Anne O'Brien – Regency High Society Vol 5: The Disgraced Marchioness / The Reluctant Escort / The Outrageous Debutante / A Damnable Rogue (страница 32)

‘I have dreamed of this moment through so many nights.’ He rolled with her, pinning her body beneath him with his weight, braceleting her wrists with strong fingers to stretch her arms above her head. Even though his dominance might underline her vulnerability to him, Eleanor accepted it with a low purr of pleasure in her throat, secure in the knowledge that he would never be capable of hurting her. Only to drive her to the sharp edge of desire—and then over into dark delight.

Tracing a burning path with his mouth, Henry claimed her from her lips to slender throat, to satin shoulder, intoxicated by the heavy pulse that throbbed beneath her skin. He could not get enough of her, nor she of him. Here were no soft moments of tender reminiscence. No gentle interludes full of earlier memories. Only an onslaught of lips and hands to touch, to caress, to excite. Her wrists released, Eleanor was free to explore the man she remembered, as he explored her, hands stroking and moulding the taut muscles of his chest and arms, the flat planes of waist and hip and thigh. Ravaged bedcovers were pushed aside, as tangled and tumultuous as their emotions. Candlelight gleamed on sweat-streaked limbs that entwined, stretched, slid and clung luxuriously one against the other.

Relentlessly, refusing to let her rest, he brought her to the peak of arousal when her body shivered under his hands regardless of the heat. And raised his head as he felt the beginning of her response. Looked into her face.

‘Look at me.’ It was a demand from which she found no retreat, as she could find no escape from the glorious heat spreading from between her thighs, flushing her skin a delicate rose. ‘Open your eyes, Eleanor. Know who owns you, who possesses you this night. You are mine. I took your innocence—now I claim you again. You will never forget me.’

‘I cannot forget you.’ Her admission was wrung from her on a sharp intake of break as his teeth closed around one taut nipple, driving her near to insanity.

‘You torment me,’ he murmured against the hollow between her breasts where he planted flesh-searing kisses. ‘But I will not suffer alone. I will make you want me tonight.’ Hands slid, held, fingers drifting over the gentle swell of her belly to search out the ultimate softness between her thighs. She arched her body on a cry at the intrusion, but in welcome. As urgent, as aroused as he. Hot and wet, she opened for him.

Oh God, he wanted her, must have her.

‘Want me, Eleanor. Tell me that you want me.’ Past and future held no meaning, only this one moment together in the flickering candle-flame. Perhaps the only moment they would ever have. A moment that should never have been theirs to claim. His conscience damned him for it, but he ruthlessly closed his mind against it, unable to see past the fierce call of his heart and body.

‘I do. I want you.’ Her reply, the rise and fall of her breasts on ragged breathing, destroyed any conscience which he might have held to. As did the immediate response of her body to his.

As she had given him her virginal innocence, now Eleanor gave him her maturity cloaked in fire and inner knowledge. Touched him, stroked him, set him ablaze with her fine but confident fingers, closed her hand around him, revelling in his groan of shock, of desire. Tomorrow was soon enough for regrets. Tonight she would relive all her hopes and dreams. She burned for him. Flames coursed through her as she enticed him, lured him, the very temptress he had called her. She had dreamed of a night such as this for so long, long nights when it had seemed such an impossibility and she had awoken with tears on her face. Now reality made it true and she would not hold back from him. Moulding herself against him, marvelling at his strength, his muscled power, his weight as he lowered his body to hers, the heat of his erection against her thigh, she laughed softly as she covered his face with kisses. Ah, yes. Henry wanted her as much as she wanted him. It was no time for maidenly blushes or shy hesitancy on her part.

On a breath, unable to delay further, Henry slid into her, lifting her hips to take her to the hilt. On a gasp of stunned amazement and delight she surrounded him in impossible softness, impossible tightness.

A sigh of completion united them. They remained suddenly frozen in time, all frantic demands stilled without words, lost in each other, held fast in each other’s eyes, their bodies joined in this most intimate of joining. Taking his weight on his arms, he pressed her hands to the bed, linking his fingers with hers in perfect union, palm against palm.

‘Yes, Eleanor.’ He answered the question in her eyes, his voice harsh with emotion. ‘You know you are mine.’

Only then did he began to move, slowly, deliberately, withdrawing and then reclaiming, watching her every expression as he filled her, stretched her, made her whole body shudder beneath his. It was his intention to keep the pace, to draw out the intense pleasure, but the fire was too great. Caught up in it, its urgency consumed him, the needs of his body overturning the planned campaign. More forceful, more demanding, hips flexed, thrust after thrust, he destroyed them both, carrying her with him to the end. He had no choice but to allow his body to rule.

Without control, Eleanor arched her hips for him, to take him deeper if that were possible. Heat built within her again, low and liquid and throbbing once more in her belly and she rejoiced in it.

‘Say my name!’ he groaned through gritted teeth as he still clung to the knife-edge of control. ‘Say it.’

‘Hal. Oh, Hal.’ Her body convulsed in heat and light as a meteor shower erupted in golden spangles through her blood.

His control was at an end. Hal followed her into the darkness, losing himself in her, whispering her name as he buried his face in her hair.

Afterwards, when she would have curled into him, content to drift in a soft cloud of fulfilment, in his warmth and comforting presence, Henry exerted all his will-power to fight against the desperate temptation to allow it. Instead he left her warmth, shrugged into his gown to wrap her in a sheet and carry her back to her own room. It would be better so. To spend the night with her would be too painful. It was all too difficult. He should never have allowed such sweet but cruel-edged temptation to overcome him. Where was his much-vaunted control now? He steeled himself against the weight of her head on his shoulder as he carried her and the perfume of her hair that invaded his senses, aware once more of the response in his loins. It would be so very easy to give in and simply love her. To allow her to sleep in his arms, to give himself the pleasure of kissing her awake and taking her once more when dawn lightened the shadows of the bed.

‘Forgive me if I have done wrong, Nell. You were far too enticing tonight.’ He whispered the words as he relinquished his burden and she slept in her own bed, hair tumbled in a ruffle of curls onto her pillow. ‘I could wish that you had repulsed me—but the fault is undeniably mine. And how can I regret it?’ He gently touched a curl before withdrawing his hand as if it burned his flesh to the bone. ‘You are beautiful and desirable and I regret the events that separated us to the depths of my soul.’

Dousing the candle, he left her.

Only when he had returned to his own room, to spend a sleepless and restless night, did the thought come to him. Not one word of love had been spoken between them during the whole of their intimate coming together. Only of raw hunger and longing. It had been simply a moment of blazing need and desire for each other, a passion that had carried them along in its torrent as leaves in a fast-flowing stream, leaving them shaken and exhausted by the intensity of feelings at the end. But of love—not one word.

Perhaps because there was no love between them. That was the easiest conclusion to reach, the voice of cold sense and caution warned him. Perhaps the basic hunger of a virile man for a beautiful woman had now been assuaged. Perhaps the burning need to touch her, to possess her, had been cauterised by that one moment of brilliant, diamond-bright madness.

Perhaps. But he could not believe it.

Yet it would be better if that were so. Too many shadows surrounded them. The past with its weight of guilt and denial. Thomas, who had willingly taken her as his wife, a role that Eleanor had equally willingly accepted. And, not least, the pathway forward, which was too indistinct and uncertain to decipher. He should pray that this shimmering need had indeed been burned out in that final moment of glory.

But he had worshipped her with every movement of his body, every caress. Shown her consideration even within the towering demands of his passion. Never pushed her beyond what she was prepared to give to him. And she had given him everything with a generosity beyond measure.

All he wanted was to take her into his arms and repeat it.

And what he could possibly say to her when they came face to face on the following day, he could not envisage.