Eleanor’s heart fluttered. Perhaps he really did believe she was brave and strong.
From the beginning he had seemed to understand her in a way no one else had ever tried to. And she’d never felt more herself than when she was with him. He was quickly convincing her…
But then a grin widened his lips and a wicked spark flared in his eyes. He lowered his head to murmur against her parted lips. “I also happen to know that you taste like warm honey, vanilla, and cinnamon.”
Already slipping beneath the spell of his charm and his wonderful mouth, she murmured, “I do?”
“M-hmm, and I’m very quickly becoming addicted.”
He slid his tongue languidly along hers, then nipped at her lower lip with the edge of his teeth. When he lifted his head, there was a glimmer of desire swirling in the pale blue-green of his eyes. It tugged at her core, warming her and chasing away the last of her uncertainty.
As he lifted some of his weight from her, she felt a cooling breeze chase over the slick moisture coating her belly.
“Have you a wash bowl?” he asked, pushing to his knees between her still-spread thighs.
Momentarily distracted by the sight of his nakedness so boldly displayed, not to mention the glistening wetness of his softening cock, it took Eleanor a moment to reply.
“Over there,” she muttered as she gestured to a corner of the room.
“Don’t move,” he ordered as he leapt with masculine grace from the bed and padded swiftly across the room. He returned a minute later with a wet cloth in his hand, which he used to wipe his seed from her belly before also cleaning himself.
After discarding the cloth back in the wash bowl, he returned to the bed and stretched out beside her, pulling her into his arms with her back curved against his front, before drawing the bedsheet over them both.
“When does your maid come to wake you?”
“Not before ten,” she murmured, already feeling the weight of slumber creeping over her as she nestled into the warmth of his body.
“Rest, my beauty,” he whispered, pressing a kiss to her nape.
Her last thought was how odd it was that the endearment didn’t seem to bother her.
Chapter Twenty-Six
Phin waited untilher body had completely softened and her breath had lengthened into the even rhythm of a deep slumber. Though terribly tempted to remain with her in the warmth and lush comfort of her bed, he forced himself to rise and dress. After pulling the blankets up to her chin and smiling at the soft sigh she exhaled as she burrowed further into the covers, he returned to the sitting room and the sofa.
He stretched out as best he could, pulling the blanket that smelled of her over him, but he had no intention of sleeping.
He wouldn’t have been a very good guard if he had. And gratefully, thoughts of the last hour kept his mind sufficiently active to prevent any drifting off.
For some reason, despite the deep and wonderful pleasure he’d just experienced, the moment that kept repeating in his mind was the expression that crossed her lovely face when he’d declared himself unfit for marriage.
For a second, he’d almost taken the words back.
He had been called to a life of adventure as a young lad and the craving for travel and the need to experience new sights and sounds and fill his senses with unknown experiences ran thick in his blood. No woman alive would be content with the kind of husband he would be.
And he had absolutely no intention of being such an absent father to any children he might have.
He’d decided long ago that he should avoid such a tragedy altogether.
But if ever there was a woman to tempt him into a life he’d never thought to want, it was Eleanor. If he knew she’d be waiting for him upon his return, he’d not stay away from home for so long.
As soon as he had the thought, something tightened inside him.
No.
She’d come to hate him. Or resent him bitterly at the very least.
The mental image of her standing in the doorway with her arms open and a smile of welcome widening her rose-tinted lips shifted abruptly into one where her arms were crossed over her chest and her dark eyes stared at him with cool accusation.
