He didn’t touch her. The desire sizzling between them meant he wanted privacy before he laid a hand upon her. Because he feared that when he did, he’d go up in flames and he wouldn’t come down again before they’d both burned to smoldering ash.
She climbed the steps to the open door. Light flooded from the hall to illuminate her in gold. She was gold to Eliot. She always had been.
Turning on the top step, she smiled at him the way she used to, as if he was the special lover, the one who could take her to heaven and back. “Eliot, are you coming in?”
He realized that he lingered below her, lost in a dream of what he meant to do to her. Whereas tonight against all expectations, he didn’t have to dream. Luscious reality beckoned.
A self-derisive laugh escaped. “Thank you.”
He wasn’t just thanking her for inviting him into the house.
As the carriage trundled away behind him, Eliot mounted the steps two at a time. At last, he took her arm, sliding his hand under the folds of her heavy blue velvet cloak to find the bare skin above her satin glove. Even through his kidskin glove, the immediate heat of contact rushed through him, made his heart stop for a moment. No other woman had ever wielded this power over him.
Verena gave a start, as his fingers encircled her upper arm. Her breath emerged in an audible hiss. She felt it, too. The hunger. The need. The longing.
It was the same as it had been at the beginning. Better. Now he knew what profound pleasure this invincible physical link promised to deliver.
Eliot released Verena so Merton could take the cape. Beneath the luxurious midnight blue folds, she wore an azure gauze gown decorated with gold lace. The effect was like sunrise after night.
Or perhaps that was just how Eliot felt about the world right now.
“That’s a dashed becoming frock,” he said. “I haven’t seen it before.”
“Thank you.” As a widow, Lady Verena had become a leader of fashion. During her marriage, George had kept her wrapped in drab colours and high necklines that threatened to strangle her. “I was moping around last week and hoped a couple of new dresses might cheer me up.”
“Did they?”
The look that she shot him struck hot as a bolt of lightning. “What do you think?”
“I think that a beautiful girl shouldn’t be unhappy.”
Her red lips curved upward in a smile remarkable for its sexual promise. “I’m not unhappy now.”
“Nor am I.”
She had missed him, by Jove. If Merton hadn’t been waiting beside them in his usual dour silence, Eliot would have dragged Verena into his arms and kissed her until she couldn’t see straight.
“My lord?” Merton said in his sober fashion, although he must sense that he stood in the middle of a storm of unspoken desire. “May I take your hat?”
Without shifting his gaze from Verena, Eliot handed over his hat, coat and stick. He remembered his last visit, when he hadn’t managed to get beyond the hall.
He waited for Verena to head into the drawing room, offer him a brandy, perhaps explain this extraordinary change. But she cast him an incendiary glance under her thick dark brown eyelashes, and made straight for the staircase.
Eliot had never used this staircase before either. When he was a regular visitor, he’d come to his mistress via the backstairs. Her staff must have been aware that he was in the house. Luckily, Lady Verena Gerard had the most discreet servants in England.
Did this mean that Verena was at last ready to acknowledge him as her lover in public? Even as a prospective husband? It wasn’t as if his interest in her was a secret from the ton any longer.
His heart drumming, Eliot followed Verena up the spectacular curved staircase. His gaze fixed on the saucy sway of her hips under those elegant blue skirts, while expectation beat a fierce rhythm inside him. Merton had left the hall, but still Eliot didn’t touch her.
She turned down the corridor leading to her bedroom. This was more familiar territory. Pacing along the carpet after Verena, he couldn’t help but recall every other time that he’d walked this hallway and the revelations that he’d discovered at the end.
Outside the closed door, she glanced back with another of those irresistible come-hither looks that shuddered through him like a blow. “Eliot—”
But he’d reached the limits of his patience. Damn it, the limits of control.
A single stride brought him up to her. He lashed his arms around her and swept her up for a kiss that told her how lonely he’d been without her, how elated he was to be with her now.
Chapter 10
Verena released a breath that veered toward a sob and surrendered to the fierce demand of Eliot’s lips. Her hands rose to plunge into thick golden hair and bring his mouth harder against hers.
How she’d missed this. Without Eliot’s passion, life became a barren wilderness.
Since she’d sent him away, she’d put on a brave face. Even tried lying to herself, which never worked. But with the first touch of those deft hands, all her pathetic self-deception disintegrated. She didn’t want to need this man. She didn’t want to need anyone. But Eliot Ridley was as necessary to her happiness as air was to her life.
She’d resented his pursuit of her – largely because she had to make such an almighty effort to resist the temptation of giving him everything he wanted. But then a little over a week ago, he’d stopped appearing at society events. She’d wondered with an unpleasant shock whether at last he’d accepted his dismissal.
A huge ragged wound had split her guarded heart. She hadn’t realized quite how wretched she’d feel when there was no prospect of seeing Eliot or talking to Eliot or even being in the same room.
She’d had a rotten week of no sleep, amid the usual frenetic activity that lately gave her no pleasure. When had her wild whirl of gaiety stopped being compensation for everything that George had once denied her? When had it instead become an unsatisfying gyration just to stay in one place?
All the time that she’d danced and flirted and gossiped, she’d yearned to see the man she’d rejected. It made no sense. She and Eliot were too different to be together. But without him, she felt aimless and lonely and on edge.
So now she teased him with her tongue, to show him how she’d starved for him. She crushed her body into his, as if she tried to crawl inside him. She drew his rich masculine scent deep into her lungs.
He slammed her hard against the wall beside the door, making the picture near her head rattle in its frame. Through the tornado of kissing, she felt him release the front fall of his trousers. When his penis sprang forward to press into her belly, a shiver of uncontrollable excitement crashed through her.
Verena loved it when he was tender. That always made her feel cherished and special, like the innocent girl she’d once been, before her life took a very dark turn indeed.
But she also loved it when desire turned him savage and uncontrolled. Eliot was so desperate for her now that she could smell it on his skin. Heat all but steamed off him.
With shaking hands, she reached down to shape that hard column of flesh rising between his legs. All that magnificence would soon stretch her deep inside. She couldn’t wait. Insistent throbbing set up in all her secret places, so violent that it verged on pain.
When Verena squeezed him, he groaned against her mouth and nipped at her lips. The sting stoked the fire of her arousal. In wordless encouragement, she moved her hand up and down his cock.
He caught her under the hips and hoisted her high against the wall. With an incoherent growl of approval, she hooked one hand around his neck and wriggled in his hold. She wanted to put her legs around him, but this fashion for straighter skirts was a cursed nuisance.
Verena shifted again, and this time his groan held real agony. His dick surged against her stroking fingers in the most delicious fashion.
“If you keep doing that, I’ll come in your hand,” he grated out, his voice harsh with lust.
How she’d missed his un
abashed craving. Eliot was the most alluring mixture of outward restraint and inner explosiveness. Some nights, when she glimpsed him across a crowded ballroom, the knowledge of the volcano of passion lurking under that perfect exterior turned her insides liquid. Because that volcano was all hers, part of the secret Eliot who was Verena’s alone.
“It’s this pestilential skirt,” she muttered, in between peppering his face with frantic kisses. “I want to put my legs around you, but I’m all tangled up.”
“Hold on.”
He shoved his hips forward, cramming her against the wall. Supporting her with one hand under the rump, he shoved up her skirts to reveal fine white stockings above dark blue satin dancing slippers tied at the ankles. He slid her skirts higher, uncovering filmy white petticoats and the lacy edges of her drawers.
“Tear the blasted rag,” she said in a choked voice, as she leaned back, gasping.
His laugh was a mere grunt. “It’s too pretty to ruin.”
“I don’t care about it.” She felt like she dissolved into a pool of hot honey. “I must have you.”
If he didn’t take her soon, she swore that she’d explode from sheer frustration. She’d wanted him and missed him for weeks, but she’d forgotten quite how inflammatory his touch was. The slightest brush of his hand always threatened to set her alight. Just now, he promised to do much more than use his hands on her, thank God.
He shifted, and for a moment she feared that he might lose his grip on her. Instead, he fumbled with the froth of skirts and petticoats, until her legs were free to curl around him. She exhaled with relief and angled forward to rub her cleft against that impressive cock.
It wasn’t enough to take the edge off her appetite. She needed him inside her.
“Well done, Eliot,” she said in a choked voice.
This time his laugh was recognizable as such. “That sounds like you’re congratulating me on a good cricket stroke.”
Her laugh was a breathless huff. “With luck, you’ll do a lot of stroking.”
“Later,” he said on a long exhalation. “Now I’ve got to have you or die.”
“Yes, later,” she said, grabbing his neckcloth.
It took her longer than it should, but she managed to undo the knot and fling the length of linen away. She buried her face in the warm hollow of his throat and breathed deep of his humid male scent, spiced with arousal. Better than roses. Better than baking bread. Better than fresh coffee. This was the scent of home and pleasure and Eliot. The scent of heaven. The best smell in the world.
When she kissed the notch in his collarbone, his pulse pounded beneath her lips. The knowledge that his very blood clamored for her made her smile with appreciation. When she’d feared he no longer wanted her, the world had turned dark and cold. She’d felt empty without him, and she’d hated it.
He bumped forward, until at last he pressed just where she wanted him. A flood of warmth greeted him and soaked her frail cambric drawers. When she raised her head to kiss him again, she met a ferocious welcome that had her writhing.
Her movements set up a pleasing friction, but it still wasn’t enough. Her legs bent more sharply to widen the angle of her thighs. When one knee struck something, a loud crash penetrated the thunder in her ears.
The sound made her glance to the side. A large Chinese vase, one of a series lining this corridor, lay shattered across the parquetry floor. The one on the opposite wall had lost its twin.
Eliot’s laugh was as breathless as hers. “Oops.”
She didn’t give a toss. “Take me, Eliot,” she gasped out. “I need you.”
He adjusted his hold, fumbling as her weight slipped and almost dropping her. A shocked cry escaped her, and she tightened her grip on his shoulders. This was a bumpy ride, and all the more thrilling for the occasional awkwardness. Eliot was usually a graceful, skillful lover. This clumsiness told her that he’d missed her as much as she’d missed him.
One hand dug hard into her hip, as he cupped her mound through her drawers. She shuddered as another wave of arousal hit her.
By the time Eliot found the slit in her drawers, every brush of his fingers against her intimate curls and sensitive lower belly had her jerking in his arms. Her sex quivered and spasmed in longing. Already she verged close to climax. Her breath emerged in erratic bursts, while he was panting as if he’d run all the way from Wiltshire.
When he found the place that sent sensation blasting through her, Verena whimpered. Material twisted tight around her, followed by a ripping sound as her drawers shredded. Before she’d completed her gasp of surprise, he pushed inside with ruthless intent. Every muscle in her body clenched in shocked pleasure, and she ignited into rapture before he started to move.
Since he’d kissed her, she’d felt on the brink of orgasm. His body uniting with hers flung her over the edge. Heat coiled in fiery spirals, set her shaking in uncontrollable response, quaking and crying out in wonder.
She dived into the inferno. Towering response lifted her high, until she was dizzy and helpless. After poising on those giddy heights for an untold span, she crashed down to drown in a seething ocean of rapture.
It felt like an age later that she drifted away from that searing release. As the real world gradually resumed its place in her mind, she gulped air into starved lungs. She was staring at a painting of York Minster hanging opposite her, and Eliot’s tall, strong body jammed her against the wall in the hallway.
In the hallway!
She was lucky Merton hadn’t come along to check the house for the night. Dear Lord above, he’d have got the shock of his life if he had.
In most cases, Verena had enough self-control to make it into the privacy of her bedroom before she pounced on a lover and demanded satisfaction. Even with Eliot, whose briefest glance could send her up in smoke.
Tonight, she’d been so famished for his touch that she’d lost all connection with where she was. Eliot was lucky that he’d got as far as the first floor before she flung herself at him.
He’d buried his face in the curve of her neck. His breath was moist against her bare shoulder. Somewhere in that furious mating, one sleeve had slipped down her arm.
He breathed so hard that each exhalation emerged as a soft groan. His cock fit snugly inside her, filling every longing inch. He remained hard and ready. She’d succumbed to that earthshaking climax without him having to do much to arouse her.
When they’d first come together six months ago, she’d been sure that such white-hot need couldn’t last past the initial intoxication. Desire never had with her other lovers. Yet with Eliot, every sexual encounter was richer and better and more blazing. It didn’t matter whether he took her fast or slow, her body melted into helpless surrender every time.
“God above, I’ve been so lonely for you, Verena,” he muttered, his voice muffled against her skin. His lips moved in a phantom kiss on the sensitive nerve running down her neck to her shoulder.
“Oh, Eliot…” she sighed, wanting to tell him how she’d missed him, too. But before she could speak, the muscles of his back flexed under her palms, and he began to move.
She shuddered under every purposeful plunge, feeling him penetrate deep. The sensation was so satisfying, even though she knew that with each thrust, he claimed more of her than just her body.
Before she could worry about that, another climax hit, short, sharp, blinding. York Minster dissolved into a mist of broken colours, while rapture flooded her and blasted her thoughts to powder.
Verena was panting with blazing pleasure when she felt him stagger. For a fraught second, his hands dug into her hips, then he wrenched free, breaking the hold of her legs around him. As her legs unfolded beneath her, she was grateful for the wall behind her. She still shivered with the last vestiges of ecstasy, and she wasn’t sure she could stand on her own.
He lurched back, releasing her and wrapping one shaking hand around his penis. With a guttural groan, he lost himself in his fist. The skin clung to the bones of his
face, and his jaw was sharp and hard as flint as he pumped into his hand. His golden skin was flushed, and his eyes were jammed shut.
Still struggling to drag enough air into her lungs, Verena slumped against the wall and watched him with a hunger that she couldn’t hide. Since exiling him from her bed, she’d struggled to pretend indifference. What a waste of time. After what they’d just done, only a fool would think she didn’t ache for him. And Eliot was no fool.
“That was marvelous, Eliot,” she forced out of a tight throat.
Slowly he opened eyes that were dark and heavy as they leveled on her. “It’s only ever like that with you,” he said in a gruff voice, as he fumbled for his handkerchief and cleaned himself off.
“It’s the same for me.” That sizzling encounter left her too overcome to summon her usual self-protective irony. What was the use? Her responses betrayed her craving. No amount of smart talking would convince Eliot that she didn’t care.
He pocketed his creased handkerchief and tucked himself back into decency, although she could have told him that there was no point. She meant to have him naked again, the moment that she got him on the other side of this door. They had a lot of time to make up for.
“Come into my room.” She reached for his hand. “I believe you offered to stroke me.”
How had she managed without him these last few weeks? The stark truth was that she hadn’t managed.
When he surveyed her from head to toe, his eyes lit with the laughter that always made her feel like the world was a better place. “I can’t believe that I’ve just been through the most debauched encounter of my life, yet you’re still fully dressed.”
Verena cast a rueful glance down at the torn drawers, sagging around her ankles. She supposed she should be grateful that her stylish new dress had survived. “Almost.”
She stepped out of her drawers and bent to pick them up. As she rose, dazed eyes took in the utter devastation surrounding them. Shards of expensive porcelain scattered everywhere. She hadn’t shattered alone, it turned out.
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