Passion Wears Pearls (31 page)

She reached up and slowly removed her bonnet, setting it down on the table by the door. “It’s late for a call, I know. Poor Mr. Creed! There is so much activity with all of us paying him no mind at all when he fusses. I passed your friend, Dr. West, on the ground floor, and he was very kind. It seems I’m very brave, Mr. Hastings. I slipped out of the
Grove without alerting anyone, and frankly, am quite sure that this is the most terrifying thing I’ve ever done.”

“Terrifying?” he asked cautiously.

“I should never have left, but … it was finished and I thought that it had always been so clear between us, these obligations and agreements that we held to.” Eleanor calmly set her reticule on the table as well. “I ran away because I didn’t want to hear you say it was over.”

He shook his head, unable to speak.

She continued, slowly walking toward him. “But that also means I didn’t give you the chance to ask me to stay. I don’t think that this relationship has ever been based on obligations, do you?”

Again, he shook his head, the first tendril of hope coming to life inside of his chest. “No, Eleanor. I pray not.”

“I shouldn’t be here, should I? But I tried to imagine a day where I wasn’t here. A day where we weren’t together and you weren’t painting and we weren’t talking, and I … couldn’t.” Her voice was sad, but she looked up at him, smiling through the sheen of tears in her wild green eyes. “I’m under your spell, Mr. Hastings. I hope you don’t mind.”

“It’s late. Mrs. Clay—”

Eleanor placed her hand against his chest. “I left a note in my room that you’d summoned me. If she comes looking and finds it, she can make of it what she will, Josiah. I’ll return in a few hours, but … I couldn’t stay away any longer. You see, I realized something, Mr. Hastings.”

“Did you?”

“Not so long ago, I was lamenting that I didn’t feel like I had a hand on the helm of my own life, so to speak. I had the ridiculous notion that I was adrift somehow.”

“Are you?”

She smiled. “No, not at all. I was feeling sorry for myself, but I am the mistress of my own fate, aren’t I? And I am where I want to be, Josiah. You’ve never pushed, have you?”

He shook his head slowly. “You don’t strike me as the kind of woman who wants to be directed or overcome, Eleanor. I wanted to respect your wish for autonomy.”

“And so you have.” She reached up to touch his face, cradling his cheek in her palm. “Are you glad to see me, Mr. Hastings? Will you … ask me to stay awhile longer?”

“I have no right. What I want—is impossible. But you … I’m so glad to see you I can barely speak, Eleanor. I want you to stay, but I don’t know if I can survive letting you go again.”

“Josiah.”

“I’m afraid you’ll break me, Eleanor.”

She kissed him on the cheek, then whispered into the shell of his ear, “Never.”

“I don’t want to break you either.”

“Never,” she whispered again, and Josiah pulled her tightly into his arms, banishing fear and ignoring the darkness that lurked in the edges of the room. The heat of her body, the points of her breasts against his chest, and the magic of her mouth against his skin were a deafening symphony of sensations that made the room spin. Josiah inhaled the floral scent of her skin and kissed the warm column of her throat, a fierce joy seizing him.

Mine! She came back because she’s mine!

It was the illusion of a happy ending and he knew it.

Can’t keep her. Can’t even try. Shit.

He kissed her more deeply, and savored the instantaneous power of it, the power that healed the breach and made the world stand back. Eleanor sighed, a soft sound of contentment that made his heart soar. He lifted her against his chest to carry her downstairs, taking her to his bedroom and kicking the door shut with a resounding bang.

He wanted to give her whatever happiness he could, to love her completely without holding anything back and demonstrate a tenderness that had been lost in so many of their recent encounters. Josiah didn’t want to be rushed or frenzied in his quest to claim her.

He celebrated that he was still whole in her eyes, and that Eleanor had come to him freely. Once she knew his secret, the path would never again be as clear. Pity and guilt would cloud reason, and he was sure that she would
ultimately feel tricked and trapped by a man who had deceived her into loving him.

It was an impossible situation fraught with heartache.

As if she sensed his mood, Eleanor allowed the gentle lull of his slow, studied caresses and tender touches. She didn’t press him to hurry, but instead, stood blushing while he removed her hairpins and undid each braid.

She reached up to nervously tuck a curl behind one ear. “It’s a tangle tonight. After … this morning, I didn’t bother with combing it out as I should.”

“I’m glad.” He led her toward the bed, undressing her as carefully as a man unpacking a china doll, even as she helped him out of his things. Within moments, they stood together without a single barrier.

“Glad?”

“It’s a foolish thing, but all this time, I’ve wanted the privilege of brushing that hair, Miss Beckett. If you’d allow it.”

She looked at him warily, but nodded. “Truly?”

“After everything, I marvel that you’re still so modest about such things, and then”—he reached out to run the back of his fingers from her collarbone down to the rise of one breast to sweep across them both without touching her sensitive tips—“so naturally shameless and confident in so many other ways.”

She blushed. “A woman’s right to be contrary, Josiah.”

“Amen.”

He stepped closer and pressed his lips to her forehead, just skimming the surface before trailing a string of kisses over her face, landing briefly on her cheeks, eyelids, brows, and even the tip of her nose. He followed every touch of his lips with the light brush of his fingertips, memorizing her features with his hands. Josiah finally kissed her mouth, reconnecting with her soul and reminding himself what it meant to be alive. He measured the column of her throat with the span of his fingers and dropped down to lift her breasts, cupping and holding them in his palms until they tightened and hardened in his gentle grip.

He glanced down to note how her nipples had thickened and darkened in response, and he bent over to suckle each one briefly, before gently pushing her down onto the mattress.

Eleanor stretched out on the bedding, her gaze never lowering from his or shying away from his body as he took inventory of the bounty she willingly offered him.

With an artist’s eyes and hands, he worshipped all of her. The small of her back, the dimples above her buttocks, the curve of her belly, the slope of her ribs, the shape and width of her hips were all given equal attention. There was nothing of his Eleanor that he wished to overlook. She writhed beneath him and he kissed the underside of her breasts, his tongue following the crease there, while his hands fanned out down her rib cage but didn’t yet move below her belly.

Josiah knew if he touched the silky wet folds of her sex, he would forfeit his vow to move slowly and savor her return.

Instead, he lifted her hand and kissed each fingertip and then the palm, her wrist, lingering to inhale the scent there and lick her pulse. Then playfully kissed the inside of her elbow and up to her shoulder, until she laughed at the indulgence of it.

“It’s far too one-sided, Mr. Hastings. All this lovely attention,” she protested softly.

He shook his head. “How is it that I always know I am in for trouble when you speak of fairness, Miss Beckett?”

“Stop complaining and lie back,” she commanded him.

Before he could stop her, she’d shifted away from him and was now the one to press him back onto the pillows. “Quid pro quo, sir.”

She explored his body with the same tortuously dreamy pace that he’d applied to her, and Josiah had to bite the inside of his cheek to keep from protesting. The minx began with his ears and then worked her way down, exploring his body and tasting the landscape of his flesh at her every whim and will.

What began as playful revenge turned into something else as Eleanor forgot the game as she admired all the masculine contours of him. She teased his nipples and suckled him, thrilled to note that the effect was very similar, then shifted downward to use her teeth and her tongue on the hard, firm flesh of his stomach. She straddled one of his thighs as she happily labored, then sat up to admire the lean lines of his legs and the rough texture of the dusting of hair on them.

“Are these scars, Josiah?” she asked shyly, her fingers tracing a ridge of lines around his ankles. She hadn’t noticed them before, but then in the usual heat and race to satisfy their mutual hunger, Eleanor had never thought to look at her lover’s ankles.

“Stories for another day.” Josiah pulled her down onto his chest and distracted her with kisses.

One tumbled kiss led to a dozen more, and the slow embers that had glowed between them blazed into life. Josiah couldn’t stop kissing her. He didn’t want to. But she wriggled from him, and nibbled on his shoulder. “You have too many secrets and untold stories.”

Josiah’s heart skipped a beat, but he shook his head. “Enough conversation.”

He turned her over, delighting in her squeal of protest, but made quick work of ending any wish she had for verbal exchanges. He knelt at her feet and massaged each one until she had given in to the languid tyranny he imposed, then kissed the soles of her feet and ankles. Josiah skillfully rubbed the muscles of her legs and then slid his hands up over her bottom, appreciating the seductive curves of her body before dipping down to stroke her thighs. With each pass of his hands, he “inadvertently” teased the dark pink lips of her sex until she was glistening with her own arousal.

“Josiah, please … no more!”

He turned her over to part her thighs and finally kiss her waiting sex, licking the hot bud between her legs until her legs were quivering and he knew she was ready. He lifted himself up to cover her, her thighs parting to accommodate
him as his rock-hard cock pressed and prodded her entrance to find the welcome harbor it sought.

He drove forward in one long stroke, filling her completely, and his throat closed at the emotional impact of Eleanor in his arms with her green eyes looking up at him as their bodies blended into one. Her legs wrapped around his waist, and the dance of passion swept them both up, each riding wave after wave of sensation at each stroke, long and slow, deep and strong. As their ardor began to crest, Josiah instinctively shifted so that he was spooning her, neither one dominating the other, but instead, it became a soft tangle of flesh that left them both breathless and amazed.

Eleanor gave in to the primal need for release, the hot coil inside of her springing free in a cascade of mounting ecstasy. She cried out as every part of her felt electrified and featherlight, as if something inside of her had broken free of her body at the moment of climax. Only the heat of Josiah’s body and a vague awareness of his answering cry and the searing crème that flooded her core grounded her to her physical being.

She’d returned for this—for him.

Without demands for his declarations or for respectability, Eleanor had returned.

Because she didn’t want to live without hope.

Josiah walked her down the stairs and held the lantern as she alighted the step into the carriage to return to the Grove. He kissed her fingertips and released her, as reluctantly as if she were a soldier heading off to battle instead of a warm, cozy bed and bath under Mrs. Clay’s matronly care.

He hated it. Time had always been his enemy but now, it was as if every minute had a new edge to it. He should let her go before this intended confrontation, but he still had some time.

He was borrowing hours from a future that wasn’t his to claim.

“Eleanor.”

“Yes?”

“Come tomorrow. Will you come back tomorrow?”

For him, it took forever for her to settle into the carriage seat and rearrange her skirts before she answered him.

“Yes. Tomorrow.”

The following morning, she returned, and by sheer habit, they ended up in his studio. It was arranged almost as before, a blank canvas set up before the dais graced this time with only a wooden chair. Eleanor walked over to run her fingers over the chair’s curved back. “Would you not like to start another painting?”