“I assume you are here to do the same,” she said, facing him.
He seemed to ponder that thought for a moment. Consider the benefits and disadvantages of doing just that. Then he moved closer. “No. I just want to know what he said.”
She frowned. Her body reacted of its own accord, softening and wanting. But her mind? That stayed clear and it saw the truth. Ellis hadn’t come here for her, no matter how he sauntered and smiled. That was all his act. His love game, he called it. One he had played dozens of times and with dozens of women.
Juliana was a mark to him. He wanted something she had. Not money or jewels or whatever else he had seduced out from under those women he’d slid into his bed. No, she had information. And he expected her to give it over because she was so enamored with him.
Once she did so? She was certain he would then lecture her about her safety again, push her away “for her own good,” and she would be left out in the cold. Just as she was left out by her family.
So, even though it was almost impossible to resist him, she shook her head. “No.”
His eyes widened. “No?”
“Have you never heard that word before from the women you use that…that…that ridiculous smile on?” She folded her arms and put on a false voice, “Oh, I’m Ellis Maitland and I’m so handsome. I’m Ellis Maitland and I can do magical things with my tongue.”
“Magical,” he repeated, stifling a smile at her mocking instead of being offended by it as she had intended.
She threw up her hands. “Let’s not toy with each other. We both know what you can do. But it’s a weapon, Ellis. And you think by snaking over to me so seductively that I’ll just faint onto my bed and let you kiss the truth out of me on your terms. But I won’t. I’m no fool.”
He looked her up and down for a long moment. “You’re definitely not that. You’re not like anyone I’ve ever known.”
“Stop complimenting me!” she growled. “It won’t work.” It was working, but she refused to show him that. “I didn’t go talk to Coningburgh for you and your purposes, Ellis. I did it for my own.” She backed away a step, no matter how hard that was. “Now go away.”
The false smile and his seductive bedroom eyes faded away. His jaw tightened and once again he was something more real. There was fear in his stare, strategy, regret. And as drawn as she always was to the act that was Handsome Ellis Maitland, the truth of him moved her more. But she resisted. She had to resist.
“You’re going to keep doing this, aren’t you?” he said softly. “No matter whose roof you live under, no matter if I push you away to protect you. No matter if your family locks you in a tower. You will keep coming.”
She didn’t acknowledge the question but stepped a fraction closer. “It isn’t your problem, Ellis.”
There was a flicker of emotion over his face. A moment of possessive heat. Then he closed the remaining distance between them without breaking her gaze. His fingers lifted and combed through her hair. He used her locks to tug her against him.
“Somehow it is,” he whispered as he bent his head and claimed her mouth.
Chapter 16
Ellis had told himself on the entire ride over here that he would not kiss Juliana. He’d repeated that refrain all the while he climbed the side of the house to her bedroom window. He’d muttered it to himself as he heard her and her maid move around in the opposite chamber and pictured her changing while his cock throbbed.
He’d told himself, and yet here he was, closing his arms around her and pressing his lips to hers. Because she was irresistible. Because she was everything. And he wanted more.
So he took it, bastard that he was, thief that he couldn’t help but be. He angled her head gently and drove his tongue between her lips, tasting her, drowning in her. He felt her stiffen but then melt, surrendering despite her outright refusal to give him what he wanted.
She still desired what he had to give in return. That was her weakness, one he could exploit. Unfortunately, it was one he shared, which meant he could as easily fall victim to it as she did.
He leaned back and stared down at her with her blonde locks spilling around her shoulders, in her thin night rail that was almost see through in the fire, with her eyes sparkling with need and anticipation. He’d done seduction. So many times. This felt…different. Dangerous. Unstoppable.
Could he manage it? Could he leverage it? She still wanted to give him her virginity. To have a stolen moment she was certain would never be repeated. He’d denied her that before out of whatever sliver of honor remained in his rotten chest.
That honor was waning thanks to the desperate position he found himself in when it came to Winston Leonard. And when it came to her. Knowing she still wanted his hands on her, his mouth on her, his cock inside of her…that was temptation.
Now it was time to test whether he could win through that temptation, or whether they would burn together, destroyed by it.
“I know what you still want,” he said, hearing the strain in his voice.
She pushed from his arms, panting as she smoothed her nightgown and turned away from him. She was fighting this, like a colt trying not to be broken.
“No I don’t,” she said. “I don’t want this.”
“Then why did you lift into me when I kissed you?” he asked, stepping up behind her and letting his breath whisper across the bare skin on her shoulder. “Why does your breath hitch? Why did you moan into my lips when they were on yours?”
She tensed and then leaned back a fraction. Enough that she brushed against him. Her shoulders against his chest. Her hair against his chin. He sucked in a breath of vanilla and citrus. He drowned in it.
“I can scent your desire on the air,” he continued. “I know it like I know my own. If I put my hand between your legs, put my mouth there as I did before, you would be wet for me. You would be ready for me. Deny it. Tell me it isn’t true. Tell me you aren’t pulsing for me right now, on the edge of release. Ready to beg for more.”
She made a soft sound in her throat, but she didn’t turn toward him. “I-I can’t want this. Because I know you’ll use it against me.”
He frowned. She wasn’t wrong. But he didn’t like that she saw him for who he was. He didn’t like that he was what she believed because she deserved more.
“True,” he said slowly. “But I’m not lying to you about that, Juliana. I do want something you have beyond your body. I want your information. I-I need your help even if I’ve fought against it until now.”
She turned then, her eyes wide. “You admit it?”
“Yes,” he said, ducking his head though he felt his cheeks heat. “I can access a great many things and places, but not like you can. I need your help. And I will repay you not just with protection because I know you’re going to get yourself in trouble, but with what you came to the Donville Masquerade for in the first place.”
Her lips parted. “I want to be clear.”
“In these cases, that’s probably best,” he drawled.
She didn’t smile at his teasing. Her face was entirely serious. “Are you saying that if I help you, if I work with you, then you will…you’ll…”
“I’ll fuck you, Juliana,” he said, emphasizing the curse that made her flinch. “I won’t make love to you sweetly like a knight in some fairytale that made you swoon as a girl. I won’t be cruel, but I won’t be gentle. I will lick you and touch you, I will have you begging. I will take that silly thing you’ve been told to protect your whole life, and I will destroy it. I will make you come. I will mark you with my body. And I will be certain you like every minute of it. That’s what I’ll do.”
Her eyes were wide as saucers, her pupils dilated until there was almost no green left and her breath came short and fast. She stared at him, gape mouthed.
He smiled. “Is that a fair trade, Miss Shelley?”
He could see her considering it. See her wondering if she should just scream and bring the household running to save her. But then she nod
ded. “A very fair trade,” she gasped out. “But you’ve already proudly declared that you are a thief and a liar, so I must insist on one thing in this exchange.”
He nodded. “And what is that?”
“You give first.”
His eyes widened at the brash demand, delivered without hesitation even if her hands were clenched at her sides, shaking like a freshly fallen leaf. That was all there was to it in the end. She was offering herself. He was going to take her.
There was nothing left to say except, “That’s a bargain.”
The words left his lips and then he tugged her forward, letting her collide against his chest as he ducked his head to kiss her again. This time there was only surrender, no hesitation as she lifted on her tiptoes, wrapped her arms around his neck and clung to him as she drove her tongue into his mouth.
She was aggressive in her desperation and he loved it, even if she was a little clumsy. Her ardor made him mad, his cock responded by easing to attention and throbbing in a constant code for him to spread her wide and fuck her hard.
But he ignored that. Ignored how she pushed him to that very end. He knew this wouldn’t be the only time they did this. It was clear to him that once he touched her, he would want to do it until he’d squeezed every drop out of the pleasure. But it was the first time he’d take her. The first time she’d ever be taken.
He wanted it to be a happy memory for her, even when he was but a faint recollection of a dead man who had taken advantage of her desire. He wanted her to wake in the night with his name on her lips in pleasure, not as a nightmare.
So he stepped back, ignoring the part of him that screamed to press her against the wall and rut. He steadied her, then he unbuttoned his shirt and tugged it over his head to stand before her half naked. And just as he’d hoped they would, her eyes boggled.
Oh yes, this was going to be a great deal of fun. One last hurrah for Handsome Ellis Maitland.
Juliana wetted her lips as she stared at Ellis’s half-naked form. Great God, but he was perfect. And imperfect. Both at the same time. He had toned shoulders, though they were marked with scars, not the least of which was the red mark left by the gunshot weeks ago.
“Does it hurt?” she whispered.
“Nothing hurts right now,” he murmured.
She let her gaze flit lower to his broad chest, peppered with hair and a stomach that should not have had so many hard crests of muscle. It was as if he had been built out of her every secret fantasy and then dropped into her bedchamber.
He was…beautiful.
“No wonder they call you Handsome,” she said, almost against her will. “No wonder love games are your bread and butter on the street.”
“Were. And this isn’t a love game,” he assured her, his voice rough. “Because you are playing me as much as I’m playing you. Don’t forget that, Juliana. You’ve broken my control, forced me to come to your bed, against all the very good arguments I’ve made to myself not to do it. I’m here and you are in control of me as much as I am of you. If you say no, I stop. If you say more…”
He trailed off and her eyes went wide as he winked at her.
“If I say more?” she whimpered.
He reached out and caught her nightgown strap between his fingers. He rolled the silk gently before he said, “Then I will give you all you can take.”
With that, he flicked the strap down and tugged her nightgown to bunch at her waist. He’d seen her like this before, of course. Not that many nights ago at the Donville Masquerade he had stripped her entirely naked and licked her until the explosion of pleasure was undeniable. She wanted that again. She wanted so much more.
Was he telling the truth when he promised her the rest? It was time to find out. She shook her hips and slid the nightgown the rest of the way down.
He smiled at her, chuckling softly. “Always your own way, Juliana. Always in your own time.”
“Not always,” she corrected.
“Tonight, then,” he promised. Then he pulled her against him again.
Her naked chest brushed his equally bare one, and she cried out at the sensation of flesh on flesh. That was a new one, and she liked the roughness of his hair against her sensitive skin. He closed his hands around her bare bottom and cupped her closer, his mouth finding hers as he ground her against him.
She lifted her mouth to his, drowning in him. For a moment, that was all the sensation her mind could process, but then her body began to awaken to other feelings. His fingers digging into her skin. The heat of his chest, the rasp of his whiskers as his chin abraded her own.
And the hard thrust of him bumping her stomach even through his trousers. It felt very strong, very big, and she shivered at the idea that she would soon see that thing she’d only ever imagined from crudely drawn pictures in a book. That it would enter her as she had dreamed of for months.
If he sensed her drive to rush, he ignored it. His kiss gentled, if anything. His fingers slid up her bare back, into her hair. He tilted her head back, he kissed her more deeply. She was lost in him and she never wanted it to end.
He slid a hand beneath her knees, and suddenly she was off her feet. She gasped against his mouth but never broke contact as he carried her to her bed and laid her against the pillows. Only then did he step away.
“Oh no, please don’t,” she protested, reaching out for him when she believed he would walk away from her again.
He shook his head. “Not even if I wanted to, angel. I’m here until the end.”
She relaxed a fraction at that declaration and settled back, watching as he reached for his trousers. This was the moment. One she had feared and longed for and believed might never happen.
He unfastened the fall front of his trousers and let it drop away. She gasped, for his member—a cock, the book had called it—bobbed free. It was hard, curling toward his stomach at attention.
She leaned closer, trying to get a better look. He laughed and stepped in so that he was within arm’s reach. And reach she did, brushing her fingers along the shaft and letting them trail over the mushroom head.
“The skin is very soft,” she declared, mesmerized by this part that was so different from her own body. “Will it truly fit?”
He nodded. “Like a dream. Like I was made for you.”
She wrapped her hand around him and stroked. To her surprise, he let out a garbled moan that sounded very much like her own gasp of pleasure when he touched her.
“You like that?” she asked, lifting her brows as his face contorted with pleasure. She stroked again and he cried out her name in the quiet room. She smiled, power filling her. “Shh now, Mr. Maitland. What was it you said about bringing the house down on us and we wouldn’t get to…talk?”
“I very much want to talk,” he gasped. “But if you keep doing that, the conversation will be over too quickly.”
“Hmmm,” she murmured, and stroked him one last time, eliciting a curse so salty that her ears burned. Then she let him go and settled back on the pillows. She opened her legs, thinking of the illustrations in the book, and sighed. “Come and show me then.”
He wrinkled his brow. “That is the most unromantic invitation I’ve ever received. After I have licked you to completion and kissed you until you were breathless and promised you orgasms that would shake your legs to exhaustion—do you really think that is how it works?”
“I don’t know how it works,” she admitted with a roll of her eyes. “You’re supposed to teach me.”
Once again he laughed and her chest swelled. She’d expected this to be fraught, and it was. The tension between them was high, the future so cloudy that it was impossible to see.
But he also made it…easy. He made it fun. She never wanted that to end, even if she knew it would.
He crawled up on the bed, gliding over her like a cat the same way he had back in the Donville Masquerade. Only this time he was naked and his cock bumped her thigh as he lowered himself over her. His mouth found hers again and he kis
sed her, this time gently. Almost reverently. Like a bridegroom tending to his bride on the sacred night of their wedding.
She pushed that thought from her mind and wrapped her arms around him, and all but melted into the pillows. His hands moved as he kissed her, fingertips tracing her collarbone, her shoulder, down her side, her hip. She arched beneath him with a whimper, sucking his tongue a little harder in mute demand. He flexed his hips in response, his cock bumping her harder.
Then his mouth glided away, down the side of her throat. He sucked her flesh just to the edge of pain, but never beyond, nibbling as he made a lazy path along her shoulder, down her chest, to her breast. She was ready for him this time in a way she hadn’t been the first time. When he caught her nipple between his teeth and tugged gently, she dug her hands into his thick hair and held him there so he could suck and circle and pleasure her.
He did all those things, taking his time as he set her body on fire. He repeated all those actions on the opposite breast and then moved lower, down the apex of her body. She shivered as his finger dug into her hips, holding her steady as he rubbed the rough whiskers on his cheek against her belly. Her breath hitched at the sensation and she whispered his name in encouragement.
Not that he needed any. The man seemed utterly focused and utterly certain of every move he made as his lips slid over her belly. Lower. Closer to her sex.
She wanted him there, so very badly. She wanted that intense explosion she’d been trying to replicate since almost the moment the ripples faded. She wanted him between her legs, those blue eyes watching her as he drove her mad with pleasure.
He grinned as if he could read her mind and pushed her legs wide with his shoulders as he settled between them. But he didn’t put his mouth there. Instead, he gently traced her outer lips with his fingertips. Too gently. She wanted more.
“Have you touched yourself?” he asked, using his thumbs to peel her open and expose her to his gaze.
Heat flooded her cheeks, but she nodded. “Yes.”
“Before I touched you?” he pressed, massaging gently.
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