The grassy field was currently home to a small flock of grazing sheep, but Eleanor suspected Damon would attempt to maneuver past them. But then the balloon dropped so that they were barely skimming over the trees.
“We're too low-toss the ballast, Elle…”
Obeying quickly, she hefted one of the bags over the side of the basket.
Their craft bobbed back up a short way and cleared the treeline before starting to sink again.
“Another one. We're going down too fast.”
Again she did as she was bid, this time with better results. Their descent slowed to a safer speed.
“Now brace yourself, Elle,” Damon ordered. “And when we hit, try to absorb the impact with your knees.”
When she held tightly to the rim, he wrapped one arm around her from behind and grasped the basket's suspension ropes with his free hand.
The ground seemed to rush up at them, and Elea nor held her breath in apprehension.
It was indeed a hard, jarring landing, just as Damon had predicted. The basket struck with a jolt, then tilted and bumped along the ground as the balloon dragged them another dozen yards. When a contrary breeze struck, however, the silken mass lifted once more, causing the basket to suddenly right itself and then come to an abrupt halt.
With their own continued momentum, Eleanor and Damon went sprawling sideways, although he purposely took the brunt of the impact as they fell together on the floor.
They lay there unmoving, his arms wrapped around her, while overhead, the balloon slowly grew limp.
For a moment Damon simply stared at her. Eleanor could feel his heartbeat thudding against her breast, could see the fierce relief on his face, yet as the haunted glimmer in his eyes began to fade, she knew his concern had been for her, not himself.
Her own pounding heartbeat beginning to quiet, Eleanor let out her breath slowly. They had faced danger and survived unscathed.
Neither of them spoke a word. Then Damon's arms folded around her more tightly and his lips came crashing down on hers.
His unexpected action took away the breath she'd just reclaimed and caused a sweet shock of response in every part of her body. His kiss was hard and frenzied, expressing the almost desperate relief she had seen in his eyes.
Damon filled her mouth with his tongue, taking, demanding, igniting a burst of heat inside her so powerful, she felt weak with it. She returned his kiss avidly, though, eagerly fusing her lips to his, drinking him in like a woman dying of thirst.
To her dismay, Damon was the one to end their frantic embrace, although with obvious reluctance. Breaking off the scalding kiss, he drew back, and when he spoke, his voice was husky and raw. “Much as I would like to continue this for an eternity, it wouldn't be honorable to ravish you, Elle.”
“I suppose not,” she murmured, her own voice low and ragged.
From the expression on his face-part grimace, part hungry desire-she concluded that he was as painfully aroused and bereft as she was, and that he had only stopped for her sake.
“We need to find a farm or a village, borrow a carriage to take us home.”
“Yes,” Eleanor agreed halfheartedly. She couldn't bear for him to leave her just now. She didn't want to return home. Instead, she wanted to beg Damon for more of his smoldering kisses, wanted him to ease the relentless ache he had created in her, to assuage the heart-deep longing inside her.
When a shadow descended over them, they both glanced up. The balloon had deflated significantly by now, and yards of heavy silk had settled over the basket, blocking out the sunlight and cocooning them in a private haven.
It seemed to Eleanor as if it were some kind of sign from Providence.
“Damon… can we not stay here a while longer?”
His eyes locked with hers, his gaze smoldering and intent. Her body responded to the possessive, hungry masculinity in his eyes.
A yearning welled up deep inside her, something utterly primitive and poignant and wild. Her chest ached. Her breasts grew heavy, while a hot throbbing kindled low in her belly, between her thighs.
Urged on by her longing, Eleanor lifted her face to brush her lips softly over his, once… twice…
Damon responded just as she hoped; he groaned and covered her mouth again with his.
Their kiss was less fierce this time yet just as impassioned. Their tongues mated, sliding, stroking, dueling in a heated, urgent dance. In turn, Eleanor emitted a revealing whimper that spoke of desire and want and need. Emotion flooded her, the same heady joy she had once known with Damon so long ago. She ached for him feverishly, with a yearning that was too intense to bear.
The ravenous hunger for fulfillment had gone too long unsatisfied, but that would end here and now, Eleanor vowed. Her fingers reaching up to clutch at the dark waves of his hair, she eased away just enough to whisper against his lips.
“Damon… please.” Her plea was hoarse and breathless. “Make love to me.”
He pulled back to gaze solemnly at her, his eyes raptly searching her face.
Eleanor waited with bated breath, but Damon must have found whatever he was looking for in her expression, since a slow, soft smile spread across his lips.
That tantalizing smile warmed her like sunlight breaking through a storm cloud, and so did his reply.
“Yes,” he said at last, his rasping voice ripe with promise.
To be caught in a compromising position is perhaps the surest way to capture a husband-although I would not advise you to attempt employing so drastic a method. -An Anonymous Lady, Advice…
Eleanor's heart turned over at Damon's answer. She stared into his dark eyes, her body trembling. Time seemed to halt as his tenderness enveloped her.
Helplessly drawn to him, she raised her mouth to his once more. Yet this time his kiss was merely fleeting.
“There is no rush, love,” he murmured in response to her eagerness. “I want your first time to be unforgettably pleasurable.”
A quiet thrill coursed through Eleanor at his avowal. She had little doubt Damon would give her an experience to cherish.
Sitting up, he found the blanket and spread it out to make a soft bed, then made her kneel upon on it, facing him. Taking his time, he reached up to remove her bonnet, then her pelisse. Next he undid the fastenings at the back of her gown and drew down the bodice to expose her undergarments. Making short work of her chemise straps, he slowly stroked down her throat to the swells of her breasts pushed up by her corset. Another tremor ran through Eleanor, and when he freed the peaks to his ardent gaze, a new ache spiraled hot and delicious throughout her body.
Damon was watching the rapid rise and fall of her bare breasts, but then he bent his head. She inhaled a sharp breath as he drew her nipple into his mouth, sucking softly. The lush, wet pressure sent a shower of heat rushing to her feminine center.
Her body clamoring for more, Eleanor tried to draw him even closer, yet Damon resisted.
“Slowly, Elle. You are not ready for me yet.”
“Then make me ready,” she urged.
“Gladly.”
Her senses felt feverishly heightened as he lay her back on the blanket. Then raising her skirts above her knees, he lowered his mouth to a bare inner thigh and proceeded to kiss every inch of soft skin he found there. His touch was exquisite, his warm lips caressing, teasing, driving her slightly mad with yearning as he nudged her gown ever higher to her waist, revealing her most feminine secrets.
Eleanor shivered with heat as his mouth moved upward to her woman's mound covered by a thatch of ebony curls. When he stopped just short of the heart of her, though, she looked down. The sight of him poised between her spread thighs was enough to make her tremble. His dark hair was an erotic contrast to her pale skin as she felt the hot, taunting moisture of his breath brushing her cleft.
She whimpered when his tongue made its first sweep across her wetness. Then he tasted her fully, his lips enveloping the hidden bud of her sex. The sweet shock of it made her hips arch off the
blanket, which only caused Damon to slide his hands under her buttocks to hold her steady.
Perhaps she should have been scandalized by his stunning passion, by her own wantonness, Eleanor thought in a dazed corner of her mind, but instead she welcomed the magical caresses of his mouth.
A moan sounded in her throat as he went on tonguing her, stroking the engorged, keenly sensitive nub. Eleanor clutched at his shoulders, not certain she could bear any more, but Damon continued his relentless assault, driving her on to greater heights until she was writhing beneath him, thrashing her head from side to side as the frantic fervor built and built. She thought she might shatter from the tormenting pleasure-and in only a few moments, she did just that.
She melted and exploded all at once.
The bright starburst that splintered within her left Eleanor weak and blissfully enervated in the aftermath. Her eyes remained closed as she strove to recover her dazed senses, but when she felt Damon ease to one side, she opened them again.
His expression was one of tender approval, she saw. Then to her surprise, he took her hand and brought it to the apex of her thighs, pressing her fingers against her feminine cleft, which was now slick with moisture.
“That is better,” he said with satisfaction. “Your body has prepared itself for my entry. You're wet with your own honey.”
Releasing her, he switched her attention to his own loins by reaching down and unbuttoning the front placket of his pantaloons. Her breath faltered when he opened his drawers and freed his long, swollen phallus, which jutted from the curling hair at his groin. Eleanor swallowed, fascinated by his male anatomy and the large, pulsing size of him.
Damon took her hand again and brought it to his blatant arousal, letting the surging warm flesh brush her palm. He inhaled a sharp breath when her fingers curled gently around the hard shaft, and shuddered with pleasure when she traced the firm, velvety sacs below.
“Enough of that, sweetheart,” he said in a husky warning. “If you arouse me too keenly, I won't be able to control myself.”
“I don't want you to control yourself,” Eleanor murmured shyly, feeling brazen and joyously light-hearted.
“Yes, you do. We need to go slowly so I won't hurt you.”
He stretched out beside her, bracing his weight on one elbow, and drew her close, letting her feel the swollen ridge of his erection against the softness of her thigh. When his hand rose to brush back a raven curl from her face, the tenderness and sensuality in his touch was unmistakable.
“I have dreamed of this,” he murmured, gazing down at her.
She had dreamed of it as well, of Damon making love to her as he was doing now. Of Damon holding her and touching her and treasuring her.
His palm cradling her cheek, he bent again to feather kisses along her jaw and lower, down the column of her throat. At the same time, he reached out to cup her breast. The warmth from his palm seared her skin, and a moment later, his mouth joined in, grazing her nipples with arousing caresses.
When he shifted his position to cover her body, however, settling his weight between her thighs, Damon raised his head to look at her. His eyes shimmered with a hot, primal haze of desire, Eleanor saw with mingled excitement and elation.
Desire churned inside her as well, along with an exquisite heat that throbbed in time with her racing pulse. She wanted him with an intensity that frightened her.
Yet she wasn't afraid when his hard arousal found the wet haven between her legs and probed her entrance. Then slowly, ever so slowly, he began his careful penetration.
His intense, dark gaze never left hers the entire time. “Tell me if you want me to stop,” he ordered softly.
“I will…”
Yet she didn't want him to stop. His powerful thighs kept her own parted as he sank lower, pressing inexorably into her, yet her body was opening willingly for him, stretching, accepting his swollen male-ness.
When at last he lay buried deep inside her, Eleanor felt overwhelmingly full of him, although she could not call the sensation painful. Her breathing had shallowed, however, and she was certain he could feel her pounding heart against the hard wall of his chest.
“Are you all right, Elle?”
The deep husk of his voice held a note of worry, but she reassured him with a faint smile.
“Yes,” she whispered truthfully. Having their flesh joined in the most intimate way possible seemed somehow right… perfect, even.
Careful and tender, Damon lay completely still, waiting for her to grow accustomed to his impalement, and after a while Eleanor realized that the coiled tension inside her was growing more urgent.
When her rigidness began to relax, Damon withdrew, then slowly slid upward once more, making her tremble, before pulling back again. He repeated his sensual action numerous times, stroking her with each gentle plunge and retreat, surging slowly, withdrawing rhythmically, coaxing her response, until instinctively her hips lifted and sought to match his pace in a dance of sweet abandon.
Her whimpers turned to moans as Damon stoked the bright flame of sensation at the center of her. His own breathing was rough as he moved inside her, yet he tempered the powerful thrust of his flesh into her, intent only on increasing her pleasure.
Eleanor was nearly sobbing now at the unbearable sweetness. Almost desperate, she strained and twisted under him as the incendiary sparks burgeoned into a conflagration. When the rush of fire crested and broke, her passion burst deep inside her in a delirium of joy and she arched against him, stunned, crying out.
He captured her wild moans with his mouth yet kept driving with the same compelling rhythm, expertly prolonging her ecstasy as wave after wave of rapture convulsed her.
Only then did Damon surrender to the same tumult that had swept Eleanor. A harsh groan ripping from his throat, he buried his face in the curve of her neck as his body wrenched and shuddered and finally went still.
Their ragged breaths quieting as the sensual reverberations waned, they clung together, weak and spent in the aftershocks of pleasure.
Damon recovered first. Raising his head, he kissed her flushed face again and again… slow, soothing, soft caresses of his lips that seared Eleanor's heart as much as his exquisite passion had done to her body.
“After all the fantasies I have had of you,” he murmured against her lips, “reality was infinitely sweeter.”
She hadn't the strength to reply, so she only smiled her agreement with her eyes still shut. Damon's weight was pressing down on her, but she had no desire to move. She only wanted to lie here, savoring his hard strength, relishing the feeling of being completely, achingly filled by him. She felt joined to Damon utterly, not just their bodies but their hearts. Their intimacy had been spectacular, hot and bold and thrilling, beyond her wildest imaginings. Yet the intense sweetness of it, the sheer enchantment, had flooded her with the same overwhelming, overpowering emotion she had known before…
Eleanor froze at a sudden, shocking realization. The yearning pouring through her was love.
She still loved Damon. She had never stopped loving him-
The sound of voices and running feet seemed to come from far away, yet it was far too close to their cocoon of silk, Eleanor noted in one dazed part of her mind.
Damon went rigid, and so did she upon comprehending that they would not be alone for much longer.
He voiced a soft oath before carefully easing off her and fishing in his coat pocket for a handkerchief. “I was afraid this might happen.”
Then offering her a rueful smile, he began to wipe away the traces of his seed from her thighs and his loins. “We had best repair our dishevelment, Elle, and quickly, since I suspect we are about to be interrupted by the local citizenry.”
Eleanor was still reeling with the shock of her realization, but the awkwardness of being caught in flagrante delicto with Damon took precedence. They scrambled to right their clothing moments before several tenant farmers from the nearby fields came running to investigate the startling p
henomenon from the skies.
Once the sagging balloon had been pulled off the basket and Damon calmly explained their predicament, the farmers offered to take them to the local squire's manor so they could borrow a carriage. But he declined, possibly, Eleanor surmised, because the fewer members of the gentry who saw them just now, the better.
Instead, Damon offered one farmer a substantial fee to convey them back to London in his cart and promised to pay another lavishly for returning the balloon.
Eleanor still had not recovered from her recent shock when they began the long drive to London. She was still in love with Damon, heaven help her. Since the moment he'd reappeared in her life, she had fought her emotions, struggled to crush any lingering feelings she still held for him, to no avail.
And she had just compounded her error by making love to him and giving him her innocence.
Eleanor squeezed her eyes shut, assailed by regrets and self-recriminations. Now that their enchanted lovers’ spell was broken, she felt like an utter fool. She must have been mad to surrender to her yearning for Damon.
What in heavens name would she do now? She couldn't tell him how she felt, of course. It would be too hurtful when he rejected her love.
She had to get away from him, that much was certain. She was much too vulnerable to him now, loving him when her love wasn't returned.
Yet that wasn't the most urgent issue at the moment. Over a hundred people had watched them fly off into the skies together. They needed to decide how best to avert the possible negative repercussions. They couldn't discuss the matter just now in front of the farmer, however.
As for Damon, he remained mostly silent during the journey. Whenever Eleanor caught his eye, his enigmatic expression gave her no clue to what he was thinking or feeling, or if he was experiencing similar regrets.
Perhaps he was merely concocting a story to explain their long absence, she thought hopefully. By the time the farmer set them down in Portman Place in the early afternoon, they had been gone for nearly four hours.
“Damon,” Eleanor began in a low voice as he escorted her up the front steps of the Beldon mansion. “My aunt will doubtless be unhappy about today's mishap, even though it was beyond our control. I think we should emphasize that we were discovered shortly after we landed.”
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