She gripped at his shirt, the heat of her fingers pressing through all of the insulating fabric. He wrapped his arms around her completely, pulling her into him. His body was no longer content with kisses. She was soft, and without a corset, he could feel her body mold to his.
The taste of her was sheer madness. It was nectar, it was honey, it was the explosion of a thousand Mount Olympuses in his mind. Before he could think, he reached down and cupped a handful of that incredibly luscious arse. It felt so ripe and perfect in his hand. She moaned in response, and the sound made him hard enough to pound nails.
He pulled away, releasing her with a burst of superhuman willpower. “I’m sorry,” he panted.
Her eyes were dark and wild, her lips wet and rouged from his kiss. “For what?”
“For pushing. Eleanor. I can’t merely kiss you. It isn’t safe for you, for us, to be doing this here.”
“Safe for me?” she asked.
“Safe for your virtue.” He dared look at her again, her dark locks disheveled, and the lust plain on her face. It was some unseen magnetism that made him unable to part their bodies even further. She drew him in. But no. No. He had control. He had willpower in spades. Didn’t he?
“What if I don’t want it anymore?” she asked, her voice grave and quiet.
“Want what?” he asked, because surely, surely she could not mean what he thought she meant.
“I will say this once, so there is no room for your agonizing.”
“I don’t agonize,” he protested, knowing full well that he absolutely did.
“I’m not certain I’m getting off this mountain. I want to know what it would be like to be with you.”
She might as well have hit him over the head with a hammer. His mind spun in every direction. “First, we are in fact getting off this mountain alive,” he said.
The lust that had been so clear on her face dimmed. Oh, that had been a real offer. It wasn’t a joke or a temptation. She’d meant it. Which, of course she did, because she was Eleanor, and Eleanor didn’t make empty threats or promises.
“And second,” he continued, “you can tell me to stop any time and I will stop.” He reached for her, and was pleased that she reached for him in return. She threaded her fingers through his, and even her smooth palm was dissolving his body into drunken desire. This was real. He nuzzled her perfect, shell-like ear.
“Did you know what I thought when I first saw you?” she asked as he trailed kisses down her neck. Her beautiful, soft throat. He could bury himself here, smelling her hair, pulling her earlobe into his mouth. She gasped when he did so, and he filed that reaction away for later.
“What was that?” he asked, pulling her fully into his lap. She was his right now.
“I wonder what he looks like naked,” she said.
And he laughed. Because she’d thrown his own words in his face, but also because she said what she wanted. “I’m happy to oblige.” One of his hands roamed her back, and the other worked the buttons on the high collar of her shirtwaist.
“I’ll do mine if you do yours.” Her hands moved to her own buttons. She squirmed in his lap, a motion that did no favors to his control.
Once again, he was totally stunned. He didn’t want to spend any amount of brain power on his own buttons, so he sat there like a complete mump and watched her unbutton her top. Slowly, the pale, smooth, expanse of her skin was revealed. She wore an odd sort of under-jacket, unlike any he’d ever seen before. It had straps over her shoulders and barely went past her ribcage. He didn’t know what it was, but it was unusual, and he liked it.
“It’s old-fashioned,” she said. “But it was the best design for our purposes.”
He slowly pushed one strap so that it fell off her shoulder. Her skin was hot, despite the cold temperature. It was fascinating to see how that woolen strap hung. She slid off the sleeves of the shirtwaist, her skin suddenly prickling. Another distraction for him.
“Your turn,” she commanded.
He didn’t want to stop tracing invisible lines on her skin. He wanted to trace each path with his tongue. He wanted to spend days touching her, tasting her, drinking her in. “Do you want to take mine off?”
She nodded, her tongue slipping out to touch the side of her mouth. Relief washed through him as she worked the top button of his shirt. She completely forgot the waistcoat, but hedid not care. His hands had been shaking with effort to keep them to himself. Now, he could caress her as she unbuttoned his clothing.
“Oh, damn your buttons!” Eleanor huffed.
“Yours are worse,” he murmured in her ear, before kissing the soft spot behind it. He could care less about his own shirt. His mouth wandered down her neck. He nudged the other strap off her shoulder with his nose, then kissed the skin where it had lain. “You could just lie back and relax.”
“I want to see you, though. I want to see all of you.” Her eyes were dark and intense, asking more of him than anyone else had ever wanted. It caught something in him, some circuit that engaged for the first time. He did feel worthy of her now, the way she asked for him.
“You will,” he promised. But she was perched on him, giving him the perfect angle of her small, high breasts. “But let me make you feel good first.”
