“I think you are because you’ve had to be.” He tilted his head and she felt him reading her. “All your life, it seems. Always having to take care of everyone else, always having to tidy up after the outbursts.”
Her breath came faster. He was deconstructing her whole existence with just a look and a few words. She hated that he had the power to do so. That he did it with a casual flare.
“Ellis—” she whispered, flinching when her voice broke.
He nodded. “I see. Well, I am not a man to be managed, Juliana. I don’t need to be taken care of. And since we have agreed that I owe you something, I think you ought to let me simply settle my debt.” He leaned forward and pressed a light kiss to the tip of her nose. “Agreed?”
She stared at him for a long moment. This man of experience, a riddle, a liar, a charlatan. A man she dreamed of, a man she wanted so badly that her legs shook. He made this so hard. And yet he also somehow made it easy. Like it wasn’t the most overwhelming thing in the world.
He smiled like it was fun. When was the last time she’d just had fun? She couldn’t remember. It wasn’t that she didn’t have fun. She loved to laugh and tease with her sisters and their small group of friends. She enjoyed a ball and had always enjoyed dancing.
But this kind of fun felt…different. This was a step away from the day-to-day obligations of her life. If she said yes to him, that would be surrendering control. Trusting that he would take care of her, at least physically, for the short time they shared in this room in the back of a wicked club.
Could she do that? Knowing what he was? Knowing what he’d done in the past?
But then again…perhaps that made him the perfect person to give herself to. He would certainly know how to do this.
She licked her lips and his pupils dilated slightly, his hands stirring at his sides. Those hands that would…
She swallowed hard to interrupt the line of her thought. Then she managed to slowly nod. “Fine,” she whispered when she could find her voice. She could only pray she wouldn’t come to regret it. “I will…trust you to…to manage this.”
Chapter 7
For a moment after she capitulated, Ellis simply stared at Juliana. Like he couldn’t believe she had agreed. Like he had been trying to test her and she had not reacted in the way he’d hypothesized.
But then he smiled. That broad, real, dangerous grin that seemed to tug between her legs because it was a smile filled with such dark promise.
“Excellent,” he laughed at last. “Then let us begin. Turn around, please.”
She wrinkled her forehead and was about to question him, but he arched a brow and met her gaze. Ah, yes. Her agreement that she wouldn’t manage. It seemed he meant to hold her to it.
She huffed out a breath and turned her back to him, uncertain of what he would do. She recalled an image from that naughty book of a lady bent over a table with a man taking her from behind. Perhaps that was his intent.
He pushed her hair forward over her shoulders, revealing the back of her dress. Her breath caught as he leaned in and his mouth brushed her neck. She jolted toward him, her hips bumping his. He let out a strangled chuckle but continued to suck gently on the flesh along the column of her neck.
Air touched her skin, and she jumped as she realized he had unfastened three of her buttons without her even being aware of it. She glanced over her shoulder, and he leaned around to kiss her mouth yet again.
She pressed back, opening to him. He flicked the remainder of her buttons open and the dress gaped. Warmth from the fire, warmth from his body curled against her bare skin, for she hadn’t worn a chemise beneath the dress. It was one of Anne’s old gowns, adjusted to reduce modesty, and the chemise showed too much to wear.
“Surprise after surprise,” Ellis purred as he glided his fingers down her exposed spine.
Juliana gripped the edge of the bed as the shock of sensation that light touch created ricocheted throughout her body. Every nerve ending in her body felt alive now, her sex pulsed, and she felt very wet between her thighs. Her nipples were hard and rubbed against the silk of the gown. Her body was not her own anymore. She didn’t control all its reactions.
And she wanted more.
Slowly she turned to face him, but he didn’t step back. She was wedged between the hard chest of a very focused man and the soft edge of the bed. He held her gaze as he grasped the fluttering edges of her short-sleeved gown and tugged.
The entire contraption floated away at his insistence, exposing her from the waist up. She swallowed, fighting the urge to fold her arms over her naked breasts. No man had ever seen her like this.
This one stared like he was trying to memorize every line of her body. He didn’t speak as he reached out. The back of his hand caressed her collarbone, then he slid it down, holding eye contact as he stroked one nipple with his knuckles.
She gasped. She’d touched herself like that before, grazing brushes when she dressed or bathed. It had never tingled like it did when he touched her. And that tingle had certainly never spread heat from the point of contact down between her legs.
He smiled at the sound and brushed again, this time a little harder. She gripped his forearm with one hand as she tried to find purchase. This was what she’d come here for. It was what she wanted. And yet she was completely overwhelmed by it. By him.
“Ellis,” she whispered.
His expression softened a fraction. “Too much?”
