Eloise took two steps toward him. “What about to shag a woman who would very much like to have you in her arms again?”
Robert stared at her, as if he had turned to stone.
Two more steps, and her confidence began to wane. “Or, perhaps, simply let her hold you while you sleep.” Two more steps. Her eyes burned as the first tears formed. “Please.”
He released a long, shuddering breath and his eyes gleamed, but he remained silent. Two more steps and she stood before him. “Please do not send me away.”
Her top hat hit the pavement as his arms engulfed her.
*
There is anastonishing amount of comfort, Robert decided, in holding a woman who wanted him as much as he wanted her. It was a unique experience in his life, and he wanted to cherish each moment.
Robert barely remembered walking the remaining three blocks to his boarding house. He did remember snagging Eloise’s hat from the ground and helping her replace it, covering her gathered hair. He also remembered the cadence of her burgundy boots on the pavement, her shorter legs almost keeping up with his eager stride, both of them breathless by the time he led her up the narrow stairs and unlocked the door. Her smile as her hat tumbled off again. He had wrapped his arms around her, pulled her close, and held her there, inhaling her scent, pressing his cheek against the softness of her hair. Even after an evening in a hot church and smoky cemetery, the fragrance of nasturtiums clung to her, belying her masculine attire. Her warmth washed through him, and he felt every muscle relax, the tension of the day leaving him as he held her. Comfort.
Her grip around him loosened, and she stroked his back. “If you would rather sleep first—”
“What I would really like to do is watch you remove those clothes.”
She leaned back to peer at his face. “Truly?”
He nodded. “Oddly, I am not particularly attracted to men. Especially young ones. I want to see the woman return to me.”
Eloise tilted her head slightly, as if studying a confusing line of numbers in a ledger. Then she looked around at his rooms and nodded, reaching for his hand.
The rooms he had rented were not the most luxurious of bachelor quarters, but they were sufficient for his needs, the furnishings balanced between well-to-do merchant and lower-ranking aristocrat. The small parlor held a leather sofa and two wingback chairs clustered around a small fireplace. Two windows on the outside wall allowed in light from the street and moon outside, and in opposing corners sat an escritoire and a mahogany bookshelf.
Eloise ignored these, pulling him gently toward the door of the bedchamber, where similar windows illuminated the utilitarian furnishings of a chest of drawers, washstand, and armoire. Two cabriolet chairs and an accent table flanked the fireplace. A screen, which hid the chamber pot, occupied one corner, but the centerpiece of the room was the bed—a sturdy oak four-poster with a low canopy and brown cotton drapes. Eloise stopped by one of the chairs and gestured for him to sit. He did, slouching down and stretching his legs out, crossing them at the ankle. His voice quiet, he nodded at her. “Start with your hair.”
Eloise slipped out of her topcoat, draping it over the back of the opposite chair. The waistcoat followed. Then her hands moved across the hair gathered up on her head, removing clips and pins until the long strands fell across her shoulders.
As she reached for her cravat, he whispered, “Slower.”
The responding smile was its own reward. She took her time untying and unwrapping the long silk strip, letting it slip from her neck in a slow cascade that made his breath hitch. She draped it over the waistcoat, then shrugged the braces off her shoulders. The boots went next, as well as the stockings underneath, revealing her slender and graceful feet.
Robert shifted in the chair as she doffed her trousers, pausing to fold them neatly. Standing before him, illuminated mostly by moonlight and wearing a loose shirt and silken drawers, Eloise appeared as if she were a goddess of the night, ethereal and not quite real. Her beauty lured him, but the craven desire he had expected to feel had not yet pushed away a lingering fatigue that anchored him to the chair. He wanted to hold her, to ravish her, to watch her surrender to him, but his body seemed annoyingly languid about responding to the sight of her.
Then she pulled the shirt off over her head, but instead of being nude beneath it, she was wrapped in another white shirt of some kind, one than hugged her figure, constricting it. He sat up. “What is that?”
She reached for two cords tied in a simple knot at her waist. “It’s Adrienne’s design. She calls it a binding shirt. It flattens a woman’s breasts without pain and secures them in place.” She shrugged as she untied the knot. “It’s more comfortable than stays, and definitely more so than what I wore earlier.”
Robert’s curiosity spiked as he watched her unwrap one panel, then a second one underneath. It essentially looked like a doubled waistcoat with four armholes, the extra panels wrapping the body and tying in front. “That’s ingenious.”
“She’s a creative woman.”
Robert started to say more, but the last panel fell away, exposing Eloise’s lovely breasts, small and firm, with brownish pink areolae, and nipples already peaked. She dropped the binding shirt, then let her drawers slip to the floor. He motioned for her to come closer. She did, and he sat up, his hands tracing up her thighs to her hips and around to cup the firm cheeks of her bottom. He urged her forward, spreading his legs until he felt her knees against his groin.
Robert kissed her taut belly, and she snaked her fingers into his hair, twirling the curls about her fingers and stroking his head and neck. He nuzzled her, moving his hands up and forward, closing them around her breasts, massaging the tender flesh. Her nipples hardened even more under his palms, and he leaned back to watch her face as he slid his fingers down, closing those sweet buds between the tips of his forefinger and thumb. She moaned as he tightened that hold, her head lolling back.
Tighter, to a point he knew must be slightly painful. But she did not protest. Instead, her mouth gaped and her back arched toward him. Robert filed that tidbit away as he replaced his right hand with his lips and teeth, sucking and nipping the swollen tip with tiny bites.
His hand slid behind her knee and lifted it, and he placed her foot on the chair beside his hip. His fingertips slipped upward, tickling the soft skin of her thigh, then moving in to explore the dark—and already swollen—pink folds between her legs. The musky scent of her arousal, the slick and abundant fluid that coated his hand drove him on. He felt a deep thrill that Eloise would be this open, this vulnerable, this pliant to him, and he wanted to give her the pleasure she deserved.
But something was not quite right.
Do not think about it.Instead, Robert focused on Eloise, watching her, as he slid a finger inside her, then two. The slow thrusts of his hand pressed deeply against her sex, and he twisted his arm so that his thumb sought and found the engorged bud at the apex of her core. He circled it mercilessly, smiling as she shivered and grabbed his shoulders as if they were a lifeline.
“I’m going to fall,” she whispered, her voice a desperate and hoarse cry.
