Eleanor moaned as he dragged his hands down her legs and out from under her skirts. Relief or protest, that moan? Oh, she didn’t know, and Cam, ruthless in his desire, gave her no time to think before his hands gripped her waist. He stroked her there, then teased his fingers higher, so slowly she wanted to scream, did scream, silently, when at last he cupped the firm curves of her breasts in his palms. He found her nipples and his clever fingers slid over the silk of her gown, his fingertips relentless against the straining peaks.
“How else shall I take you?” He pressed his lips to her neck, then the base of her throat. “With my mouth?” He slipped two fingers into the neckline of her bodice, dragged it lower, and opened his mouth over the top of her breast. “Here,” he whispered. His hot breath fanned over the damp spot he’d made on her skin.
Dear God. As if in a dream, Eleanor felt her ankles lock together behind his hips.
His laugh was soft, dark—triumphant. He traced his tongue along the narrow band of lace at her bodice, then pressed his lips to the top of her other breast. “Here.”
She plunged her fingers into his hair, held him tight against her as she arched into his mouth. He groaned and slid lower to scrape his teeth over the tip of her breast before he sucked her nipple into his mouth, wetting the silk. “Here. This is what you want, isn’t it, Ellie? You want me to take you here.”
Eleanor couldn’t speak, only writhe against his mouth as his tongue flicked against the hard peak. When she thought she’d go mad from the caress, he raised his head. His palms rested against her neck for a moment, then he took her face in his hands and turned it up to his. “Ah, my lady, I’m a villain, after all, because I’ll take you any way I can get you.”
His eyes dropped to her lips right before he took them again with a pained groan. He kissed her and kissed her, his tongue plundering the depths of her mouth until she could do nothing but kiss him back, her body aching with a desire she’d never believed possible.
“Which are you doing now, Eleanor,” he gasped, when he released her lips at last. “Giving, or taking?” He let his forehead rest against hers. “Do you even know?”
God, she was such a fool. Giving, taking—what difference did it make? Could she even do one without the other? She didn’t know—she knew only she shouldn’t be doing either. Not with him. He was far too dangerous, because if she let him touch her again, she’d give him everything.
Not just her body. Everything.
She stared at him, dark eyes into green, her skin on fire, still panting from his kisses and the wicked touch of his hands. “Let me go, Cam.”
She placed her palms flat against his chest and forced herself to push him away.
“No. Ellie, I—”
“Yes.” She grabbed his wrists and pulled his hands away from her face. “Will you go back on your word?”
He didn’t move or answer, just stood there and looked down at her fingers, wrapped around his wrists. His labored, shallow breaths seemed loud in the otherwise silent room.
Eleanor released him and held her own breath, and after what seemed an eternity, he stepped back, away from her.
Without a word she slid down from the table. She’d taken a few steps toward the door when his voice stopped her.
“I told you I’d let you go. I never go back on my word, my lady.”
No. He never did. She froze for a moment, her back to him, his words echoing in her head until she couldn’t deny the truth any longer.
He wasn’t a villain, and he wasn’t a hero.
He was both.
Chapter Nineteen
Eleanor leaned her forehead against the window and dragged her fingertips over the cool glass. The sky over the garden had been pale pink when she’d first looked out, but the sun had long since crested, and now it shone with a determined brightness, turning the rhododendrons below into a mass of blazing purple.
It would be a warm day today. It was warm even now, but Eleanor wrapped her arms around herself to contain a shiver, and turned away from the window.
I never go back on myword, my lady.
Of all the things Cam had whispered in her ear last night, it was this, oddly, that echoed in her mind. She’d dreamed of those words, and of green eyes gone dark with desire, of warm hands sliding up her calves to her knees, his long fingers skimming under her stockings, opening her to him . . .
In her dream, she gave him everything—her body, and her heart. In her dream, she’d offered her heart even as she’d known she’d never get it back.
But it hadn’t mattered. It didn’t, in dreams.
I never go back on my word.
His words troubled her because they were true, and they shouldn’t be. The sort of man who’d force a woman into marriage, a man of his word? Ludicrous. A villain with a hero’s scruples? Laughable.
