In Pursuit of Eliza Cynster (27 page)

She nibbled at her lower lip. “That this time we shouldn’t stop.”

He’d refocused on her lip, on the urge to offer to nibble it for her; it took a moment to register what she’d said. When he did, his immediate response was
hallelujah,
but then he saw the conflict in her eyes — need and desire clashing with uncertainty. “We’ll go as far as you wish. We’ll stop whenever you want, whenever you say.”

The words fell from his lips without conscious thought. Even as he said them, he wondered what had possessed him to promise a restraint, a control, he wasn’t sure he could wield. He’d never had to before. His past lovers had been, if anything, even more eager than he; he had no experience gentling virgins through their first time, had no notion if he could simply stop whenever she shied. Given the strength of the desire already pounding, steady and sure, through his veins, he had to wonder if he could … yet even as the thought formed, as he gazed into her hazel eyes now sparking with reassured anticipation, he knew that for her, he would.

For her, he would move mountains.

His gaze fell to her lips; as they lowered to his, he clasped the back of her head in one palm and brought her the last inch to him.

Took the lead and kissed her. Freed by her words, by her clear wish to go further, he sent his other hand exploring, tracing first, then fondling, increasingly explicitly.

Eliza urged him on, with her lips, with soft murmurs. A rising beat in her blood drove her on; recognizing it as desire, plain, simple, yet powerful, she gloried and let it sweep her on.

The silk of her shirt and the silk cravat binding her breasts muted his touch. Worse, her breasts were tight and aching beneath the restricting band. Between them, they dealt with the buttons down the front of the shirt, then, intrigued by what she could see in his eyes, by the blatant heat in his gaze, she let him peel the garment from her, inch by inch revealing her pale skin.

He frowned when he saw the binding, not just concealing but squashing her breasts nearly flat. He made an inarticulate sound of disapproval, a low growl of disapprobation, even as his hands quested, caressing her through the tight silk.

Catching her breath on a gasp elicited by the sensations his large hands sent searing through her, she raised one arm, exposing the knot securing the band.

He fell on it, swiftly unpicking the knot. Between them they unraveled the band, unwinding it, round and round, until it fell from her. Slid from her curves. Hands propped on his shoulders, she closed her eyes as she drew in a deep breath; relief coursed through her as he drew the material away. Slowly. And tossed the silk band over the side of the bed.

Slowly.

He seemed to have stilled.

Opening her eyes, she looked down at his face.

At his gaze fixed on her breasts.

At the flames smoldering in the burnt-honey brown. She felt the flames’ heat as his eyes caressed her, as definite as his hands had earlier been. Her nipples ruched tight; her skin felt hotter, much tighter, too.

His features were set, austere, classically chiseled. As if feeling her stare, he murmured, “I feel like I’m unwrapping a treasure. A very precious treasure.”

Without shifting his gaze, he raised one hand, set his palm to her breast.

She shuddered at the touch. Closed her eyes again.

His other hand gripped her nape, and he drew her down, back into his distracting, enticing, alluring kiss. To his lips that promised pleasure, scintillating delight, and delectable elucidation of the mysteries she’d never known.

She gave herself up to him, to his kiss, let herself sink back into it. As his lips claimed hers, as his tongue once again swept confidently in and claimed her mouth, his large, warm hand closed and claimed her breast.

Even then, he didn’t rush her, didn’t race ahead and leave her floundering, overwhelmed by passion and sensation. Instead, time and again, he drew back from the kiss. Enough for her to savor the delight of his touch fully, to murmur her responses when, his voice a gravel growl, he asked if she liked this caress, or that, if his gentle rolling of her nipples met with her approval, if she liked the sharp sensation that lanced through her when he tweaked.

Deeper and deeper, they sank together into the tantalizing intimacy.

Closer and closer they drew, until their breaths mingled as he explored, and she savored.

He gave her time enough to raise her lids and see, to watch as his hands shaped her flesh, as he stroked, caressed, and learned. To watch herself as she offered herself up to the moment, to the delight of the subtle and the passion of the direct.

To the heat and the hunger.

She could sense it in him, a nearly vibrating tension. Could feel it in herself, an appetite she’d never before entertained, never before experienced, let alone appeased.

Tonight …

She forced her lids, weighted by welling desire, up, and looked down at him.

At the increasingly clear stamp of passion on his features.

His hands swept down, over the planes of her now exposed back, before swooping up and forward to capture her breasts once more.

His hands closed, and she started to shut her eyes in anticipation of another wave of pleasured delight, but then she noticed his shirt. She was naked to the waist, but his shirt still lay between his skin and hers, to her mind an unacceptable barrier.

Summoning her will, focusing it, she put her fingers to the buttons and set about removing the offending garment. His hands slid to her waist, and he lay back and let her.

Encouraged, increasingly bold, she worked down the placket, tugging the shirt free of his waistband to get at the last button. The instant it slid undone, she grasped the shirt and spread the sides wide … exposing an expanse of muscled chest that looked like the product of her dreams. There was patently more to scholarly gentlemen than she’d thought.

The errant notion made her lips curve, but she couldn’t drag her eyes from their visual feast. From surveying the bounty she’d uncovered. A line of crinkly dark hair trailed across the width, screening the flat discs of his nipples; another line arrowed down the middle of his chest to disappear beneath his breeches.

Of their own volition, her hands followed the track her eyes had blazed, touching lightly at first, then, when he twitched and his skin flickered, more firmly stroking, testing the resilience of steely muscle beneath the taut skin, then she gave into temptation and boldly possessed.

Jeremy watched her; his features were too tight, desire too rampant for him to manage a smile, yet the sight of her eagerness, of the innocent passion lighting her face as she looked and touched and learned him, much as he had her, held him in effortless thrall.

He allowed her as long as he could, but the insistent beat in his blood was rising, rising. He’d never been so aware of it as he was tonight with her. Never before had he been so sensitive to, so subject to, its compulsion.

When he saw the notion of sending her lips to cruise the path her hands had taken bloom in her eyes — they were so wonderfully open, a mirror to her thoughts, to her moods — he reached up, caught her nape, and drew her down for a kiss; drew her to him, drew her into the kiss, then tipped her, turned her, rolled her onto her side beside him.

Eased her onto her back as he rose to hang over her as she’d previously leaned over him.

Holding her to the kiss, he let the hand at her nape ease, then slide, fingers trailing down the long line of her throat, over the thudding pulse at its base, down over the upper swell of her breast, then he cupped the firm mound and claimed it again.

Distracted her with his touch, then drew his lips from hers and sent them skating down the path his fingers had traced.

Bending his head, he laved the pulse point at the base of her throat, heard her gasp. Felt her fingers tangle in his hair as he quested lower. And lower. Until, shaping her breast with his hand, he set his lips to the peak, touched, caressed, then laved. Then suckled.

Lightly at first, then more strongly.

Eliza gasped, managed to strangle the scream of pleasure that rose up her throat. Vaguely thought that he should have warned her as her body bowed and streams of white-hot sensation lanced through her, deep into her, coursing down to tighten something low in her body, to pool and spread there.

His ministrations went on; he continued to feast, leaving her struggling to draw breath, let alone think beyond a dazed,
Oh, yes!
Her scholar had studied in this arena, too.

She had wondered … but as his lips continued to cruise her swollen breasts, applying just the right amount of suction to her acutely sensitive nipples, any thought that he wasn’t experienced in this sphere evaporated.

Then he paused. He drew back from her breasts, blew gently on one tightly furled nipple, then glanced at her. In the moonlight streaming through the windows above the bed head, stronger now as the moon had fully risen, she saw him clearly. Saw the broad shoulders, leanly sculpted in muscle, the delectable width of his chest, the square jaw, and the tawny brown eyes that seemed to see her — the real her that even she hadn’t known was there.

He looked down, laid one large hand, splayed, over her bare midriff, then looked up and caught her gaze. “Further?”

She blinked, took in the question. “Yes.” The word was on her lips before she’d thought. Then she did; she consulted the pulsing, yearning heat washing through her, the promise of deeper fulfillment that had taken root somewhere in her pleasure-soaked mind, and couldn’t see any reason to amend her reply.

His lips twisted in a grimace that was not quite one of pain. “Are you sure?”

That grimace that wasn’t a grimace told her all; he didn’t want to call a halt any more than she did, but he felt he had to make the offer — honorable scholar that he was. Because if they continued, there would be no going back, at least not without a great deal of angst … but most likely there would be no going back, no way out, anyway.

“Yes.” This time the word rang with her certainty. “I need to learn more — I need to learn all. We both need to know — it’ll help, later, if we know whether we suit in this sphere.” Eyes locked with his, she tipped her head slightly. “Won’t it?”

Jeremy couldn’t argue. But … “If you’d rather wait until later …”

To his abject relief, she shook her head, her lips coming as close to a mulish cast as barely suppressed passion would allow. “Later — when we’re back with our families, back living in our respective homes? No.” Desire still had her firmly in its grip; her voice was thin, yet she managed to instill it with determination. “I need to know, you need to know, and this is our last chance to find out before we go back to being our usual selves. This is a moment I don’t wish to squander — and neither do you.”

Without warning, she cupped his nape with one hand, lifted her head and pressed her lips to his — not gently, not temptingly, but with blazing passion.

A passion that until then he hadn’t known she had within her.

A passion that was all fire and feminine heat.

A passion that literally curled his toes with wanting — then her other hand found his erection through his breeches, lightly shaped, then boldly stroked …

He broke from the kiss, caught her hand, chest heaving as he struggled to catch his breath and shore up his suddenly tenuous control.

From a distance of mere inches, he met her gaze.

Her eyes burned belligerently. “More. Now.”

He would have laughed if he could have. “All right.” The words were pure gravel, ground out and tense. “But”— he held her gaze, let his fingers stroke the wrist he’d captured —“from this point on, I hold the reins. I drive … and you just lie back and go along for the ride. Agreed?”

Her eyes narrowed, but the passion between them had barely cooled from before, and her bold caress had shot heat through them both and set the flames raging once more; the last thing either of them wanted at this point was an argument. “Agreed.”

She tried to tug him down, but he resisted. Slowly, he pressed her wrist down to the pillow beside her head, then smoothly shifted, lifting over her, then, slowly, his eyes locked with hers, he lowered his body to hers.

He watched her eyes flare, watched them widen and darken. Saw passion swirl in their depths and rise higher.

Fully upon her, his hips trapping hers, his shoulders and arms caging her, propped on his elbows he bent his head and captured her lips.

And waltzed them back into the fire.

Eliza couldn’t catch her breath, couldn’t still her whirling head. Her wits spun away; her senses, suborned, danced to his tune, to the rapidly escalating call of desire. To the symphony of passion unleashed.

That was what it felt like, an orchestrated medley of sensation and delight.

Of their own volition, her hands responded, spearing into his hair to hold him to their increasingly ravenous kiss, then sliding away to greedily spread and splay and pay homage to the broad muscles of his shoulders, to grip and seize his upper arms when his own hands drifted and razed her senses.

Her breasts were hot, sensitized to his touch, swollen and aching and needy. The crisp hair on his chest rasped her nipples and she gasped, her body arching evocatively, provocatively, under his.

Then one of his hands slid down, over her midriff. His fingers found the buttons at her waist, both those of her breeches, then those of the silk drawers she wore beneath; she felt the tug and release as he undid them.

His fingers quested, pushing under the garments, sliding lower, over her taut belly, quivering with a desire she could barely contain, to touch the curls at the apex of her thighs.

To brush, stroke, then slide past. His fingers pressed further, until they were stroking the soft flesh hidden behind the tight curls.

Like a dam breaking, the heat that had pooled, molten and liquid, deep in her belly, welled and swelled; it rose through her, engulfing and filling, until all she knew was the compulsive beat that rode its currents.

Passion, desire, need, and want — all came together in that swirling sea of pleasure.