To Please A Lady (The Seduction Series) (23 page)

She gave a jerky nod, trying her best to trust him, but he could see the wariness in her gaze. When she reached for his trousers and gently tugged them down his legs, he helped her by lifting his hips. It was all he would do while tied to the bed. They were both utterly naked, just as he’d wanted. She sank back on her heels and slowly studied his body, pausing once more at his cock. James had to resist the urge to groan. She was killing him with her gaze, destroying him with her touch.

“You say I am beautiful, but you are, James.” She reached out, resting her warm hand on his belly. His stomach muscles jumped to life, his cock swelling so that it moved against her thigh. She did not pull back as he expected. Instead she brushed her fingers down the trail of hair that led to his groin.

“Lean, golden body. You practically glow in the firelight.” Her fingers paused at the base of his cock. James gritted his teeth, resisting the urge to lift his hips and beg her to touch him.

“You’re lovely. The sort of man people should paint and admire.” She skipped his erection and ran her hands down his muscled thighs, through the crisp hair on his legs.

“You are killing me, do you know that?” he whispered gruffly.

She smiled, a beautiful, angelic grin that had his heart flip-flopping. What the hell had happened to him? He’d never been so utterly on the brink of losing control with a client. Yes, first it had been the sadness in her eyes that had attracted him. He’d merely wanted to make her smile. He couldn’t deny that the more time he
spent with her, the more fascinated he became by her charming wit. But now… now he found he respected her, damn it all, he liked her.

“I think I like being in control.”

Aye, she did. Eleanor drew her fingers back up his legs. He focused on her breasts, those gleaming ivory orbs with the rose-tipped nipples begging for his touch. The woman was pure perfection. He wanted to feel the weight of her breasts against his palms, wanted to kiss, suck each nipple until she was squirming, begging him to ease the tension.

It was a job. It had always merely been a job. He’d justified what he did by telling himself he was not only helping his family, but also giving pleasure to the clients who visited. But hell, for once he was selfish. For once he could admit he wanted her… wanted Eleanor for himself. Wanted her to ease the heavy ache in his loins, only her.

“I think I would like to touch you now, James.”

He groaned, squeezing his eyes shut and fighting for self-control. When her warm fingers wrapped around his cock he could no longer hold back. His hips lifted, his cry almost painful. She was killing him, and he would die willingly. The entire world spun, tilting off its axis.

She slid her warm grip down his shaft. “I can’t help but wonder what it would feel like to have you so fully inside of me. Completely.”

“Please,” he gasped. “You are torturing me.”

Her startled gaze met his. “Am I?”

“Yes,” he hissed through gritted teeth.

The dark haze that swept over her gaze had nothing to do with fear and everything to do with desire. He might want her, but she wanted him as well.

“I should not wish that.” She settled her thighs on either side of him.

Every muscle in his body strained. He wondered if she was wet and aching, aching as much as he ached for her. He tightened
his hold on the cravat wrapped around his wrists, resisting the urge to snap the material. When she gripped his erection and centered her body over him, he thought he might break the damn headboard. Slowly, she lowered herself. The thickened tip of his cock slipped between her wet folds, pressing into the entrance of her sheath. An erotic flush of desire climbed across her chest and up her neck as a gasp of surprised delight parted her lips.

“Oh my,” she moaned, sinking fully atop him.

James didn’t dare move, but savored the feel of her surrounding him. When she lowered her body, her hardened nipples brushing against his chest, heated desire shot to his groin, making him even harder, if possible.

“Ellie,” he gasped. “I’m trying really hard not to move, but if you don’t soon, I swear to God I might have to break this bed merely to get to you.”

“Well,” she whispered, “we can’t have that, can we?” She rested her hands on either side of his shoulders and leaned over him, rocking her hips, taking him deeper. Her lush mouth parted on a gasp of sheer pleasure. She was utterly beautiful. He’d known her only for weeks, yet James felt closer to Eleanor than he’d felt to anyone. How he wanted to wrap his arms around her waist and draw her close to him, to breathe in her essence, to taste her salty skin.

“James?” she whispered, her breath warm across his ear. The weight of her body against his was almost his undoing. He lifted his hips, surging into her heat. The woman was completely open with him, giving James her everything.

“Yes?”

“I want you to hold me. I want you to touch me.”

“Thank God.” The words he’d been waiting to hear, the words he hoped to hear. He jerked on the cravat. The knot came loose easily, sliding free of the headboard.

She gasped in outrage. “My knot!”

He grinned. “Ellie, my love, you’ll never be a sailor.”

She paused, settled atop him, a crease of confusion between her brows. Half her hair had fallen down around her shoulders, swaying across her breasts every time she rocked forward. “You could have escaped at any moment?”

“Yes.” His hands ran down her smooth back, toward her lovely bottom.

A myriad of emotions raced through her brilliant sapphire eyes. “But you didn’t?”

He knew what she was thinking… she wasn’t sure if she should be annoyed with him for fooling her or touched that he had held back. He gripped her lush bottom, pulling her closer, deeper, touching her everywhere he’d dreamt of touching her since they’d first met. In a mere month, a bloody month, she had turned his world upside down. She had destroyed his calm, rational life.

She groaned, his deception forgotten as they moved together as one, rocking in a rhythm they found naturally. As she surged forward, he lifted, until they came together like the waves of the ocean, crashing, merging. Hell, he wasn’t sure where he ended and she began. He only knew he needed to feel her release as much as he needed to feel his own.

“Come for me, Eleanor.”

“Yes,” she groaned.

Her entire body tightened around him, her sheath trembling against his cock. It was too much. James could hold back no more. His world exploded into a burst of white-hot pulsing joy. He’d never come inside a woman without a French sheath to cover him, and even then very rarely. But Eleanor sucked him dry. His wet seed pulsed into her body as she cried out, finding her own sweet release.

She collapsed atop him, their bodies slick with sweat. James slid his hands up her back and into her hair, gripping the strands as if that could keep her with him. For a long, long while they merely lay together, their legs and arms entangled, her face resting
on his shoulder, and her harsh breath tickling his skin. This is what her marriage should have been. This is what his life could have been… nights spent with a woman he… no, he would not even allow himself to love her. But he cared, good God, he cared. He’d wanted her with an intensity that he wouldn’t have thought possible, could barely breathe when she was gone.

“You should be cherished,” he said gruffly.

She was silent for a moment. “At one time I thought I would be.”

He drew his hands down her silky smooth back. “You will be now, in this moment, forever with me.”

She was quiet for a long moment, and he desperately wanted to know what she was thinking. The fire was dying, the windows open, allowing a cool afternoon breeze to flutter the curtains. Her sleek skin was growing chilled under his hands. James pulled the satin green coverlet over her. If only they could stay this way forever.

“Will there be others today?” she whispered.

His hands paused at her back. “No. She does not overwhelm us. Usually only one a day.”

“But tomorrow,” she whispered, her voice catching in a telling way.

He closed his eyes, not wanting answer, not wanting to think about tomorrow, or the next day, or the next. Dear God, how would he go on? How could he let her go back to her demon of a husband? How could he possibly see other women? He wrapped his arms more tightly around her, unable to let go.

“Perhaps I can gather money of my own,” she said, her lips brushing against his chest as she pressed a warm kiss to the skin.

Despair, humiliation, and anger overwhelmed him. He didn’t want her money. His hands flattened to her back as he tried to retain control of his emotions. Damn it all, he wanted to be a man and provide for his family on his own, provide for her so she didn’t have to rely upon that bastard of a husband.

“If I gathered enough money, perhaps I could… put you up somewhere.”

He sighed. “And if your husband uncovered the truth?”

She didn’t respond, but she didn’t need to. Lord Beckett would kill her, and most likely he’d try to kill James. Besides, even if she had the funds to keep him, she didn’t have the funds to provide for his sister as well.

“I can’t,” he said a little too harshly. “We can’t.”

She turned her head, pressing her face into his neck. For a moment, he held her, merely wrapped his arms around her and prayed that she would one day find the courage to flee her husband, run away to the Americas or Italy,
anywhere
.

All too soon she lifted up, pulling away from him. For one brief moment her gaze met his. He saw the pain there, the desperation, the despair, but it was gone in a flash, replaced by that hard, determined woman who had first walked in through his door those weeks ago. James felt spent, utterly destroyed.

“So,” she said, looking away. “This is why people are intimate.”

She moved off of him and stood beside the bed. How he wished he knew how to paint. Hell, even write poetry, for she deserved to be immortalized. She was a goddess,
his
golden goddess, and the mere thought of anyone else touching her sent a heated ripple of jealousy flaring though his body.

“We still have some time,” he said, knowing he sounded desperate and not caring. The thought of never seeing her again didn’t sit well. In fact, it made him break out in a cold sweat. The future seemed empty, dark. He surged from the bed as she pulled her shift over her head.

“I must go before I’m found.”

“Stay,” he whispered, his hands curling into the bedsheets.

She averted her gaze, snatching up her corset, but he’d seen the look of despair in her eyes. She wanted to stay as much as he wanted her to. She tugged the corset together, struggling to fasten the busk. He did not help her; he found he couldn’t move.
Although her corset was not fully buttoned, she dressed quickly, as if in a hurry to escape him and the feelings he stirred within.

Buttoning her bodice, she turned toward him. “I have something to tell you before I leave.”

She was leaving. She was actually leaving. James reached for his trousers and stood, dressing. He felt utterly numb. His mind begged him to grab her, pull her close, and demand she stay. His body could barely move. “What is it?”

She slipped her feet into her slippers. “We found your sister.”

He froze. The words hit him hard, and up until that moment he realized that he thought she had died. Slowly, he sank to the edge of the bed. She was alive… all this time. He tried hard to picture her… a pale, elfin creature who had quietly followed him around. Sweet, kind to every stray animal they found.

“Where?” he asked, his voice raspy with emotion.

“She’s at St. Anne’s preparing to become a nun.”

Not Bath? He jerked his gaze up to her. “You jest.”

She shook her head, looking as grim as he felt. “I’m sorry, James.”

He should have been happy that his sister lived. All he could think about was the fact that Lady Lavender had lied, and his money had most likely never gone to his family but some bloody nunnery, if his sister had even received it. “Not dead then?”

She picked up her leather gloves. “No.”

A nun. A damn nun. A chill of disbelief raced down his spine. Dear God, she could never know what he did, how he’d made his money. “How did you uncover the truth?”

She shrugged, flushing. “I hired an investigator.”

He surged to his feet, angry at Eleanor, at Lady Lavender, even at his sister. “Damn you, Ellie. I told you not to interfere.”

“I’m sorry I only wanted the truth for you.” She picked up her bonnet where she’d left it on a table near the settee. “Good-bye, James.”

Damn it all, no matter what he couldn’t let her go like this. He was on her in two steps. James met her near the door, and before she could even blink he’d latched onto her upper arms and jerked her to him. It was a soft kiss, a gentle kiss, a good-bye kiss. James had to force himself to stop, to release her arms and step away from her.

“Will you see your sister?” She looked worried, clutching her gloves in her hands. “Will you go to her?”

He shook his head. “No. She can never know what I’ve become.”

The sadness in her eyes mirrored the feelings in his heart. He tucked a lock of hair behind her ear, then pulled the veil down over her face. “Good-bye, Ellie.”

She rested her hand along the side of his face, her lower lip quivering. “Good-bye, James. I hope you find happiness.”

Her words seem to hang in the air between them, an unreachable goal. She didn’t understand that there was no chance for him now. His mother was dead. His sister was gone. And Ellie… she was merely a fantastical dream that could never be fulfilled. His hands curled as the all-too-familiar tightness in his chest flared to life.

While the fire in the hearth sputtered and sparked, going out, she turned and left him, taking any hope with her.

Chapter 12

St. Anne’s was exactly as Eleanor had imagined… a dark, dreary edifice worthy of a gothic novel. Just looking up at the façade sent a shiver of apprehension down her spine. What a horrible, wretched place to live. Yet Miss McKinnon was here… Eleanor knew for sure, without a doubt, that James’s sister was here.