by Anna Bradley
She looked up into his wicked green eyes. He’d make her yield in every way to him, and then he’d take . . .
He bit down on her earlobe when she hesitated, a tiny punishment. “Take off your gown and your shift.”
She shivered at the demand in his voice, but even as dark thoughts danced around the edges of her mind, she caught the mass of silk fabric bunched at her waist, her eyes on his. She raised her hips from the bed and slid her gown slowly, oh so slowly down her body, over her belly, her thighs—
Cam bit out a groan and grasped the silk in his fist. He stripped the gown from her body with one tug, then drew her shift over her head and tossed them both to the floor.
Eleanor trembled, bare before him, and waited for him to say something. Anything. But he remained silent as he took in every inch of her, his gaze heating her skin everywhere it touched.
Dear God, why didn’t he speak? When she couldn’t take his silence any longer she began to rise, to reach for the coverlet.
“No.” Cam said, his voice a low rasp. He placed his palm between her breasts and eased her gently back down against the pillows. “No. Let me look at you. Ellie.” His voice trailed off, and his throat worked. “I knew you’d be . . . but I never imagined, could not have imagined you . . .”
Warmth swelled in her chest, pressed against her rib cage, and pooled in her belly. She’d been called lovely before, beautiful even. Her past suitors, smooth-tongued and glib, had written odes to her lips, expounded on the fineness of her skin and compared her hair to a gleaming waterfall.
But none of them had ever touched her heart. Cam, with his broken words, his awkward lapses into silence—he made her heart soar.
He made her want to give him everything.
She reached for him, let her hand rest against his cheek for a moment, and then traced a fingertip around his lips before skimming her palm over his neck and throat.
He closed his eyes as she pressed her hand over his heart. “Yes. Touch me.”
Eleanor lifted his hand to her lips and kissed it, her tongue lingering at the center of his palm as her gaze wandered over him, at his skin tinted gold from the firelight. She’d never dreamed a man’s body could be so beautiful.
She slid a hand over his shoulders, then trailed her fingers over his chest until they came to rest on his taut belly. “I was wrong. You don’t pad your coats, after all.”
He blinked, surprised. “No. Did you suppose I did?”
“I thought you must.” Her lips quirked. “The shoulders and the chest.” She rose up and pressed her lips to his chest, and he shuddered with pleasure when she dragged her fingernails gently over his nipples. “But this . . .” She bit her lip as her gaze roamed over his powerful shoulders and arms, his muscular thighs. “This is all you.” She slid her fingernails over his hard belly, relishing the feel of his flesh sliding under her palm. “And your skin is so smooth. Like warm silk.”
He groaned low in his throat, moving restlessly on the bed as she teased her hands over him. “Eleanor?”
She raised her gaze to his. His green eyes were darker than she’d ever seen them, his eyelids heavy. “Yes?”
He took her hand and dragged it across his belly until the tips of her fingers met the top of his breeches. “I don’t pad my breeches, either.” He moved her hand lower still, his breath leaving his lungs in a heated rush as her fingers curled instinctively around him. “This is all me, too.”
Her eyes never left his as she twisted open the buttons on his falls and slipped her hand inside to brush against the hard flesh there. “Oh,” she murmured, surprised. This part of him felt so alive. It twitched in her palm, as if it sought her touch. She held him, her hand still. Cam didn’t speak, but a strangled cry escaped him and he arched into her touch when she stroked her hand once over his hot skin.
Eleanor tightened her fingers around him then, thrilled at his low moan and the way his hard flesh throbbed against her hand. Dear God, she wanted touch him like this forever, to watch his face and listen to the low, broken sounds coming from deep in his chest as his powerful body shook. She wanted to see him lost in pleasure, helpless against it.
She watched, fascinated as his back arched and his hips moved in rhythm with each of her strokes, but after a moment he reached down and grabbed her hand to still it. “Enough.”
He pulled away from her and rolled off the bed, and Eleanor nearly leapt off after him. “Cam? Where are you—”
The words died in her throat. He stripped off his breeches and smalls with one deft tug. Eleanor swallowed, hardly knowing where to look first. He was magnificent—smooth bronze skin poured over muscle, his body lean, hard, graceful, every line in perfect symmetry, as if a sculptor had carved him.
He joined her on the bed again and she reached for his shaft where it jutted proudly from his hips, eager to resume her exploration, but Cam caught her hand with a strained laugh. “No.”
Eleanor made a half-hearted attempt to get free. “But I want—”
He moved to lay over her, the dark hair on his legs tickling her thighs. “You want to drive me mad.” He raised her arms over her head and this time he held them there with a hand around her wrists. “But it’s my turn now.” He nudged her legs apart with his knee and slipped his hand between her open thighs to cup her there.
Eleanor gasped at the intimacy of it. Heat rushed over her and she trembled at the caress. “Cam, I—”
“Shhhh.” His tongue brushed against her ear as his fingers danced over her, teasing at her damp flesh, stroking her between her legs. “I want to taste you.” His soft hair dragged across her heated skin as he moved lower to press open-mouthed kisses between her breasts, then lower still, his tongue licking a path down her stomach to her belly-button.
He released her wrists and his hands slid down her sides to her hips, then his palms were between her thighs, easing them open, wider, then wider still . . .
A strangled cry left Eleanor’s lips as his fingers moved delicately between her legs, his thumbs opening her gently. He lowered his head and . . .
Taste her? Surely he didn’t mean . . . surely he wouldn’t—
“Wanted you like this forever. Dreamed of tasting you,” he groaned, right before his hot tongue snaked out to touch her, there, where his fingers had been, and dear God, it felt like . . . oh, she didn’t know! She’d never felt anything like it before. She knew only it was wicked, what he was doing, wicked and exquisite, and she couldn’t make herself stop him, couldn’t think—
He did it again, his soft tongue tracing lazy, maddening circles over her swollen flesh, making her gasp. Her hands fisted in his hair to . . . drag him away? Drag him closer?
“Does it feel good?” His whisper was low and urgent, his breath hot against her damp flesh. “Tell me.”
Eleanor made an incoherent sound in answer—a gasp or a moan, she didn’t know which, only that she’d never made that sound before in her life. He pressed his tongue harder against her, his mouth relentless, devouring her, flicking again and again over that tiny knot of flesh hidden in her folds until she could no longer keep her hips still, and writhed against the bed.
Cam’s breath hissed from his lungs when she arched under his hands. “Yes, Ellie, yes—Give me everything.”
He murmured to her between teasing strokes of his tongue, his voice low and wicked, and his fingers were everywhere, one spread low over her belly to hold her still, the other thrusting slowly into her wet heat, his tongue hot and slick, working her until her back bowed with each stroke.
Just when she thought she couldn’t take another moment of his delicious torment, he slid a second finger inside her. “Ah, yes—so sweet and wet, Ellie.” His strokes were more insistent now, faster, his breath ragged. “Come for me.”
She didn’t understand his words, but it didn’t matter—it was enough to hear his voice wash over her, move through her heart as the knot he’d tied inside her body drew tighter and tighter until it unraveled in hot waves of pleas
ure. Eleanor cried out, her fingers pulling Cam’s hair as he stroked her through a bliss more intense than any she’d ever known. He didn’t stop until her body went limp against the pillows, then he released her thighs and moved to lie beside her. His mouth took hers, stealing each sigh from her lips until she calmed at last, then he brushed her tangled hair away from her face.
“So beautiful.” His voice was soft, filled with wonder, but strained, breathless, and his shaft leapt against her belly. She shifted against him, squirming lower on the bed so his hard length nudged between her thighs.
Cam moaned, his big body shaking as she urged him to lie on top of her. “Tell me you want me.” He held still, his hips tight against hers. “Tell me you’ll give yourself to me.”
Oh, she did—she wanted him, against all reason, whether she should or not.
“Tell me.” He moved his hips in a gentle thrust.
She gazed up at his stark, beautiful face, into his intense green eyes, dark with longing, and all thoughts of resistance melted away. “I want you. Don’t stop, Cam.”
He released a long breath, and his lips met hers, the kiss so tender Eleanor had to pull away. His face softened as he looked down at her. He caressed the insides of her thighs, then pushed them apart gently to open her to him. He settled between her legs, his lean hips opening her wider. “Don’t be afraid.”
Eleanor only nodded, for how could she tell him it wasn’t the physical pain she feared, but the pain to her heart?
A ragged groan tore from his throat as he braced himself over her. The tip of his cock nudged against her entrance, then he thrust into her in one quick, powerful stoke. Once he was buried deep inside her, he went still. “Ellie?” He turned her face to his with a gentle hand on her cheek. “I don’t want to hurt you.”
She’d gone stiff beneath him, stunned at the sudden, sharp pain, but she could already feel her body closing around him, accepting him, tugging his hard flesh deeper inside her. She slid her arms around him and sank her fingers into the arch of his back. “You feel so . . . big. So hard.”
Some of the tension eased from him, and he laughed softly. “You feel—ah, Eleanor. You feel beautiful, so hot and sweet. I can’t get enough of you.”
Encouraged by his words and the feel of her body easing around him, she moved, just the tiniest circling of her hips, but Cam gasped and threw his head back as if he’d never before felt such astonishing pleasure. “Yes. God, yes.”
He began to move inside her then, his movements slow, careful. His body coaxed hers until each stroke took on an urgent necessity. “Cam,” she gasped, sinking her fingernails into his sweat-slick back. “Cam.”
He thrust deep into her with a powerful surge of his hips. “Do you need more?”
Eleanor closed her eyes and cried out at the exquisite sensation of him filling her. “Yes. Yes.”
She thrust her hips upward in a desperate attempt to repeat the sensation, but Cam held her to the bed with his hands, and with a dark laugh resumed his slow, measured strokes. “Not yet.”
He held back ruthlessly, keeping her just on the edge of release until, maddened, she broke free from his grasp and pulled him hard against her with her legs around his waist. She locked her ankles around his taut hips and pressed her mouth to his neck to suck and bite at him, his skin salt and musk under her tongue.
Cam gave a fierce, guttural cry and surged against her, all restraint at an end as he worked to give her what she needed. He twisted a fist in her hair to draw her head back so he could see her face. He thrust into her again, then again, hard and fast and deep. “Eleanor. Come with me.”
Eleanor arched against him, panting, her eyes locked with his. “Oh, oh . . .”
“Now.” He slid a shaking hand between her open thighs to stroke her and she cried out, her legs tightening around him as she exploded beneath him.
“Yes, Eleanor. So good . . . ” Cam’s hips thrust furiously as he drove into her, until at last he cried out with savage triumph, shuddering over her, his back bowing as he came to his own release.
His arms collapsed beneath him and he sagged against her, his body spent. For long moments they lay there and he held her, the only sound their mingled breathing.
Eleanor reached up to stroke his damp hair, dazed. He was . . . dear God, he was magnificent. She’d never dreamt she could feel such pleasure, and he’d been so tender, so careful of her. Her heart crashed against her ribs now, just thinking of it. To experience such pleasure in his arms, it made her . . .
Vulnerable.
He eased to his side, gathered her against him and buried his face in her hair. He murmured to her, his voice hoarse—he told her she was beautiful, exquisite, that she’d given him such pleasure—but his words washed over her, soundless, drowned as each desperate beat of her heart echoed in her ears.
She’d given him everything.
When she didn’t reply he pulled back to look down at her, an anxious frown creasing his brow. “Eleanor. Are you all right? Oh, God, I didn’t hurt you?”
She shook her head, too numb to speak. No, he hadn’t hurt her.
But he would.
Panic began to well in her chest. She could become a slave to it. To the pleasure, yes, but also to him, his fingers under her chin as he tipped her face up to his, his green eyes, dark with passion, his whispered words in her ears, so sweet she’d never be able to deny him anything.
Oh, dear God. What had she done?
He’d take everything from her now, until there was nothing left, until she was so empty inside she no longer recognized herself. She’d become a ghost, haunted and silent, her feet soundless against the marble floors.
The villain, or the hero, but never both at once.
He wrapped an arm around her neck and urged her head down to his bare chest. He toyed with her hair for long moments, then heaved a deep, satisfied sigh. “I knew it was a good idea to bring you to Lindenhurst.”
Eleanor’s breath froze in her lungs. “What did you say?”
Cam twined a long lock of her hair around his finger. “Just that I’m glad we came here.”
She shouldn’t be here. Not with him. Not like this.
“Why? Because you managed to lure me into your bed?” Eleanor heard the fear in her own voice, cold and brittle, like glass shattering.
“This is your bed, sweet.” His voice was teasing. “But yes, since you ask, I would have gone much farther than Lindenhurst to have you.”
She tensed. “How much farther, Cam? Far enough to orchestrate a seduction? To ruin me? It’s a good plan if you want to trap a lady into marriage.”
Silence. A pause, then Cam’s body went rigid beneath her. “Don’t, Ellie. Please.”
She had to close her eyes against the quiet agony in his voice. Oh, God, she didn’t want to do this, but the panic pressed in on her from all sides, and the coverlet was too tight over her, too hot, smothering her, and she had to get away, now, because if she didn’t, she’d sink down into him and never rise again, and he’d own her . . .
She kicked at the covers twisted around her legs and struggled out of his arms. His body was too warm, too seductive, his heartbeat too loud in her ears—
Cam caught at her waist to stop her but she jerked away and scrambled off the bed. Her gown lay in a discarded heap on the floor. She struggled into it, then turned back to face him. Her heart twisted in her chest when she saw he’d gone as white as the bedsheet still bunched around his waist. “Do you deny it?”
“Don’t do this.”
The pleading note in his voice stabbed at her, and she had to force herself not to cover her ears. “Do you deny it?”
He seemed to fight with himself for a moment, then, “It might have begun that way, yes, but now—”
“It won’t work.”
His expression changed then, his mouth hardening. “What do you mean, it won’t work?”
She laughed, the sound high-pitched, unnatural. “Just what I said. It won’t work.”
He rose from the bed and crossed the room to retrieve his breeches. Eleanor averted her eyes from his naked body. She didn’t want to see him, to see how beautiful he was. It made her weak.
“Explain.” He stood in front of her, his arms crossed over that massive chest, every line of his body rigid.
Eleanor lifted her chin. “I don’t care if I’m ruined. It doesn’t matter. It changes nothing. I won’t marry you.”
Chapter Twenty-four
“You might not care if you’re ruined, but I do. And you’re wrong, Eleanor. It does matter, and it does change everything.”
Cam dragged his shirt over his head. His body had gone cold, numb. What had happened? She’d given herself to him. She’d let him hold her, her head nestled into his chest, and now this? She was wild-eyed, frantic.
“Sit down.” His heart thrashed and bled into his chest, but he forced himself to stay calm.
Her eyes widened in astonishment. “I’ve just told you I will never marry you, Cam. This is where the conversation ends, not where it begins.” She edged around him and crossed the room to open the door.
Cam’s lips moved, stretched into a humorless smile. “No, Eleanor. It isn’t. We’ve just begun.”
She paused, her hand on the knob.
He gestured toward the settee. “Earlier this evening, in the library, you said you knew everything. You don’t. I thought you might wish to know it, but I’d prefer it if you sit. It’s not the sort of story you should hear while standing.”
She opened the door, gestured for him to leave. “I know enough.”
Cam didn’t move. “You said my mother was ruined, as if it were a thing that could happen by accident, like falling off a horse, or getting caught in foul weather. It isn’t.”
“What does that mean?” Her voice was strained but patient, as if she were calming a hysterical child.
But Cam wasn’t a child. He hadn’t been a child since he was nine years old, and far from being hysterical, he’d never felt more detached. It was damned odd, since he hadn’t told this story before in his life, to anyone. Even Julian only knew bits and pieces of it. “It means it wasn’t an accident. Someone ruined her. I thought you might like to know who it was.”