Devil in My Arms (15 page)

Her honesty humbled him. “I’m sorry, then. I was trying to put you at ease, not create discomfort.”

She laughed and unbuttoned her jacket again. “Apology accepted.”

“But you do walk too lightly.”

She sighed again. “Fine. But in my defense, it’s the way all ladies are taught to walk.”

“Is it?” he asked in genuine surprise. “I wouldn’t know. Never thought much about it, really. How odd. It’s a wonder you’re not all recruited for espionage work.”

“Yes,” she drawled, “isn’t it?”

He came over then and she turned her back to him so he could undo the laces on
her dress. They were hastily tied, and loosely, too, so it was a simple matter. It was almost a routine between them now. “What would it take to make you walk like an elephant?” he asked curiously.

“An elephant?” she asked, disbelief coloring her voice. “Why on earth do you want me to walk like an elephant?”

“Because it would show you have no more fear.”

“Would it?” she asked, highly amused and showing it. “I think it would show poor breeding, but I’m funny that way.”

Her dress slid down her arms with a slow glide of his hands along her shoulders. It pooled at her feet and she stepped out of it. She wore a small petticoat underneath. When she picked up her dress and draped it across the chair, over the shirt and cravat he’d tossed there earlier, he had an idea. He grabbed her hands before she could untie her petticoat. Her problem, he surmised, was trust. She didn’t trust the world. “Do you trust me?” he asked, fervently hoping the answer was yes. He thought she did, she had said so in the past, but she didn’t really understand what that meant yet.

“Of course I trust you,” she replied immediately, stepping closer and resting their joined hands against his chest.

Hil let go with one hand and leaned over and grabbed his discarded cravat. “Close your eyes.”

“More closed eyes?” she said with a seductive smile. “I’m already enjoying the anticipation.”

“Eleanor,” he said a bit impatiently.

“Fine.” She closed her eyes. “Better?”

Hil placed the cravat over her eyes and tied it loosely on the back of her head. She went absolutely still and her breathing became erratic. “Too much?” he asked. If she said yes, he’d remove it right away. This was meant to be a bit of a lesson in trust, but he still wanted it to be enjoyable for both of them.

“That depends,” she said, her voice a little weak. She hadn’t stepped away from him or removed her hands from his chest. He let his hands rest lightly on her hips. He didn’t want her to feel trapped. “What are you going to do? Spin me around and make me find you?”

He laughed. “No. Childish games are not what I have in mind.” He ran a finger slowly down her exposed arm and she shivered. “Do you trust me?” he asked again.

She hesitated a split second. “Yes,” she finally answered, her voice firm and sure. Hil breathed a sigh of relief. “But open a window,” she asked and his relief was tempered by concern.

“If it’s too much,” he told her, “we can stop. There will be other nights.”

“No,” she said quickly, her fingers latching on to his banyan. “I want to do this. Show me.”

He kissed her cheek and she jerked back slightly. Then she smiled. “I liked that. A bit of a shock, not knowing what you’re going to do. It gave me a jolt. I’m tingling.” She rubbed her cheek.

“You’ll be tingling all over before the night is through,” he vowed. “I’m going to open the window.”

“Promises, promises,” she said a little breathlessly. He stepped away and quickly threw the window open wide enough for her to feel a rush of cool air.

She took a deep breath and visibly relaxed.

“Now I’m going to finish undressing you.”

“So we’re going to play lady’s maid,” she said with a half smile, her head quirking to the side just a bit, as if she were trying to determine exactly where his voice was coming from. “Do I get to play the randy duke?”

That brought Hil up short. “What do you know about those games?” he asked, surprised.

She laughed. “Nothing, really. Harry mentioned something in the same soliloquy that extolled Roger’s incandescence.”

“That is perhaps more than I need to know about my old friend,” Hil said wryly, blocking the image that came to mind. “Come here.” He put his hand on her hip and gently pulled her toward him, just two little steps, but she stumbled a bit and fell into him.

“Oh! It’s rather difficult, isn’t it, to judge distance or even walk when you’re blind. I never thought about that.” She had grabbed his arm for support and now let go of it as she straightened in front of him. She patted his chest. “Sorry. Go on.”

Hil untied her petticoat and lowered it slowly, sliding his hands first over her shoulders to push the straps down her arms, and then over her bottom and down her thighs until he let it drop at her knees. By the time he let it go, she had both hands on his shoulders and her breathing was erratic. “Oh, my,” she whispered when it collapsed on her feet. Each time he got her naked, he felt as if he were uncovering a mysterious secret, discovering a treasure that no man had found before.

He stood and, taking her hand, said, “Step out of it, my dear.” She did as directed and Hil tugged on her hand, leading her over to the bed. Her steps were hesitant, but she followed his lead. “Sit.” He guided her to the edge of the bed and with just a slight pressure on her shoulder, eased her down.

Kneeling at her feet, he slid one slipper off, then the other. He kneaded her calves and she groaned. “Oh, that feels good,” she purred. “More.” He spent minutes massaging her legs and feet, loving the feel of her silk stockings. The silk was cool to the touch, but the heat of her leg pushed through it. They were plain white stockings with white garters. The garters had a black embroidered border around the ruffled edge.

“Did you embroider these?” he asked, slipping a finger under the garter just above her knee and tugging on it. Not hard enough to pull it off. He didn’t want them off yet. He liked them.

“Yes,” she said, her voice relaxed. She was leaning back on the bed, balanced on her elbows. “It wasn’t that hard.”

“I don’t care how hard it was,” he said. “I just like to imagine you embroidering garters. Were you hoping I’d see them?”

She laughed, her head thrown back so that she faced the ceiling. “Hardly. I wanted to wear fine things for me, not for anyone else.”

“I’m crushed.” He wasn’t really. He was intrigued by that notion, too. The idea of Eleanor standing in front of a mirror admiring herself in her embroidered garters.

“Don’t be.” She sat up and reached out blindly for him. He leaned his cheek into her palm and she caressed it. “I didn’t know you, yet. I did it at Throckton’s, after we’d seen one another for all of fifteen minutes or so. There wasn’t enough time then to have developed a tendre for you.”

“And now?” he asked, unashamedly fishing for sweet words.

“And now I am at your mercy, garters and all,” she replied with a wicked smile. “Do your worst.”

“I was rather hoping to do my best,” he murmured, kissing the inside of her bare thigh.

“I think that’s a better plan,” she said, followed by a little stuttering breath when his lips met her skin.

He suddenly found he could wait no more, and pulled the garters off. As he hastily rolled her stockings down, she inquired, “In a rush, are we?”

“I am now,” he said fervently and she laughed. He paused a moment, letting the sound wash over him. He liked that laugh best of all. It was as if she wasn’t wearing the blindfold now. She sounded as relaxed and playful as she’d been the last time they were together.

After tossing aside her stockings he stood up and backed away to take off his banyan and trousers. “Hil?” she asked fearfully, sitting up so quickly she nearly toppled off the bed.

He inwardly cursed his clumsiness. “Right here,” he answered, touching her knee. “I simply stepped away to take off my clothes.”

She let out an unsteady breath. “Oh, all right.” After a pause she frowned. “This blindfold now seems unnaturally cruel if I don’t get to see you undress.”

He crawled up on the bed beside her, not touching her, and she turned in his direction, smiling. “Is it hide and seek?” she asked.

“Where on earth are we going to hide ourselves?” He slid in behind her and wrapped his arms around her waist, just under her bare breasts, pushing them higher so he could admire them. “Or have you forgotten we’re both naked?”

She snuggled back with his encouragement. “No I haven’t forgotten,” she replied, her voice low with the heat of a passion he’d come to crave. “How could I?” She pulled one of his hands up onto her breast. “But I will if you don’t do something useful with my state of undress.”

“I have always been the sort of man to make use of a naked lady.” He winced and cleared his throat. “Make that, a naked Eleanor.”

She laughed uproariously at his faux pas. “No, I think you had it right the first
time. I was told upon our early acquaintance that you possessed legendary bedroom skills.”

He dragged her back further onto the bed and tumbled her underneath him, rolling on top of her and pinning her arms above her head. Nuzzling her neck, he murmured, “And?”

“And I can honestly confirm the rumor,” she said, arching her neck to the side to give him more access.

“You do know,” he said, pulling back and frowning down at her, “that you are the only woman I have bedded since my infatuation with you began?”

“Yes,” she said drily. “Let me assure you that I am well aware you are not living up to your rakish reputation.”

“On the contrary, madam,” he said with a lascivious grin, “society thinks I am more than living up to it with you.”

“The poor widow and the Devil?” she inquired sweetly. “How appropriate.”

He rested his lips on hers lightly and then said against them, “You forget. I am the innocent one. You are a wicked widow, and I your hapless victim.”

“The man is always the last to know,” she agreed and they both laughed.

“Do you trust me?” he whispered.

She nodded. “Yes. Implicitly.”

He nudged her knee aside with his, and she spread her legs so he could insinuate himself between them. “You’re not nervous or scared at all?” he asked, determined to stop if she had the least little doubt.

“Nonsense,” she said lightly. “What I am is impatient. This game of yours has unexpectedly made me as randy as the wicked widow you claim I am. So do your best before I’m forced to take over.”

“Take over?” Hil mused. “While it sounds intriguing, I do not think this is something that you can do for yourself.”

Her laughter was low, throaty in that way it became when they were sharing intimacies. He didn’t think he was wrong to assume he was the only man who had heard it. “I concede you are correct,” she admitted with a smile that was anything but regretful.

He slid down and placed a kiss on her stomach. “Hardly necessary,” he told her.

“I am usually right, with or without your concession. Do you trust me?” He pushed further down, his prize in sight.

“You know I do,” she said. “But I want you to know you may be right, but you are also conceited, vain, self-aggrandizing—” She stopped her breathless recitation of his faults when he blew softly against the very center of her. Her breath stuttered in a way that made him feel all the things she was accusing him of, as well as a great deal of satisfaction. “But don’t let that stop you,” she finished. “Once begun is only half done.”

It was his turn to laugh. “Far be it from me to leave something as important as this undone.” He kissed her then, kissed the damp heat of her and marveled at her taste, and her passion as she arched her back and gripped his head, pressing his mouth to her. He obliged her silent command and loved her ruthlessly with his mouth. He wrapped his hands around her thighs and held her open, a veritable feast of pleasure for a starving man. He’d dreamed of this the last two nights as he tossed and turned waiting for her to return to his arms.

Her cry of completion was music to his ears. He’d taken her there again, taken her to that place she’d never known before he came along and upset all her plans.

“Hilary,” she said, still breathless several minutes after her release. “Laugh then, and be yourself, but give me, my dear sweet, one kiss. The gods that on Olympus live, have never known such bliss.”

“Ah, Shakespeare. Now there was a man who knew about love,” he said, kissing her thighs and then her stomach.

“Remind me not to question your legendary skill again.” She tugged on his hair.

He chuckled as he crawled back up over her and kissed her lightly. “When you question it, I simply have to prove it. Truly, there is no way for you to lose in that scenario.”

“Point taken,” she whispered, wrapping her arms around him. “Now I want to be taken.”

“Never,” Hil told her. “I will only receive that which you offer. I will never take anything from you, Eleanor, that you don’t gladly give.”

“Oh, Hilary,” she said softly. “Take this bloody cravat off me so I can see you.”

“Don’t you trust me to do what I say I will?” he teased.

“I want to watch you do it,” she said, clearly exasperated.

He gave in to her pleas with a gentle laugh and untied the cravat, pulling it away slowly. He knew how much she enjoyed seeing the two of them joined. It was a deliciously erotic thing to watch her as she stared at them together. She blinked several times and when he came into focus she gave him a sultry smile. “I trust you have not changed your mind?” she teased.

“I trust you shall be pleased to hear that I have not,” he answered back, kissing her neck and shoulder.

“Is there enough trust now?” she murmured, turning her head to the side to show him exactly where she wanted to be kissed. Eleanor was rarely shy in bed anymore. He was glad. He didn’t want a lady, he wanted a lover. “There better be, or else I really will take charge.”

“What a splendid idea,” he murmured. He rolled them over again until she was sprawled on top of him. Ever since their first time together she had enjoyed this position the most. Without missing a beat, she awkwardly rose above him until she was straddling his hips, her hands on his chest.