Читать книгу Modern Romance Collection: October 2017 5 - 8 - Heidi Rice, Annie West - Страница 16

CHAPTER SEVEN

THIS KISS WAS different from the last.

Eleanor would not have imagined in a million years that she would ever be in a position where she was noting the difference between kisses, having never expected to spend much time kissing anyone, but here she was. This one was different than the lazy way he’d taken her mouth in the hall outside the nursery.

Much different. Much...hotter.

There was urgency this time. Bright fire and driving need.

Or maybe, she thought with no little wonder, that was her.

Hugo dropped his hands from her face and slid them down her back. He pulled her up against him, and it was as if everything inside her head simply went white. Blank. She disappeared into the sound of her heart, clattering wildly against her ribs, and the impossible, wild beauty of his mouth on hers.

Over and over again.

In some distant part of her mind, Eleanor knew this was a mistake. She knew it. But she couldn’t seem to stop herself. She didn’t want to stop herself. He angled his head and took the kiss deeper. Hotter. Wetter and wilder.

And she was content to let him guide her. Teach her. Take her over and burn her alive.

He kissed her again and again, bending her backward as he did. One of his hands found the small of her back and held her fast against him as he continued to use that mouth of his like some kind of slick weapon. Eleanor found her arms around his neck, but had no memory of putting them there. Maybe there was something inside of her that knew she needed to hold on. Or be lost forever in this storm she should have had the good sense to avoid.

But she didn’t want to avoid it. She wanted to dance in it. She wanted to shout down the thunder and let the rain wash her clean.

She didn’t even know what that meant, but she wanted it, and every time he dragged his lips across hers, she thrilled to it.

And then there was what he did with his hands. She couldn’t work out which was worse, that he seemed to know her so much better than she knew herself, or that she was afraid she might explode with every sizzling new touch.

He slid his free hand down her side as if he was testing her shape, spilling heat wherever he went, then sliding around to grip her bottom and pull her even closer.

“Perfect,” he muttered against her mouth, and a sheer, shivery sort of reaction burst inside of her at that.

Pleasure, she thought. Pure pleasure.

She had never allowed herself that sort of thing before. She hadn’t known it existed, if she was honest. But Hugo’s hands on her body opened up a new window into near-unimaginable delights and Eleanor couldn’t seem to keep herself from tossing herself headfirst into them. Whatever they were. Whatever the price.

“More,” Hugo said in a low, dangerously gruff voice, moving his mouth down the line of her neck.

And when the world seemed to shift, the floor moving beneath them and the fire spinning in a giddy loop, it took Eleanor a moment to realize that it was because Hugo was doing it. She didn’t think her feet hit the ground as he picked her up and swung her around until her back was to the bookshelf.

Then he pressed himself against her as if he couldn’t bear another inch of separation between them.

Eleanor supposed she should have objected to that—to all of it—but she was entirely too busy being overwhelmed by him. All of him. Her mind could hardly keep up with what was happening to her body. What he was doing to her body.

And what her body was doing to her, every time she shivered. Every time she surrendered. Every time she let out sounds she didn’t recognize.

Hugo’s mouth was a torment. A reward. Both at once.

He stroked his hands down the length of her arms and threaded his fingers with hers. Then, never breaking contact with her lips, he lifted her arms up above her and pinned her wrists to the bookshelves at her back.

“Stay still,” he ordered her.

And it didn’t occur to Eleanor to do anything but obey him. She was quivering too much. She was too undone. She was lost in this, whatever it was, and she wasn’t sure she could make her way out of it.

Scarier still, she wasn’t sure she wanted out in the first place.

Hugo muttered something that she couldn’t quite make sense of, and then he shifted back slightly so he could look down at her, moving his hands so that one rested on each side of her face. In some far-off corner of her mind it occurred to Eleanor to worry that he might find her lacking. That looking at her the way he was might break this spell, whatever it was. Because this was a man who could sleep with any of the great beauties of their age at will. And had.

But when he finally dragged his gaze back to hers, all thoughts and insecurities vanished. Because Eleanor might not have done this before. She might have no idea how this had happened or what she was meant to do next. But she’d never seen anything so hot or so needy in all her life as that look on Hugo’s face.

It was so intense it felt like a kind of devastation, rolling over her and flattening her and changing her, but she was still standing.

Somehow, she was still standing, and she couldn’t seem to step away from him. She couldn’t even bring herself to try.

Hugo moved then. He traced his way down her neck, then moved his hands to cup her breasts, making her breath desert her in an audible rush that embarrassed her, it was obvious. But there was something reverent in the way his hands curved around her, testing her through the layers she wore and dragging those expert thumbs of his over her nipples—and the crazy part was that she could still feel the heat of his palms. Flooding into her. Making her feel even more needy and wild.

He made another one of those distinctly male noises deep in his throat, low and somehow untamed, that made everything inside Eleanor bristle into a kind of liquid awareness. Shocking and bright, even as it pooled low in her belly.

“Later,” he said, and it sounded like a promise.

Eleanor had no idea what he was talking about. And she didn’t care, because he kept going. He bent closer to her as he traced his way down the length of her body, finding the indentation of her waist and then the swell of her hips and taking his time learning both.

And then he found his way to the fastening of her trousers, and it was as if everything inside of her toppled over and crumbled into dust. Just like that.

“I told you not to move your hands.” Hugo’s voice was dark, demanding.

And it wasn’t until he spoke that Eleanor realized she’d brought her hands down toward his shoulders. To push him away? To draw him closer? She had no idea. But she did as he asked, because she couldn’t think of what else to do, and she raised her arms back up over her head again.

And Hugo simply pulled the fastening of her trousers open, then dipped his hand inside, as if it was inevitable.

It felt as if it was.

There was no sound in the library. There was the snap and rustle of the fire, and then a harsh sort of noise that it took Eleanor long moments to realize was her own breathing. Panting, more like, that she could barely hear over the noise in her head that she thought was her heart. Beating madly.

But if Hugo heard any of it, he liked it. That was what that hard smile on his beautiful face told her. She could feel it wash over her like its own sort of glare, making her feel exposed. As if he could see things she wasn’t even aware she was showing.

“I’m pleased that you’re allowing this experiment, little one,” he said, a certain satisfaction in his voice that should have alarmed her. She knew it should have, but she couldn’t quite bring herself to react to it. “Given how well you know your own desires.”

“I don’t know what you...”

“Hush.”

Once again, Eleanor obeyed him. Because he was sliding his fingers down, down, all the way into her panties, and that made everything in her...constrict. Shudder.

And then he curved his fingers around to cup her where no one else had ever touched her.

Eleanor realized as her legs went to jelly that she lacked the ability to stand.

But Hugo was holding her up with that big body of his and one hard hand at her hip. Even when he let out the sort of laugh that should have been outlawed as a public safety hazard, he kept her upright.

“I must tell you, Miss Andrews, you are remarkably wet for one who claims she is asexual.”

“Wet?” she asked. On a choppy little breath.

“Very, very wet,” Hugo amended, his voice little more than a dark growl.

And then he began to stroke her.

Sensation buffeted her from all sides. He was all around her. He loomed above her, and his shoulders blocked out the rest of the house, and more, the world she could hardly recall outside it. She could smell him, an intriguing male scent that put her in mind of the fire behind them and soft, buttery leather, only much warmer. She could taste him in her mouth, like the kind of spirits she only dared sip at Christmastime, and then only in minuscule quantities.

And she could feel him. Good god, could she feel him.

He moved the hand at her hip back to her jaw, smoothing his palm around to hold her where he wanted her. And there was a smile on his face when he lowered his head to take her mouth once more.

Eleanor could taste that, too. And god help her, he was like a bottle of the good stuff, with every demanding slide of his tongue against hers.

And all the while, he stroked her. He slipped in and around her folds, slippery and hot when she’d never felt anything like it before. When surely it should mean something was wrong, but nothing felt wrong.

Eleanor couldn’t think. She couldn’t control herself. She was lost between his mouth and his hand, and she simply followed the rhythm he set as he built that storm in her.

Higher and higher. Darker and wilder.

And she didn’t know when it dawned on her that it was going to break. That the tightness in her belly and the need and the hunger could only go one way, and it was going to happen whether she wanted it or not. That the wall that seemed to bear down on her was entirely unavoidable, and coming much too fast—

“Don’t fight it, little one,” Hugo murmured. He lifted his mouth from hers the slightest little bit, so Eleanor could taste his words on her lips.

“I’m not fighting anything,” Eleanor gasped out. Crossly.

But then it was happening.

It was like a golden sort of crash, fast and slow at once. A shower of fire and sparks, magic and longing, as debilitating as it was delicious. It roared through her, from the top of her head straight down to the tips of her toes that she dug into the floor beneath her feet as if that could keep her holding on.

She bumped against his marvelous, wicked hand and she threw her head back, and still his mouth was there against her neck, urging her on. Taking her wherever he wanted to take her, and all she could do was let him.

He was even laughing slightly, she noticed with something like panic, as she fell and fell and fell.

And hoped like hell that Hugo would catch her on the other side.

* * *

Making his starchy little governess come apart beneath his hands was the hottest thing Hugo could remember doing.

Ever.

The little sounds she made. The dazed wonder in her wide eyes. Even that frown at the end, and her sharp little voice before she broke to pieces.

He didn’t understand how it was possible when he should have no further to sink, but Eleanor Andrews was ruining him.

But Hugo shoved that aside. For any number of reasons, not least of which was the fact that he had already been ruined. A long, long time ago. There was no lower place for Hugo Grovesmoor to go. He should know. He’d tried to find it over and over again.

And no innocent woman deserved a man that self-destructive. Especially not a woman like this one, who had confused her own inexperience for disinterest. That was how little she knew of men.

He would eat her alive.

And it said something about him, didn’t it, that he rather liked that idea.

She was limp and dazed and breathing heavily, so he shifted her off the bookcase and swept her up into his arms, entirely too aware of the way she melted against him. He carried her over to the wide sofa and settled her on it, more than a little concerned about how uncharacteristically gentle he was with this woman. Automatically. When he was not exactly known for his sweet bedside manner. He did not lounge around, shyly reading verses of poetry from slim volumes and softly asking permission to touch a lover’s ankle.

Please.

Hugo had always assumed that what poetry was in him was rough and raw and best expressed with his hands. And his body.

And the dark things he could do with both. And did, again and again.

He’d never had any complaints. In person, that was. The tabloids were a different story, but even those fabricated fantasies never claimed he was a bad lover. Simply that he was a very, very bad man.

But still. Untried innocence was not his thing. No matter how sweet the taste, still there on his tongue. Driving him that much closer to madness.

He made himself stand, something furious in his chest and all that leftover heat and hardness making his trousers feel too tight, and waited for her to come back to him.

It took her a long time. And it occurred to him that a woman who fancied herself asexual and was so obviously a stranger to her own body was perhaps significantly less experienced than he’d been thinking. Almost as if she was something more than “inexperienced.” Almost as if...

But that was impossible, of course. This wasn’t the dark ages.

“Are you a virgin?” he asked, perhaps a bit too abruptly.

On the deep leather couch, Eleanor stirred. She looked around as if she didn’t know where she was, and didn’t recognize the library either way. Or him. She sat a little bit straighter as she took him in. Her hands went first to her head and she smoothed back the one or two strands that had dared to come loose from that ruthless bun she always wore. Only then, when she’d secured her dark hair in its cage, did she shift against the seat, look down, and note that her trousers were still wide open.

And Hugo found he was captivated by the red flush that took her over, staining her cheeks and making her brown eyes gleam from beneath her fringe with that hint of honey that he thought might be his undoing.

Eleanor swallowed, hard, and he saw a frown etch itself between her eyes again. But she didn’t say anything. She only fastened her trousers and sat a bit straighter. Only then did she look up at him, and something about the steady way she did it made him feel like the monster he knew he was. More so than usual, that was.

She looked breakable.

It should have made him hate himself all the more, that he should so effortlessly stain whatever he touched. But that was not his primary reaction to the mounting evidence that no one had touched Eleanor but him.

Indeed, what he was feeling—in every part of him, like a thread of wild heat—was significantly more primitive.

“Whether I am or am not a virgin, I can’t imagine how that’s any of your business at all,” she said coolly. Her brows rose slightly. Arrogantly, he would have said, had anyone ever managed to outdo him in that arena. “Your Grace.”

And Hugo stopped feeling badly about the whole thing.

“That is not a very nice tone to take with a man who just made you come,” he pointed out, all silk and threat. “So hard you nearly broke off the shelf of an ancient bookcase.”

“The bookcase appears to be holding up just fine.”

“Given that you had your back arched and your eyes closed while you rode my hand, I rather doubt you have the slightest idea how close you came to bringing down the whole of my collection on your head.”

“I wish it had,” she said, and while her gaze grew darker, her tone only chilled further. “Everything that’s happened here is almost too inappropriate to bear. I will tender my resignation in the morning, of course.”

Hugo lifted one shoulder, then dropped it. “If you wish. But it will be a wasted effort. I won’t accept it.”

She scowled at him. “Of course you will.”

He didn’t know why she amused him. She shouldn’t have. He’d fired many of her predecessors for far less than this. The one who’d tracked him down in the gardens to let him know she was without her undergarments. The one who’d pouted prettily at him over Geraldine’s head when the child had needed a doctor. The alarming one who’d left lavender-scented unmentionables all over the house, for servants and Hugo alike to find in the most curious of places. He hadn’t thought twice about sacking any of them.

He should have welcomed Eleanor’s resignation. Hell, he should have demanded it himself the moment he’d seen her outside the nursery, divested of that awful coat and obviously a problem. With killer curves.

Hugo had no idea what the hell was wrong with him.

“I fear I must remind you—and not for the first time—that I am the Duke of Grovesmoor.”

“I know who you are. Everybody knows who you are.”

“Then you should know how pointless it is to argue with me.” He watched as she rose to her feet, and didn’t bother to hide his satisfaction when she had to reach out a hand to steady herself. “Instead of discussing resignations that will never come to pass, why don’t you tell me why you insist on scraping your hair back into that painful-looking bun?”

“Because it’s professional,” she snapped. “And also none of your business.”

Hugo kept his gaze trained on hers. Very slowly, very deliberately, he lifted his hand and put the fingers he’d sunk deep inside of her softness into his own mouth. Then licked them clean.

Her mouth fell open. Her pretty face went pale, then red.

“I can still taste you, Eleanor,” he said, a bit more roughly than planned, because she affected him too damned much. “It’s a bit too late for boundaries, don’t you think?”

Eleanor flinched. And he wasn’t at all surprised when she turned around, then fled the library and his presence, coming as close to running from the room as a person could without actually breaking into a sprint.

Hugo didn’t blame her at all.

He blamed himself. And the fact he really could taste her, sweet and sharp and intoxicating, was his own cross to bear as the night wore on. As he sat in his library and brooded into his fire and contemplated just how destroyed he was. How much of a monster was he, really, if he’d become the disreputable, distasteful Old Duke locked away in his ancient house, terrifying virgins? Why not simply start belching out flames and singeing the livestock, while he was at it?

But when the next day came and went with no resignation letter on his desk and Eleanor still in residence, his commitment to his self-flagellation...shifted.

Because it was one thing to lure an unwilling virgin into his dragon’s lair.

It was something else again when she knew who he was, and what he might do...and stayed anyway.