The gray dress gaped. He felt like a traveler venturing into an unexplored land. How he’d fantasized about stripping away her nunlike clothing.
He bent to kiss her collarbone, lingered on the pulse fluttering at the base of her throat. Sliding one hand under her shift, he cupped her breast. The weight of her flesh in his palm crashed through him like a hurricane.
She gasped and stiffened. “This is wrong.”
“Yes,” he agreed. He might be a fool; he’d never been a liar.
“You promised… kissing only,” she said unsteadily, although without withdrawing.
“Then let me kiss you again.”
Her lips quivered with uncertainty until with a sigh, she succumbed to the heat. Her beaded nipple scraped his palm. When he flicked it with his thumb, she started and gasped into his mouth. She pressed forward, silently begging for more.
Her reaction excited him. Urgently he pushed her undergarments down to bare one breast to the firelight. Seeing that satiny white flesh crowned with deep pink made him shake with need. The sight was somehow more arousing because plain white linen covered her other breast. He felt as though he unwrapped the most wonderful present in history.
Unable to stop himself, he bent to take that pearled nipple into his mouth. She gave a soft cry and squeezed closer. He drew harder, curling his tongue. Then, when she panted and squirmed and dug her hands deep into his hair, he gently bit her. Another start of shock.
Dear God, she was so responsive. He couldn’t remember a lover so attuned to pleasure.
Her swollen, parted lips beckoned him. He kissed her again, glorying in her quick, hot answer, even as he hoisted her high in his arms and carried her to the huge bed that he’d never shared with a woman.
When he came down over her, her legs parted to cradle him. He pressed into her mound, letting her feel his weight and size.
She wriggled and made a choked sound, but he was too far gone to pay attention. One unsteady hand stretched down to raise her skirts. He burned to touch her sex.
She made another strangled sound against his lips and caught his hand as it reached her thigh. Vaguely through raging tumult, he sensed that her body wasn’t as loose and welcoming as it had been.
Wits dull with arousal, he raised his head. “Eleanor?”
His heart sank. She looked tense and afraid and unhappy. His hand stilled at her hip, although he couldn’t bring himself to retreat.
“Stop,” she said in a thick voice. “Please stop.”
For a searing instant, he wanted to argue, persuade, seduce. She was so close to surrender. And he’d craved this joining from the first moment he’d seen her.
He grappled with the beast inside him. The beast fought back.
Gritting his teeth, he stared down at her and reminded himself that he was a man of honor.
“Of course.” The concession nearly killed him.
She was right to protest. Heaven forgive him, he’d forgotten where he was. He’d forgotten every reason not to do this. Aside from his suspicions about her, she worked for him. A gentleman didn’t harass the servants. From his earliest years, that tenet had been drilled into him.
Dear Lord, just imagine the scandal if London discovered that he’d retired to the country to lead a respectable life and immediately turned to swiving the maids. His political career would never recover. Even if, poised above Eleanor, his political career seemed sublimely unimportant compared to the throbbing weight in his balls.
Worse, he verged on becoming a liar. After promising to stop at kisses, he’d been close to taking her. And she was a virgin. Her uncertainty at every step she took toward ruin confirmed that.
He should be horsewhipped.
“Hell,” he muttered and rolled away to sit on the edge of the bed. Burying his head in his hands, he sucked in shuddering breath after breath. He didn’t dare glance at her. If he did, all good intentions would fly out the window and Miss Eleanor Trim would be a virgin no more.
And the Marquess of Leath would prove himself a cad of the first degree.
Prickling silences had become familiar. This particular silence drew blood. The fire crackled in the grate. Somewhere outside a fox barked on its nightly hunt.
“I’m sorry,” she said dully from behind him after what felt like an hour, although reviving common sense insisted that it couldn’t be nearly that long.
“You have nothing to be sorry for.” He wished he sounded kinder, but he still struggled for control.