“What you have allowed, you will allow again.” He retrieved her stockings for her, his jaw tense. “This is just the beginning, Eleanora.”
She shook her head, averting her gaze from the sight of him, so unfairly handsome, so very much everything she wanted and could never have. “This is the end of something that should never have begun.”
“Damn it, do not be so stubborn. Look at me.”
Eleanora couldn’t bear to. With grim determination, she donned her stockings.
“Eleanora.”
She finished and found her stays, discarded on the floor in the same haphazard fashion as the rest of her garments.
“Eleanora.”
His voice was more insistent, but she was determined to remain impervious. He had given her pleasure. Intense, wonderful pleasure. That was all. Nothing more could come of this impossible situation. She pulled on her stays and reached behind her for the laces.
“Let me.” He clamped a hand on her waist and turned her.
“Your injury,” she protested.
“If I could pleasure you, I can bloody well tie your laces.”
Heat washed over her, her cheeks warming as thoughts of just how thoroughly he had pleasured her returned. “Thank you.”
“Come to me again tomorrow,” he said, his voice urgent at her ear as her stays tightened.
He knew his way around a woman’s undergarments.
But of course he did. She knew his reputation all too well.
“I cannot come to you, Your Royal Highness, and you know the reason,” she managed, trying to ignore how wrong it felt to refer to him formally now that she knew him so intimately.
“Call me Nando as you did when I was inside you.”
When I was inside you.Yes, he had been, had he not? His finger long and deep, reaching a place she had never known existed before.
Her eyes fluttered closed. How was she to withstand him? Or, for that matter, withstand her own yearnings? Even now, she craved him.
She inhaled sharply, then exhaled, slipping out of his reach to retrieve her petticoat. “You mustn’t speak of such things.”
“Oh, mustn’t I?” he drawled, following her like a beast stalking its prey. “Then I suppose I also shouldn’t speak of how delightfully wet you were for me or how deliciously your sweet cunt gripped my finger when you came. I certainly won’t speak about how I love the way you taste, how I could lick you all day long.”
Her ears were on fire as well as her cheeks now. She didn’t want his words to affect her, and yet how could they not? She was still wet, and the place where his finger had so recently been throbbed with remembrance. As for his tongue…
No, she wouldn’t contemplate the rest.
Eleanora yanked the petticoat over her head. “Surely you have any number of ladies eagerly vying for the chance to occupy your bed. Save your vulgarity for them.”
“To the devil with anyone else. They aren’t the one I want. You are.”
Her fingers fumbled over the buttons fastening her petticoat into place. “Flattery won’t sway me.”
“Then perhaps this will.” In two strides, he was before her, crowding her body with his, one arm banding around her back to pull her into the wall of his bare chest.
She had time to refuse him. She knew what he was about to do as his mouth descended for hers. But she didn’t want to. She wanted one more kiss. Her lips met his, clinging hungrily. The kiss was furious and frenzied, a collision of need and frustration. She wrapped her arms around his neck and held him to her for as long as she dared.
Surprisingly, he was first to break the seal of their mouths, staring down at her with a fierce expression. “You are mine, Eleanora Brett. You have been from the moment I first saw you, and nothing and no one can change that.”
She licked her lips and stepped away, finding her gown. “I belong to no one. You would do best to forget me. Forget any of this ever happened.”
