, Your Grace. I might want you again before sunrise, to make certain you’ve put those nightmares behind you.” Then her eyes drifted closed.
He didn’t say anything, only slipped an arm about her waist and held her while her breathing evened out.
It was unfair of him to use her as a distraction to keep his demons and ghosts at bay, but the fact remained that each time he was with her, he didn’t suffer from the darkness and depression the following night.
It was a temporary fix, surely, and not a permanent solution, especially since there was no way to keep the horrors away for good, but damn, he was coming to depend on her and to care for her perhaps more than was good for them both.
Fuck, what do I do now?