Chapter Eleven #3
“It wouldn’t have changed anything.” Eloise shrugged.
Perhaps it was time for a different sort of confession.
“I did think being with you would prove a nightmare of a different sort, but this time with you has been… a freedom of sorts.” The intensity in his gaze sent frissons of need through her lower belly.
“You’ve forced me to concentrate on me, on my needs, on what I truly want from my life as it stands now. ”
When the duke frowned, it tugged at the edges of his scar. “Meaning?”
Perhaps nothing mattered any longer. Nothing was deep nor did it need to be. “If you still mean to go through with this engagement to me, a woman who has been vilely ruined and steeped in scandal, not to mention who is vastly unsuited to even move in the same circles as you, I give my agreement.”
It was better than being alone.
“Shit.” As his eyes darkened to gorgeous sapphire, she couldn’t read the emotions there. “You aren’t unsuited, Elli. Perhaps you are exactly what is needed in this moment.” Then he kissed her again, the same gentle overture that he’d treated her to before.
The second she put a hand about his nape, applied the veriest bit of pressure, he framed her head with his large hands, threaded his fingers into her hair, and as he methodically plucked the pins from it, the kisses grew with intensity.
When he tangled his hands in her tresses and angled her head back, a sigh shivered from her and a wave of awareness slammed into her.
“James…”
“None of it was your fault,” he whispered against her lips.
“I know…” Another piece of her heart flew into his keeping. Lifting onto her toes, she kissed him, wanted a return of that closeness, that sense of protection between them, for she remained far too vulnerable before him.
Then she was lost to the nuances of his embrace.
The indescribable welcome, the warmth that wrapped her in a cocoon relaxed the tension in her shoulders she hadn’t been aware she carried.
In this man she’d find perhaps everything she’d ever wanted if she’d only let herself complete the fall, but he was a duke and so far beyond her reach it was laughable… if they weren’t already engaged.
When he pulled her closer, she trembled from the intensity in his expression. “I hope you’ll rest easy now that you’ve purged your soul.”
“So do I, but I suspect that you won’t and I’ll be the same.” The clean, crisp, fresh scent of him wafted to her nose, enhancing the emotions building in her chest.
“Time will tell. The ghosts at this point are at least… familiar.”
“Yes.” Her chin quivered, as did her hand that rested upon his chest. She continued to hold his gaze. What would her child have been like had she kept it? Or would she have given it to an orphanage where it would have ended God only knew where? Would she ever have another chance to be a mother?
He tugged her closer still, put his lips to the shell of her ear. “I’ve never met anyone like you; you thrill me and terrify and aggravate me by turns.”
The urge to laugh grew strong, but emotions tightened her throat and made it impossible to let the sound escape.
It was difficult, this having all the feelings previously tamped down and boxed it suddenly come free.
Quite overwhelming. “You do the same to me,” she managed to say in a choked whisper.
“Hold me tighter.” Never had she wished to show such vulnerability before anyone let alone to a man, but he was different and in his company she was safe.
“I won’t ever let anyone hurt you, Eloise. If I have the chance, I’ll track down those men and kill them for what they did to you.” Then his arms were around her and he held her close against the hard wall of his chest with his lips pressed to her temple.
“Don’t. It’s in the past. We should leave it there.
” She slipped her arms around his shoulders, reveled in the solid feel of him, furrowed her fingers into the short hair at his nape.
“I…” What? Did what she felt for this man equate to love?
Not just yet and certainly not now when so many confusing emotions set her at sea, nearly lost but for the steady lifeline of his touch.
“Thank you for listening, for not judging or lecturing.”
“Thank you for giving me the same.” James cupped her cheeks, held her head between his palms and then claimed her lips in a kiss so tender it brought tears to her eyes and put hope in her heart for things she’d never dared to dream for years.
She kissed him back, immediately gave herself over to his mastery.
He moved over her mouth as if he wished to memorize every contour and detail of her lips.
When he eased the tip of his tongue along their seam, she opened for him, invited him in, and moaned when the kiss deepened.
One of his hands traced her spine, and as he squeezed her arse, brought her closer to his body, the bulge of his arousal twitching insistently at her navel set fire to her imagination.
“Eloise…” He dragged his lips beneath her jaw, along the column of her throat, and as he kissed and licked a path around her bodice, she arched her back, giving him a clear invitation.
“Hmm?” She couldn’t remember how to form more complicated words, for every touch, each kiss, sent clouds into her brain and reduced her knees to the strength of cooked porridge.
“One moment.” James slid his hands up her back. He quickly undid the few buttons of her gown, and when the garment sagged about her breasts, he tugged the bodice down. “I need you.”
“It seems we are always driven by desire,” she said, and her voice was decidedly breathless.
“There are worse things.” He palmed her breasts, kneaded them until she shivered, and then with a maddening chuckle, he worried the nipples into tightened peaks.
Wild sensation streaked through her body to pool in her core.
His words, the brush of his fingers, the wicked gleam in his eyes all worked at her undoing.
She lifted a hand, and with her fingers at his nape guided his mouth to one of the aching buds.
“How do you make me forget everything the second you touch me?”
“Because we’ve a connection, an attraction… a thread between us.” He shifted attention to the neglected nipple, and a shuddering moan escaped her. Then he pulled away. No longer did she feel the heat of his mouth on her skin, but the desire he’d stoked still pulsed strong within her. “James…”
“Tell me you want me.” He took one of her hands, and then slowly, kissing the flesh of her arm as he went, until he reached the crook of her shoulder, where he nuzzled the flesh there.
“I do. So very much.” She could hardly force the words out from her tight throat.
A tremble of need moved up her spine when he gave her other arm the same attention.
Oh, good Lord, if he doesn’t stop that I’m going to go out of my mind!
While he continued to kiss a path down her arm, she shook both from need and reaction from the story she’d just shared.
“Good.” He traced his fingers down the side of her face. James slid his fingers into her loose flowing hair. “I need you too.”
“Oh.” Eloise tugged on his cravat as tears gathered in her eyes.
On the heels of a growl, he crushed his lips to hers, and so much feeling lay behind the kiss that something shivered down her spine.
And he didn’t stop kissing her until her knees wobbled and her fingers scrabbled at his cravat, his waistcoat.
As he grinned against her mouth, the duke walked her backward.
Eventually the wall halted further movement.
Eloise stared up at him, nipped the underside of his jaw. “What now?”
“I’m going to fuck you until some of those horrid memories fade.” Slowly, while watching her the whole time, he drew up handfuls of her skirting.
She curled a hand about his nape while she manipulated the buttons of his frontfalls with the other. “I don’t expect anything less from you.” When his hardened length fell heavily into her palm, she stifled a sigh. Never would she have enough of him.
“Vixen.” James put a hand beneath one of her thighs and encouraged her leg upward.
She hooked it about his hip, anchoring her heel into his backside.
Her body was completely open to him, and the tip of his member glanced along her sensitive flesh.
The knowledge of being trapped between the wall and his chest was exhilarating indeed.
“I don’t know about that.” Eloise kissed him, reveling in the touch of his lips on hers. When he flexed his hips and buried himself as deep as he could go, she moaned in pure appreciation.
“Then I’ll just say we are two broken people who need each other in this moment to feel temporarily whole,” he murmured and captured her lips once more as he rested his free hand on the wall near her head.
“Yes…” Then there was no more need for words.
They communed by touch and the brush of lips.
Sighs and sounds of enjoyment or pleasure punctuated the silence of the room.
Her fingers dug into his shoulder as she yielded to the sensation created by each gentle, slow stroke he made.
Over and over, he speared into her. She pulled him closer with the pressure of her heel to the small of his back.
Her eyes shuddered closed, for she floated on a cloud of need.
Then his rhythm changed as he snaked his hand to her waist, his fingers gripping her skin.
“No arguments?” he murmured while putting baby fine kisses beneath her jawline.
“Not today.” Already, terrible pressure built and stacked low in her belly. She’d break and soon, and he’d not touched the more responsive points on her person. How truly odd.
“A pity. I enjoy your spirit.” His thrusts grew more frantic. “Look at me, Eloise. I want to see the emotions in your eyes, see how I affect you.”
She met his gaze. Those blue eyes were so cool, so inviting, but they did nothing to dim her ardor… or the feelings which strengthened for him the longer she was in his company. “I think you already know that.” The surprise was that it had only been a week or so since they’d met.
“Perhaps, but people lie when they’re trying to hide.” He peered into her eyes, searching for God only knew what, but in that one look, his soul was suddenly on display and vulnerable.
And it humbled her, frightened her, yet oddly gave her the wings to fly.
James continued to work her body as if he were on a mission.
Harder and harder he pushed so that they slammed against the wall.
Deeper and deeper, he stroked, and shivers of delight danced through her.
Faster and faster his hips moved, and she clung to his shoulders, meeting him thrust for thrust as best she could.
Their eye contact never wavered. However, his emotions were hidden from her; he’d had far too much experience hiding them, but the way he touched her, made love to her? She’d like to think he at least thought of her a bit fondly.
When he slipped a hand between them to bedevil her swollen button, Eloise broke from reality with a startled cry that turned into a keening wail as she fell over the edge into bliss with barely any urging.
More to the point, it was as if the heavens opened and swallowed her whole, surrounding her with an intense white light that poured every pleasure she could ever imagine into her being.
She curled her fists into his shirt as she found release.
So great were the contractions that she shook from them, said his name like a litany, until he kissed her, and the sound ceased.
He thrust once more, a great push that speared her to the wall before he claimed his own moment of satisfaction.
The pleasure and wonder that skipped over his face as his member pulsed transfixed her.
Oh, the man was gorgeous even in this, and the angelic vision of it stole her breath.
Never would she forget what he looked like in this moment, that golden Greek god burnished by the fire.
In this moment, he wasn’t the dark duke that he likened himself to.
“Can you stand?” he whispered against her mouth. A tiny, smug laugh rumbled beneath the words.
“Cheeky of you to even ask.” Unable and unwilling to let him go just yet, she kissed him back, eased her lips down the strong column of his throat to tease a spot above the knot of his cravat as she set her foot upon the floor.
Her knees were decidedly wobbly, however, so she refused to relinquish her hold on him.
Amusement danced in his eyes. “Perhaps you should rest.” He guided her to a low sofa and gently encouraged her to sit.
“This was just what I needed.” Eloise tugged her bodice into place. The buttons could be done up later.
“I did as well.” After he tucked himself into his breeches, then manipulated the buttons of his frontfalls, he sat beside her.
Seconds later, he stretched out with his back against the sofa’s back and pulled her close with her back to his front.
“There is no need to hurry. After all, we are still enjoying a picnic.”
“True.” Slowly, as her breathing came back to normal, she relaxed by increments and sighed when he draped an arm about her hips.
Eventually, Phantom left his perch to join them on the sofa near their feet.
The warmth of the duke’s exhalations skated across her cheek and shoulder. “I would like us to wed.”
A chuckle escaped her. “We are only just engaged. Why rush things?” Knots of worry pulled in her belly. What was he playing at?
“Perhaps, but I’d like to go to London soon to acquire a special license. You can talk to your father and then we’ll marry in a private ceremony.”
Shock slammed into her chest. She lifted on an elbow to peer back at him. “What is fueling this? You fought against the engagement the same as I did.”
“True.” His eyes were shuttered. “I told Lady Jersey we would, and it’s been a week here.
I feel we’ve laid down a decent foundation.
Besides, I wish to set you up in society as a respected member, despite the fact you’re with me.
” A ghost of a grin curved his sensual lips.
“I’m protecting you, giving you everything, Elli. Don’t fight me.”
She couldn’t help a frown, for she suspected he was retreating from her into himself despite everything they’d shared. If he was struggling, he said nothing about it, and that hurt a little. Yet she nodded. “I’ll accept that answer for now, but we’ll talk about it later.”
Why couldn’t she puzzle him out and see the true duke beneath everything?