This was what she’d been waiting for. Longing for. A memory to cherish forever.
The walk from the conservatory to Cain’s guest quarters might not have taken half so long, were it not for his inability to refrain from sidelong glances that led directly to stolen kisses.
With her curls crushed between her back and the wall, and her hands wound tight about his neck as she eagerly met each kiss with her own, a single passerby would have spelt ruin if she were at all concerned about guarding her reputation. She was not. Her legs were all but twined about him as he spun with her across the threshold and into the dark stillness of his bedchamber at last.
She half-expected him to tumble directly upon the bed and divest her of these confining layers. Rather, that was precisely what she hoped he was about.
But, first, he kissed her soundly before stepping a few feet away to coax the dwindling embers in his fireplace into a softly burning blaze.
The dancing light fell upon a sumptuous master bed, with matching mahogany nightstands on either side. Upon one stood a vase with a single pink camellia. On the other rested a life-size marble bust of what was undoubtedly one of the Breckenridge forebears. Ellie focused her gaze back on the single flower, preferring its natural beauty to the profile carved in stone.
The bust made the general sense of inferiority Ellie had always endured seem starker. Not only wasn’t she English aristocracy, she couldn’t remember her own father, much less possessed mementos of cherished ancestors. She’d always just had Mama.
Ellie sat on the edge of the bed and tried to push all thoughts of her impending sojourn from her mind. She tugged her slippers from her feet and bent to smell the camellia. As lonely as she had been without a father, how much worse had it been for her mother to have loved and lost her husband? Would this moment shared with Cain bring Ellie years of pleasure, or the soul-wrenching remembrance of what she had once tasted, but could never properly have?
She shook the foolishness from her head and turned to face Cain. She would have tonight... and it would be perfect.
He rose to his feet. The fire’s welcome heat eased the chill from the air, and the crackling flames cast a warm glow upon his skin as he reached for Ellie’s hand. He stared at her as if she were the exotic flower. As if he, too, wanted to sear every touch, every taste, into his memory to relive again and again.
Perhaps he did. Perhaps this moment seemed just as tender, just as fleeting, just as vital for him as it did her.
He had been a hunter for centuries. Would no doubt continue to be. To him, honor meant upholding the values of his clan. For her, protecting her mother. Both of them put their respective families above all else. Conflicting goals, but shared ideals.
Cain pulled her to her feet, seated himself at the edge of the mattress, and nestled her between his thighs. He seemed content to spend hours thusly, hand in hand, his unreadable gaze never wavering from hers.
Ellie was having none of it.
With a raised brow, she tugged her hands from his. Slowly, she crisscrossed her arms behind her back, conscious of how the action lifted the swell of her breasts nearly to his parted lips. Almost, but not quite. His gaze dipped. Although she doubted a full-blooded vampire had cause for breathing, Ellie could have sworn she heard a quick intake of breath.
She tugged loose the laces holding her gown together. The sleeves correspondingly relaxed, exposing first one shoulder, then the other. With nothing left to hold it in place, the lace fichu tumbled from her bodice.
The triangle of lace slid across one of Cain’s parted thighs. He flinched as if the weightless scrap scalded his flesh through his calfskin breeches. His eyes closed as if he were willing himself to withstand pain caused by a wisp of material that had once rested across her breasts.
He opened his eyes. He was a man tortured. Intoxicated. Powerless.
Ellie returned her hands to her sides and brushed her fingertips across his leg where the fichu had fallen. Her shift and her corset supported her bosom, but did not cover it. Her nipples puckered deliciously beneath the heat of his gaze.
He licked his lips. Slowly, teasingly, as if what he desired most of all was to fasten his mouth upon her breast and suckle.
Ellie could hardly breathe for wanting him to hurry up and do so. She eased forward, inclining so slowly as for the motion to be nearly undetectable, were it not for her breasts’ trajectory ever nearer to his face.
He was definitely breathing. Hard.
Her right nipple grazed the hollow of his cheek. The side of his mouth. The firm contours of his lower lip. Her insides clenched in pleasure, pitching her forward, sending her trembling breast directly into his waiting mouth.
He laved the nipple once, twice, then began to suckle. He tugged the sleeves from her arms, shoved her gown to her hips, to the floor. His hands slid from the backs of her knees to the backs of her thighs, simultaneously lifting her shift and guiding her forward so that she straddled his hips, the firm length of his encaged manhood pressing against the moist surface of her bare?—
“Ellie.” His eyes hot on hers, he lifted his mouth from her breast ever so slowly, dragging her nipple along his tongue and across his lower lip to glisten wetly before his parted mouth. “Are you certain you want to?—”
Her hands were at his shoulders before she consciously gave them the order to do so, shoving him backward onto the bed. She covered his mouth with hers, stopping his questions with her teeth, with her tongue. She closed her fists over his shirt, rending the fine linen as she exposed his chest to her wanton fingers, to the sensitive nubs of her breasts as she pressed them against him.
His hands fastened about her waist, rocking her hips, slowly grinding her against him until she caught the rhythm with a gasp of ignited desire. Without breaking rhythm, without tearing his mouth from hers, he slid his hands up her spine to her corset. He loosened the ribbon until the whalebone prison fell away, and with it, what was left of her chemise.
One hand pressed to the base of her spine to hold her in place. He leaned up from the bed just enough to allow her to whip free his jacket, his waistcoat, his shirtsleeves, until nothing was left but his boots and his breeches.
She slid down his body until she knelt before him. She tugged free one boot, then the other. Her deliberate slowness in doing so must have exhausted the last of his preternatural patience, for he had his fall unbuttoned and his breeches discarded before she had taken a breath.
He pulled her up, gently, sweetly. Holding her close, he rolled so that she was no longer atop him. He had one arm propped on either side of her ribs, and the naked length of him was hot against her belly.
