Dangerous (9 page)

“The book of poetry Fergal brought for me.”

“May I see it?”

Sitting beside him before the hearth, she opened the illuminated volume for them both to see. “The pictures are lovely.”

From her tone, he knew she didn’t think he’d made enough progress in his lessons with her to read the intricate passages.

“Truly, they are. And so is this: ‘For you have become a part of me, and I will love you all the days of my life. Longer, if I can.’” Noting her bewildered expression, he couldn’t keep back a grin. “These are love poems.”

“They are.”

“Such verses please you?”

“Very much.”

He turned to another gilded page. “Have you a favorite?”

“They’re all very beautiful.”

“Always with women, one is more beautiful than the rest.”

“Do you mean to imply that men don’t have favorites?” She made to grab it from him, but he held it just out of reach. With a withering look, she put out her hand. “Give it to me.”

“In a moment. What is this word?”

Rolling her eyes, she looked to where he pointed. “Arouse.”

“She arouses him? He wrote such a thing?”

“She.”

“She what?”

“The poet,” Elisabeth explained. “A woman wrote this.”

Eric lifted a fascinated brow. “About a man who arouses her?”

“Her love. He arouses her love.”

From the deepening flush on the lady’s cheeks, he suspected the elegant phrases could also be interpreted to hold the baser meaning he’d suggested. “How?”

“By asking what pleases her.”

He knew better than to pursue this subject with Elisabeth. Over the course of many lazy afternoons, they’d grown far too comfortable teasing one another. But already it was too late. He felt his stern resolve melting under the warmth of her smile.

Because it was pointless to continue denying his fascination with her, he reached out to caress her cheek with his knuckle. “What pleases her?”

“His attention. He listens when she speaks, hears what she doesn’t say.”

“There’s more to it than that,” he murmured, tracing her lower lip with his thumb. “Would you like more?”

When he lifted her chin, her eyes glowed like warm emeralds. And very slowly, she nodded.

He brought her mouth to his for a soft, tentative kiss. Her lips parted, and he delved between them to taste her. Lush and sweet, she wrung a groan from deep inside him. Kissing along the graceful line of her throat, he felt her pulse racing under his lips.

She arched back and opened herself to him, tempting him with all he’d been wanting since he first met her. It would be so easy…

In a last desperate attempt to preserve her honor, he wrenched himself away from her, staring at the patterned rug while he fought to master his raging body.

“Eric, look at me.”

Well aware that his voice would betray his frustration, he shook his head.

“Why?” she asked, ducking in to steal a look at his face. “What troubles you?”

Brief as it had been, their kiss had rattled his brain somehow, and at first he couldn’t form a response to her question. Once he felt more controlled, he lifted his head to address her properly. “I shouldn’t be here alone with you. ’Tis wrong.”

“It feels very right to me.”

Before she could say anything more, he stood and helped her to her feet. “Many thanks for the writing lesson, Lady Redmond. I think it best that I go.”

“I teased you into kissing me. You canna fault yourself for my behavior.”

“That may be, but I must leave now.”

“Before you do something you think is wrong?”

Her perceptiveness unnerved him, and he felt himself being drawn to her, helpless in the face of her bewitching smile. God, she was beautiful when she smiled.

He brushed a kiss over the back of her hand and retreated to the other room. He couldn’t leave his post, but perhaps removing himself from her intoxicating presence would afford him the distance he needed to regain his composure. Even as the thought drifted through his mind, he recognized it for the foolishness that it was.

The woman haunted his dreams nightly when they were nowhere near each other. ’Twas ludicrous to think that a mere stone wall would make any difference at all.

***

That evening, one of the maids enlisted a friend to help her serve Christian’s end of the table, and the two made a pretty fuss over the young noble and his companion.

“Her name is Lydia,” Christian informed him, leaning back in his chair while he stared at her with typical male intensity. “What do ye think of her?”

“Very pretty.” Eric chuckled at his friend’s droll look. “She’d be a handful, not the sort of woman to anger. Especially since you fancy those treats her mother makes for you.”

Christian laughed and clapped Eric on the shoulder. “Such wise advice. Tell me, which of these fair morsels strikes you?”

“I’ll know better once I’ve sampled a few,” Eric retorted as they headed out to join the dancing.

After just a pair of dances, however, he found himself searching out Elisabeth. He was hesitant to ask after her, but Glenda hurried over and curtsied before him.

“Elisabeth sends a message. She would see you in her rooms after the dancing, please.”

“She’s not ill, is she?”

“No, sir, only tired. May I tell her you’ll come?”

A knot of people approached them, and Eric turned her away from prying ears. “Tell her I’ll try.”

He remained belowstairs awhile longer, wondering what Elisabeth could possibly want. At last, he gave in to his curiosity and left the hall. He tapped quietly on her door and entered as she bade him. He found her sitting in a chair before the fire reading a book, and she smiled up at him.

“Please sit.” She motioned toward the seat opposite hers.

Stiffly, he closed the door and did as she asked. Now that he was here, he realized that after their passionate encounter that afternoon, he shouldn’t have tempted fate by agreeing to see her alone. Even more worrisome than his lack of foresight, he found himself unable to summon the will to leave. As he silently cursed his weakness, he noted the inquisitive look on her face.

“Forgive me, milady. You were saying something.”

“No, I wasn’t, but it’s clear to me that something is vexing you. Perhaps I can help.”

She moved to sit on the footrest before him, and it took all his strength for him to remain in his chair. The only response he trusted was silence. She traced the scar on his right hand, and he watched in disbelief as she leaned down to kiss the wound that would never properly heal.

Her touch had set his blood afire, and he fought to contain it. When her gaze met his, he knew his fascination with her must be easy to see, but for the first time, he didn’t look away.

He saw the same desire glowing in her eyes.

Remembering himself, he grasped the arms of the chair and pushed to his feet. “I don’t belong here.”

“But you do,” she countered, blocking his retreat. “I had no choice but to summon you. You barely spoke to me at dinner, and I had something important to tell you.”

Eric silently chastised himself. In an attempt to maintain his distance, he’d insulted her. “Please accept my apologies. What did you wish to say?”

In response, her dark robe slid to the floor.

The white silken gown she wore beneath it molded to her body, and he couldn’t look away. Heavenly curves beckoned to him, unleashing an insane pounding in his loins.

He clamped his hands to his sides, lest they crush her to him for the ravenous kiss he ached to give her. “Where did you get this?”

“Our new Italian merchant. He trades for silk from the East, and his wife sews it into pretty fashions to sell for ridiculous sums of money. She smuggled it in among my horrid new gowns. I must confess, I prefer this. ’Tis much softer.”

With a playful smile, she took his hand and guided it to the smooth silk over her left breast. Her heart fluttered wildly, and he felt the warmth of her skin through the delicate fabric. To his dismay, she leaned closer, pressing her breasts against his chest in an unmistakable gesture.

Before he could muster a protest, she kissed him. Her mouth opened, her tongue seeking his. He granted her wish, groaning as he gathered her into his arms.

“Stay with me, Eric,” she whispered against his lips. “Be with me.”

The scent of roses curled around him, withering his resolve. He framed her face with his hands, struck by the softness of her skin under his callused palms. “You know I can’t.”

“
Au contraire
, I know you can’t leave.” She rolled against the rigid length of him in a wicked motion he stilled with his hands at her waist.

“You also know what will happen if I stay.”

She goaded him with the look of a pagan temptress. “Truly, I can’t imagine. Perhaps you’d be good enough to enlighten me.”

“I’d do a great deal more than that.”

His warning served only to spike the wanton look simmering in her eyes, and her fingers went to the laces closing her elegant gown.

“All my life,” she said as she untied them, “I’ve done what was expected of me. Just once, I want to know how it feels to please myself.”

The silk cascaded into a shimmering pile on the rug. She stepped from the white ring as though she were a nymph emerging from a pool in the forest, and the firelight cast a golden sheen over her skin as she gazed up at him.

“Tell me, Eric Jordanne. Do you wish to enlighten me?”

Folding her hand in his, he lifted it to his lips. Countless times had he done so, but this gesture was different. It sent a tendril of heat spiraling through her, igniting the deepest part of her, and she reached her other hand to his jaw.

She traced the faint scar on his cheek, glanced back to his eyes. They blazed with longing such as she had never seen. She followed the outline of his lips with her fingertip, and he kissed it as it passed. Completely at odds with the demand burning in his eyes, the tenderness touched her deeply.

Sensing the vibrations of his body, Elisabeth knew his blood sang in concert with her own, yet he didn’t move. Didn’t reach out to take what he so clearly wanted. Instead, he watched her as if a wild storm were tethered within him, waiting for her to set it free.

Though she stood naked before him, his regard didn’t waver from her face. Awed by his restraint, she brought his mouth to hers, and he granted her the most delicate kiss imaginable. Barely a touch, soft as a whisper. Another followed, and another. The feathery sensation aroused her more than commanding kisses could possibly have done.

When he finally claimed her mouth, she gladly surrendered. His lips moved over her cheek, down the curve of her neck to the madness beating in her throat. Slowly, torturously, he wandered back to her mouth, his arms wrapped possessively about her.

He lifted her easily and laid her back on the bed. Her pulse raced wildly as she watched him remove his clothes. He pulled off his tunic and then his boots, drawing the dagger from its hidden sheath to lay it on the table beside her bed. It glinted dangerously, reviving awful memories of the night he rescued her.

Eric reached over and rested a book of Greek plays atop the knife. With his knuckle, he turned her face away from the dagger and brushed a kiss over her lips. “Don’t think of it. ’Tis just a piece of steel.”

His mouth settled persuasively over hers, driving away thoughts of anything but him. She watched in fascination as he unlaced his trews and dropped them on the floor.

Even as he blanketed her body with his own, he nuzzled her throat in a tender motion. “If you’d have me stop, tell me now.”

She replied with a hungry kiss, felt herself being swept away by the sensuous current flowing between them. Dipping his head to her breasts, he kissed the hollow between them. Then he turned to one, mouthing the inner curve as she tensed with anticipation.

He took her breast, circled the taut tip with his tongue. As he continued his assault, Elisabeth dropped her head back, her breath coming in ragged gasps. She wasn’t aware of his hand at her hip until she felt his coercive stroke inside her thigh. Acquiescing to his touch, her legs fell open, and he cupped the mound of curls in his palm.

With the practiced motion of a man well versed in the pleasure of women, he propelled her toward her peak, then released her, again and again until she knew she’d go mad if he did it just once more.

Seeking a hold, she sank her fingers into the rumpled sheets. “Eric!”

His powerful body slung between her thighs, his mouth came to hers. “Tell me, Lise,” he murmured between inciteful kisses. “What do you want?”

“You, Eric. I want you.”

In one long stroke he entered, sinking to the depths of her. The sudden connection to him was so strong, it stole her breath. At her gasp, he stilled.

“I’ve hurt you.”

“No, I swear it.” She reached to his hips, seeking to pull him even deeper. “Please, make love to me.”

He took her plea into his mouth, each thrust rocking them in the most ancient rhythm. Swelling hard within her, he pressed on, driving them both far over the edge into oblivion.