Ellora's Cave
Damn! This is what he had to guard against. He couldn’t develop fucking tender feelings for the chit. He bloody well knew better.
“Your eyes are glowing again,” she commented, staring at him with a rapt expression. “It’s as if they change color when—”
“I’m sure you’re mistaken.” S-E-X. It’s about sex, he reminded himself, massaging the flesh of her breast so firmly she groaned. Sex.
Getting sex whenever he wanted it, certainly when he needed it, to enable him to battle down the feral urges that would soon be rising to the forefront. If they weren’t already. At that very moment, his blood sizzled, heating his veins and increasing the latent power that always hovered beneath the surface. Whether the cause was irritation with himself or desire for her, he wasn’t sure and chose not to contemplate further.
Erasmus ran his tongue along the bottom edge of his teeth. Smooth. It wasn’t panthera leo burning in him. It was him burning for her. Blast her not-so-innocent charms.
“Come on.” He released her breast, set her gown to rights and caught her hand in his. “I’m taking you now.”
“Where?”
“The first private place I can find.”
* * *
Which happened to be an upstairs alcove, hidden from view by nothing more than a long velvet drape. The olive curtain was the only thing that separated them from the mass downstairs listening to the professional musicians. Erasmus swiftly led Francine behind the drape and secured it, giving them a measure of privacy, however precarious.
In the instant before they were enshrouded in darkness, Francine glimpsed a ceiling-high window centered in the alcove. Standing just inside the curtain, she huddled, waiting. Needing.
It was as black as pitch. The soothing sounds from the quartet competed with the choppy cadence of her overly loud breathing.
Clothing rustled. Fabric whispered against skin. Something dropped. His cravat? Maybe his tailcoat? What was he removing?
Francine stood transfixed, unable to move, anticipation, longing—a level of boldness she’d never known—surging through her at his nearness, at the certainty of what they were about to do. Knowing their proximity to the other guests, how very forbidden her actions, only heightened her desire.
“You really cannot see in the dark at all, can you?” Erasmus asked in a low voice.
“No,” she whispered. “Why?”
“Because I’m standing in front of you, stripped nude. And you haven’t flinched.”
“Noooo. Really?” Shock, dismay, the sharp bite of excitement, all vied for position. Excitement won heartily and she stepped forward. “Naked—here?”
“You look dumbfounded, my little dumbwaiter,” he laughed softly. “And no, not here. I’m not that far gone, not yet. But my shirt is undone, my pantaloons unfastened and yet you do not seem inclined to join me.”
Automatically she lifted her gloved hand and encountered his hard chest. “I’m very much inclined.”
Erasmus began peeling the glove down her arm, a sensual journey he traveled from her elbow to her fingertips with exquisite attention to detail, allowing his touch to linger over every portion of skin he exposed. How was it his mere touch upon her arm caused the moisture in her mouth to evaporate? And to accumulate lower, directly between her thighs?
Francine licked lips gone dry and forced herself to remain still, no matter how part of her wanted to rip the curtain from its moorings and flood light into their tiny alcove so she could see his body.
“What about your spectacles?” he asked quietly, stripping the glove off completely. “Don’t you have them with you?”
The tingle that had begun in her fingertips made its way down to her toes. Francine curled them in her slippers. Had he said something? All she could think about was the nearness of his chest. “Hmmm?”
“Your spectacles,” he reminded with a light laugh, bending to kiss the newly exposed crease of her elbow.
Her entire arm caught fire. “They don’t do me any good, not in dim light.”
After dispatching her second glove, he placed both of her palms against the muscles cording his stomach. They twitched under her touch. Hard as iron, warm as a forge. Francine flexed her fingers, tracing the delineations.
“Touching is better than seeing,” she whispered, closing her eyes and trying to imagine what he looked like anyway.
Erasmus shifted, grasping her wrists. “There’s a narrow settee two steps to your right.”
He led her to it and sat down. When she moved to do the same, he stopped her with a gentle touch to her waist. “Not yet. Remove your gown.”
“You cannot expect me to do that here.” Though a wicked part of her wanted desperately to comply…
His hand settled heavily upon her hip. “You promised to obey me. In all things—”
“I never!” Her quim throbbed at his nearness. She wanted to jump naked in his arms and clobber him all at once.
“Shhh,” he cautioned, nuzzling his face into the modest cleavage left exposed by her neckline. “In all things pertaining to the physical aspect of our agreement, I was about to add.”
Had she promised that? His breath was hot. Whiskers abraded her chest. Her nipples ached. “Are you going to kiss my bosom?”
She felt him shake with laughter, the rotter. He held her still when she would have jerked away and clobbered him after all.
“You’re so damn innocent,” he said into the valley between her breasts, barely suppressing his mirth.
“I am not. I already told you.” It was an effort to keep her tone low. “Especially not after what we did last night—”
“What we will do again now if you will only obey me.”
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