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This time, she’d brought him joy, too. Tonight, in their bed, he would give that back and more, everything, all that was in him.
Only then would he face the dilemma of taking her back to England.
As they approached the village on the outskirts of Paris, they encountered more fellow travellers. After making a circuit of the town, Will chose an inn frequented by respectably dressed men and women—busy enough to indicate its food and service were of good quality, but not elegant enough to attract the wealthy and well connected.
After turning their horses in to a livery, he obtained dinner and a room at the inn he’d selected. It required all his self-discipline, after climbing the stairs and opening the door to a snug chamber with table, chairs and a bed that beckoned, to leave Elodie alone while he went off to purchase a dozen chickens and the cart to haul them in.
Anxious to complete the arrangements, he didn’t even bother haggling with the farm woman whose fine fat pullets caught his eye. Settling quickly on a higher price than he’d ordinarily pride himself on getting, he took over the hens, content to leave her thinking she’d struck a good bargain, but not so good that she’d brag to her neighbours about getting the best of a lackwit stranger.
Even this close to Paris, one couldn’t be too careful about avoiding notice.
He settled the purchases behind the inn’s stables, to the raised eyebrows of the grooms. Farmers, even prosperous ones, didn’t usually store their squawking produce at an inn the night before bringing them to market.
But they’d be gone on the morrow before the grooms on duty had a chance to gossip in the taproom, if indeed any watchers had picked up their trail. Will didn’t think so; he’d been vigilant—except for a short time at the river—and he’d seen no evidence of their being followed.
Someone would be looking for them in Paris, however. But he’d worry about getting them safely through the city—and out again, Elodie in tow—tomorrow.
Visions of seduction now filling his head, Will hurried back to the inn. For the first time in days, they’d eat a fine dinner and sip wine by their own fire. They’d talk about their adventures, about her life, about Paris.
Maybe she’d even tell him about the mysterious ‘Philippe’. Though initially he’d expected during the journey she would try to lull him with lies, when she finally did open up to him, every instinct told him what she’d related was the truth.
Then he’d knead her shoulders, massage her back, take down the honey-brown hair she’d kept hidden and, for the first time, comb his fingers through the long silken strands. Undress her slowly, bit by bit, kissing the newly revealed flesh, as he’d dreamed of for so many solitary nights. Taste the fullness of her breasts, rake the pebbled nipples against his teeth, gauging her arousal by the staccato song of her breath. Finally, he’d taste the honey of her fulfilment on his tongue before he sheathed himself in her and pleasured her again and again.
His body humming with anticipation, he took the stairs two at a time and knocked at the door to their chamber. ‘It’s Will,’ he said softly before unlocking it.
He entered to find the room in semi-darkness, lit by the flickering fire on the hearth and a single candle on the table. From the shadows of the bed, Elodie held out her hands. ‘Come to me, mon amant.’
She sat propped against the pillows, the bedclothes at her waist. At the sight of her naked breasts, full and beautiful in the candlelight, his member leapt and all thoughts of dinner vanished.
‘Nothing would please me more,’ he said, pulling at the knot of his cravat, already impatient for the touch and taste of her.
‘No, don’t! Come here,’ she beckoned. ‘Let me undress you. I want to honour you, inch by inch.’
Emotion squeezed his chest while his member hardened to a throbbing intensity. Always a success with the ladies, he had been pleasured by blushing maids, loved by neglected wives, seduced by bored matrons who enjoyed the forbidden thrill of bedding an earl’s illegitimate nephew. But no woman had ever vowed to ‘honour’ him.
‘Willingly’ was all he could choke from his tight throat.
Swiftly he came to the bed, where she urged him to sit. He kissed her head, finding her hair still damp from a bath, that lavender scent enveloping her again. His mouth watered. ‘You smell good enough to eat.’
She smiled. ‘We shall both eat our fill tonight.’ Tilting down his chin, she leaned up to kiss him, slipping her tongue into his mouth.
Not until his brain registered a sensation of coolness at his chest did he realise she’d unfastened his cravat and opened his shirt. Breaking the kiss, she moved her mouth there, licking and kissing until impeded by the shirt’s edges. Murmuring, she urged his arms up and pulled the garment over his head.
‘Better.’ She trailed nibbling kisses along his collarbone while her fingers shaped and massaged the muscles of his back and shoulders. She kissed from his neck down his chest, flicking her tongue teasingly just to the edge of his nipples, until they burned for her touch. He arched his back, manoeuvring his torso until her lips reached them, shuddering as she suckled them and raked her teeth across the tips.
Meanwhile, her fingers moved lower, beneath the back waistband of his trousers, to cup and squeeze his buttocks. He uttered a strangled groan, his member surging.
She glanced up at the sound. ‘You must be tired. Lie down, mon chevalier,’ she murmured, guiding him back against the pillows.
As he reclined, she removed his boots, giving him a delightful view of her naked back and bottom as she tugged.
The temptation was too great; he seized her and pulled her up to straddle his lap while with the other hand, he undid his trouser flap. She gasped, then uttered a little growling sound as she guided his swollen shaft into her slick passage and rocked her hips to take him deep.
He wrapped an arm around her back to pull her closer. As he branded her neck with his lips and teeth, he slipped the fingers of his free hand between them to caress her soft wet nub while he moved in her.
Panting, she arched against him, pushing him deeper. He moved his lips to her breast while his hand cupped her mound and his fingers played at the entrance, sliding into her to the rhythm of their thrusts.
Sweat coated his body, his neck corded and his arms grew rigid with the effort to hold himself near the peak without going over. And then she came apart in his arms, crying his name. Her tremors set off his own, a pleasure so intense he saw stars exploding against blackness as he spent himself in her.
For some time after, they lay limply in each other’s arms. All his life, he’d been impatient, restless, driven by some intangible something to keep moving, searching for a destination he could never quite identify. For the first time, he felt utterly content, filled with an enormous sense of well-being. A deep sense that he belonged here, in this moment, with her.
His suspicions, along with the last bit of the anger he’d harboured against her, both gradually dwindling since they’d left Vienna, vanished completely.
He must have dozed, for he opened his eyes to find Elodie, still deliciously naked, sitting on the edge of the bed, pouring a glass of wine. ‘For you, mon amant,’ she said, handing it to him. ‘To keep up your strength. You will need it. Now, where was I before I was so pleasantly interrupted? Ah, here.’
She tugged at the waistband of his unfastened trousers. Obligingly, he lifted himself, letting her pull them free and toss them to the floor. ‘That’s better. Naked, just as I want you.’
Her eyes gleaming, her expression sultry as a harem concubine intent on enticing a sultan, she gave him a wicked smile. ‘Now I may see and taste … everything.
She extracted the wine glass from his fingers and took a sip. ‘I’ll need my strength also. To make this a night you will never forget.’
Some subtle sound roused him from a fathom’s depth of sleep. Will rose slowly to consciousness, the room steeped in darkness, his whole body thrumming from senses wonderfully satisfied, like a chord still vibrating after the last note of a virtuoso’s performance. A night you will never forget.
He certainly never would.
After that first lovemaking, she’d eased him back against the pillows and straddled him again, taking him within. And then sat chatting of Paris and London as if she were conversing at some diplomatic dinner, all the while moving slowly, rocking him inside her, her breasts bobbing deliciously close to his lips.
It was arousing, erotic, unlike anything he’d ever experienced. At first, he tried to match her aplomb and respond to the conversation, but after several times losing track of his sentences, he gave up the effort and closed his eyes, savouring the sensations.
Breathing itself became nearly impossible when, chatting still, she reached beneath him to where his plump sacks lay hidden, squeezing and massaging them while she urged his cock deeper. Pleasure burst in him, even more intense than the first time.
They dozed, roused to eat their cold dinner, slept again. He woke to find her head pillowed on his thigh. Noting his sudden alertness, she leaned over to trace his length with the tip of her tongue. As his member surged erect, she captured him in the hot velvet depths of her mouth, driving him to another powerfully intense release.
Just thinking about her made him smile. Maybe he could talk her into staying one more day at the inn. What would one more day matter? They’d already spent almost four weeks on a journey envisioned to take just over two. At odd times on the road, he’d considered trying to stretch it out even more, eking out every last second of joy from an experience as unparalleled as it had been unexpected.
