A Question of Love

by Angeline Fortin

  “This isn’t what you want, Eden,” he rasped hoarsely.

  “Isn’t it?” she whispered her voice more seductive than she realized.

  “It isn’t what I want,” he amended. Indeed he wanted more. So much more.

  “Isn’t it?” she taunted with an alluring smile. Eve realized she felt strangely powerful in that moment. She was in control in a way that she had never experienced. It was intoxicating to know that she had the choice where before she never had. In itself, it was a potent aphrodisiac.

  Trailing her hand down his arm, she clasped his hand in hers. Staring directly into his eyes, she stepped away from him. Back another to the base of the stairs and at arm’s length. Still another and their hands loosened. Stepping onto the bottom step, she smiled and let go of his hand. Turning her back to him and chancing that he wouldn't run, Evelyn climbed slowly up half way. She cast a look over her shoulder and found him poised with a foot on the lowest step and a hand on the banister.

  “Eden, I’m trying,” he tried to reason with her and with the inner battle between body and mind. He was resisting for her, wasn’t he? Reason seemed to have abandoned him. “Please…”

  “Yes, please,” she returned in a low voice and continued to the top of the stairs.

  Francis watched her climb, her tournure and all the fabric that trailed up and over it swishing provocatively behind her. The sway of her bottom mesmerized him and knew he was totally lost. He'd tried to fight this for her sake, for propriety's sake. But…if she wanted him! The blood roared through his veins. By God she would have him as he would have her!

  Taking the stairs two at a time like an exuberant schoolboy, he caught her at the top and swung her into his arms. Looking down into her surprised face, he grinned devilishly. “You did say please.”

  Evelyn threw her arms about his neck and hung on as he carried her to her room. “I’ll have to remember how well you respond to that word in the future.”

  Chapter 27

  She was actually a bit nervous herself, Eve admitted inwardly as Francis carried her down the hall. Not only did she fear taking their relationship to the bedroom on purely moral grounds, but, in spite of her bold invitation, her experience in the bedchamber was minimal at best. Encounters with William had always been brief, dispassionate and often uncomfortable. She had never actually wanted to make love before. The aching in her body this past week told her that there had to be more than she had previously experienced. How could there not? Oh she wished, hoped it would be so!

  Locking her bedchamber door behind them, Francis caught her in his powerful arms and drew her to him for a deep kiss that she felt to her toes. His hands fluttered up her back and it took her a moment to realize that he was undoing the trail of buttons to her gown. It fell first to her hips then he pushed it down until it dropped to the floor. Turning her in his arms, he nuzzled her neck while he worked the ties of her long corset until it too dropped with a solid thump. Turning back to face him, Eve backed slowly away holding his gaze with hers as she nervously pushed the straps to her chemise off her shoulders and shimmied it off .

  As her flesh was revealed bit by bit, Francis’ blood roared in his ears. Her flesh was creamy white, her breasts full over a tiny waist. His eyes wandered over the flair of her hips and down those long legs. She was a goddess and his eyes worshipped her.

  His raised his eyes back to her and Eve could read the appreciation and heat there. A shiver of satisfaction went through her that she could please and arouse him so and her nervous tension eased. Reaching the bed, she perched on the edge and bent to remove her stockings, her eyes still locked with his, now enjoying his reactions.

  It had been on the tip of Francis’ tongue to ask Eve to leave her stockings on until she started sliding them slowly down her legs. As he watched their slow descent, his mouth went dry and he was entranced. Eve was a tall woman, well-toned from her athletic activities and those long legs just seemed to go on forever. He couldn’t wait to have them wrapped around his hips.

  Eve watched as he prowled slowly toward her shedding his tie and jacket as he came. The flickering firelight played sensually over the contours and hollows of his thick, muscled torso as he pulled his shirt over his head. Her breath caught with wonder at the beauty of his muscular physique as the heavy muscles on his chest and arms bunched and flexed. She shivered as she imagined rubbing her cheek, pressing her lips to the hard ridges of his stomach.

  Francis was watching her as she studied him, he saw a range of emotion and feeling cross her wide eyes until they became a hazy green with sheer lust. Francis felt a shiver run up his spine as his own lust rose to match hers. He wanted her. So much so, he simply couldn't believe it. She heated his blood in a way he'd never thought possible. He moved closer to stand over her but her eyes did not rise to his. Instead they remained trained on his bare stomach. His muscles tensed as he felt her visual caress. Her slender hand rose as if by its own will and a single finger drew a light, teasing line down the center of his abdomen to his navel. Her tongue darted out to wet her lips and she began to lean forward. His heart pounded so wildly in anticipation that he could see his own chest move with the intensity of it.

  Evelyn's hands moved to the sides of his hips as if to hold him there should he attempt to move away. Move away! As if he could move away even if his life depended on it! Her head tilted up, her chin resting on his stomach as she smiled seductively up at him. A moment later his unfastened trousers dropped low on his hips clinging there as she spread the fabric to reveal more of him.

  Eve knew she was tormenting her earl as his breath grew ragged and his muscles tensed. Waiting. With one last smile, she turned her head to the side and rubbed her cheek against the flat rippling muscles thinking his stomach much like the washboard the laundress used with its dips and ridges. She continued to rub her cheeks, first one and then the other, against the washboard plains of his stomach marveling at the hardness she found there, the heat that radiated from him and the furious pounding of his heart that moved his whole body. She could feel his body shake. Lord, he was trembling! An answering quiver shook her body.

  “Eden…my God,” he groaned throwing back his head and diving his hands into her lustrous honey-gold hair sending the pins flying as the silken mass dropped heavily over his arms and down her back.

  Turning her head, she pressed a warm kiss just above his navel, her hands curling at his sides. Her heart picking up in tempo, she traced a wet line along the muscle strands back and forth, tasting. When her hand slid up to cup him, he pulled back with a low hiss.

  Eve looked at him once more her lips wet and parted in silent invitation.

  Without a word, Francis pushed her onto her back. His kisses were anything but sweet and gentle now. His lips ravaged hers passionately nipping, biting and threatening to devour her whole while his hands roamed down kneading her hips and legs parting them so that he could press himself against her center. His teeth and lips trailed down her neck to her breast playing the same ravaging game on their sensitive peaks.

  Gasping in surprise, Eve arched mindlessly under his touch. If he were anything but gentle it was because she drove him to it. She was in awe of her power to drive him to this state of ardor where he was so lost in need that even thoughts of tenderness did not soften his touch. Eve didn't care, she gloried in it, this possession of her body that wasn’t at all a punishment.

  “My God, Eden,” his husky brogue caressed her, “How I want ye. I want to take ye. I want to be inside ye so fooking badly.”

  A shudder ripped through Eve at these words. Her arms wrapped tightly about him encouraging him to act. Still he lingered, moved lower, his lips and tongue trailing roughly across her stomach. Playing her own game, he rubbed his whiskered face against her stomach from side to side. With a deep moan, Evelyn buried her hands in his hair and pulled urging him up and over her, but still he lingered and moved lower still.

  “Francis?” The confused question came panting from her lips. “
What?”

  “Trust me, my paradise.” His rough tongue licked at the sensitive flesh of her inner thigh and higher, parting her and taking her most sensitive flesh into his mouth. Eve reared off the bed with a harsh cry that was nothing like anything his proper lass had ever uttered before as she pulled at his hair to push him away. To pull him closer. He licked again and circled the little bud back into his mouth before tormenting her with his tongue once more. A shudder racked her body as she arched helplessly with another cry. And another as he went on roughly tonguing her, suckling until she was sobbing with need then her thighs tensed signaling her impending release.

  “Francis,” she panted breathlessly. “Please!”

  With a strangled groan at the word, he shed his trousers with a kick before he moved his massive body over her, hooking her leg with his arm until her knee was pressed against her chest before he drove into her with all the intensity of feeling and emotion that was flowing through him taking her mouth once more in a kiss hot and wet.

  Evelyn gasped into his mouth in astonishment and delight as he filled her. Their eyes met for a moment acknowledging in the wonder of his possession before he began to move within her. Her last coherent thought was that she was going to die from the sheer ecstasy of it and that she would not mind dying like this. Francis did not let up. He drove into her with long powerful strokes, rhythmically pounding down into her over and over. Evelyn was nearly crying with the intensity of it as tension rebuilt at her core and reached its tendrils down her inner thighs, her every breath a sob of joy and passion begging him to stop, begging him to go on and on forever.

  She wrapped her long legs around him and locked him tight as his rhythm increased. Her hands flexed with every stroke of his body over her, her fingernails biting into the flesh of his back and his buttocks. Francis thrust into her savagely again, his whole body shaking. Eve's muscles clenched in answer. She threw back her head and screamed her release into the room. Francis joined her in ecstasy, his face buried in her throat to muffle his own cry of release.

  He collapsed on top of her and together they lay in awe of what had just happened between them.

  Francis could feel her legs shaking around him and knew an instant of remorse. He tried to roll off of her but she held him tight to her. “Eden, how utterly graceless of me,” he pulled again to get off of her. This time she let him go and he turned onto his side next to her. His eyes ran the length of her body as she lay there unmoving. “God, I didn't hurt you, did I?”

  “What?” Evelyn asked, her eyes wide with surprise. That was the last thing she had expected him to say. How could he possibly think that that had hurt? Lying back, she curled her arms over her head and stretched her body feeling the tiny twinges, wonderful twinges all the way to her toes.

  “I am a big man, Eden, heavy as well. You are…” Francis lost track of his question as he beheld her naked beauty before him. Reaching out, he ran his rough hand down the length of her from breast to thigh trailing over her smoothly rounded hips with lingering appreciation. “Oh, this is truly paradise.”

  Evelyn laughed huskily and turned toward him, wrapping her arms around him and pressing her body to the length of his. In response, he reached about and cupped her buttocks pulling her tightly against him and rolling them both over until she lay on top of him.

  Her thick hair spilled a curtain surrounding her face. She looked mussed and heavenly. Perfect.

  Emotion made his brogue become noticeably thicker, just as it had when he'd made love to her whispering words of passion and love. “I dinnae mean tae be so rough wi' ye. I dinnae ken what came over me… ye drove me wild. I've never been so…” he fell silent at a loss for words.

  She wrapped her arms around his neck and pressed her cheek to his chest. “I wouldn't change a thing…”

  “Och,” he argued, “I showed no finesse at all, no tenderness merely fell on ye like some ravaged beast. You must think I’m a terrible…”

  "I think that I have never beheld such an amazingly passionate man in all my life,” she interrupted firmly holding his cheeks in her hands and forcing him to meet her gaze. “I have never felt anything so marvelous in all my days. Though I will say I might feel as though you beat me in the morning,” she teased. Smiling brightly, she kissed the underside of his chin.

  “Apparently, you deserve to be beaten.” He spanked her bottom playfully, then wrapped his arms about her pressing his lips to the top of her head. He sighed. “This just wasn't how I imagined our first time together to be.”

  “How did you imagine it?”

  “Much slower.”

  “I liked it how it was,” she snuggled against him, lightly nipped at his furry chest, curling her fingers in the springing curls and feeling utterly content. Laughing with pure happiness, Evelyn raised herself up on her elbows and looked down at him, her eyes warm and loving.

  “I never knew what this could be like, Francis,” she confessed. “So overwhelming and thrilling. I’ll admit that after I first met you I had thoughts of how it would be, but when I married, it was never like this. It was five minutes of mortification and discomfort.”

  “And we made it, what? Seven minutes?”

  A smile jerked at the corner of her lips. “But it was a vital two minutes.”

  Francis clapped his hand playfully on her bottom. “I would like to say that your husband was probably just a selfish pig but, my paradise, what we feel is special. It is different. Overwhelming. You and I are electric together and the things we make each other feel are definitely not normal but extraordinary and spectacular. You set me afire, so beautiful, my sweet Eve. I fear that I did not show much grace either.” His voice was low, husky and warm as he ran his hands again up and down the length of her back. “I know you haven’t much to compare with, but it should have been much better!”

  “Better? You mean you didn't…” she frowned, pulling away.

  Francis grabbed her tightly. “Don't be ridiculous. It doesn't get any more satisfying than that. I just wanted…” he groaned into her hair as he gathered the long golden length and pulled it all over one of her shoulders baring one side of her neck. Francis raised a handful of hair to his lips and rubbed it across them slowly all the while staring into her shining grass green eyes and knowing that they shone with love… for him…whether she acknowledged it or not.

  With a groan of unbelievable satisfaction, he closed his eyes and held her hand to his cheek with his own big hand over hers. “I just wanted it to be romantic and special for you. Perfect.”

  “Ohhh,” Evelyn nodded with a little grin. “Special. Romantic. Why don't you show me how you wanted it to be?”

  “But…” No matter what she said, she would be sore.

  “Show me, Francis,” she whispered kissing his neck lightly. “Show me, please…”

  With a low moan of surrender, Francis swept her into his arms capturing her lips in a deep, lustful kiss that left her breathless even as their passionate fervor rose once more. Lifting her with one arm about her waist, he twisted, laid her back on the bed and stopped to stare at her. She lay there with a smile, her arms open to him. “Eve,” he groaned closing his eyes… taking a deep breath to regain his control. “I can’t be romantic yet.”

  Evelyn caught his hand and pulled him down on top of her. Already he was hard and throbbing, ready for her.

  “Eden, I can't…wait,” he buried his face in her hair, his hands moving wildly over her hips and legs. “God, help me. I can't believe this!” He pulled back and looked into her glowing eyes. “I want you. I must have you.” Each word came out with low panting intensity.

  “Then take me, my lord. Take me,” she whispered pulling him down to her. “We can try for romance another time.”

  With another deep moan, Francis moved between her parted thighs and thrust into her again. To his surprise, she was ready for him and incredibly hot. “Paradise, sweet paradise. My Eden,” he moaned over and over as he thrust into her roughly, her passion matching h
is until they were swept together once more to their own paradise.

  Francis lay on top of her for a long while, his cheek pressed to her breasts listening to the deep pounding of her heart. Listening to it finally slow until he thought she was asleep. “Eden?”

  “Mmmmm?” she hummed in response, her fingers moving to toy with his thick hair.

  “I…I don't think I ever want to move from here,” he changed what he was thinking.

  “So don't.”

  He hugged her tightly. “You are truly my paradise.”

  “As you are mine.”

  Chapter 28

  “Love and scandal are the best sweeteners of tea.”

  Henry Fielding, Love in Several Masques

  Glenrothes Townhouse

  Carlton Terrace

  Edinburgh, Scotland

  The next morning

  “I’ve never before seen Francis lose his head like this over a mere woman. What a quandary he must be in! Lady Shaftesbury was back in town for just a few hours and already Francis has shown up here with enough luggage for an extended stay. The lady has surely gotten him by his bullocks.” Jack Merrill folded his hands behind his head and chuckled devilishly. When Richard and Abby did not join him in his mirth, Merrill eyed them thoughtfully. “You do not see the humor in this?”

  Richard frowned. “That Francis is head over arse in love for the first time in his entire life has its humorous merit. But it is who he is in that quandary over that worries me.”

  Jack scoffed at that. “The countess may lead him on a merry chase with her cold ways, but she'll eventually succumb.”

  “I imagine she already has.” Richard quirked an eyebrow at his wife who in turn scowled at him darkly.