Three Proposals and a Scandal: A Sons of Sin Novella (10 page)

He sat in a large leather chair before the fire and arranged her on his lap so that her purple skirts frothed over the arm toward the floor.

“What should I do?” she asked, nerves stirring, although if she had an ounce of sense, she’d be nervous long before this. She slid away, placing her palm flat on his chest to keep her balance.

He smiled with the kindness she remembered so poignantly from that day they’d walked together through the snow. That day she’d fallen in love with him.

“My lovely Marianne, you don’t need to do anything.”

“That seems a little unfair.”

“Let me do this. If I frighten you, I’ll stop. I ask only for your trust.”

“Trust is a lot.”

His eyes were serious. “I know.”

Strangely, she believed he did.

Elias placed one elegant hand against her cheek and pressed her head onto his shoulder. For a long while she lay, slipping back into that deep well of unconditional comfort.

She’d expected something more dynamic. More…overtly lustful. This was like being a child, except that her father had never been a man to let his motherless daughter crawl onto his knee.

Gradually uncertainty ebbed, replaced with lazy pleasure. Her blood matched the slow pace of Elias’s. Her breath eased to his deep rhythm. Her eyelids fluttered down. She glided into a radiant space she’d never inhabited before.

When Elias began to massage the back of her neck, at first she barely noticed. He tilted her chin and turned her face to his—with more of that calm sureness—and she realized he’d been caressing her for a long time. The thought of protest or resistance didn’t arise as he feathered a kiss across her lips.

Automatically she arched closer, even as he broke the contact, leaving her lips tingling.

He placed his hand under her chin, one thumb lazily stroking her lower lip. The touch felt like another kiss. “Open for me, sweeting.”

She let him kiss her intimately, the way he had before. What had seemed outlandish now set her heart racing with excitement. Before tonight she’d never known the hot, salty taste of a man. Now she thought she’d starve without Elias’s kisses to feed her.

At her quick response, he caught her head between his hands, tangling his fingers in her hair and holding her still for his mouth. His earlier gentleness had lured her past caution into a fiery new world where passion ruled. In this new world, she welcomed the languid slide of his hand down her throat and lower, until his hand slipped beneath her bodice to her breast.

Marianne made a muffled sound of shock against his lips. His touch burned like a brand through her lawn shift. Painful yearning hardened her nipples. A painful yearning that ignited into stark pleasure when he scraped his nail over one peak.

She snatched a shallow breath. “That’s…strange.”

“Nice strange or awful strange?”

She abandoned reticence. “Nice strange.”

“I’m glad,” he said with another of those incandescent smiles. He kissed her and she closed her eyes, yielding to his mouth and the play of his fingers on her nipple. The onslaught of sensation was so overwhelming, she only realized that he’d unlaced the back of her gown and tugged it down when his hand closed upon her naked breast.

With shaming reluctance, she pulled away. She stared down at the white flesh overflowing her drooping bodice and tried to summon a ladylike horror. What was most horrifying was how natural it seemed to allow Elias the freedom of her body. She’d never felt so alive.

“Please, Marianne, don’t stop me,” he groaned, his arm firming around her back. “You’re so damn beautiful, it breaks my heart.”

She bit her lip, unable to look away from that large brown hand splayed over her skin. She’d never felt beautiful, but something in the wanton abandon of the sight struck her as unutterably lovely. She looked up and met eyes bright with excitement. “You shouldn’t say such things if you don’t mean them.”

“On my life, I mean it,” he grated, lifting and turning her toward him so he could draw a hard rosy nipple into his mouth. His touch had been like lightning. The hot, powerful suction of his lips was…more. Marianne pressed her wrist across her mouth to muffle her cries as every muscle tensed on a shuddering thrill.

By the time he suckled her other breast, she was squirming on his lap. A powerful pulse throbbed between her legs and she whimpered for relief. He kissed and bit at her, each caress making the madness boil and sizzle until she felt ready to explode. She clawed blindly at the black superfine of his coat.

“Elias,” she choked out. Each beat of her blood slammed through her like a cannon. He’d promised pleasure, but the power of her response terrified her.

He raised his head and let her slump back against his legs. Only his arm at her back kept her from dissolving to the floor.

“Shall I stop?” His rough tone told her how grudgingly he posed the question. She read passion in his face, although passion was new to her.

“No,” she said, because when she looked closely, she saw more than passion in his eyes. Elias had vowed that she could trust him and staring into that striking, austere face, she believed it. Odd to feel so safe with a man who held her breast in his hand, his thumb teasing the nipple as if he couldn’t resist pleasuring her.

Regret dulled his beautiful black eyes. His hands fell away from her. “It’s your right to deny me.”

Oh, no, he’d misunderstood her. She’d been running from him so long, using coldness to keep him at a distance. No wonder he doubted her capitulation.

Forgetting inhibitions, she pressed closer, relishing his shirt’s soft friction against her skin. Her arms slid up to circle his neck.

“I’m not,” she choked out. She hardly remembered why she’d ever held herself apart from him. In case her consent wasn’t clear, she went on. “I’m not denying you, Elias.”

He gripped her hard around the waist. “You looked frightened.”

The last of her mistrust evaporated. He’d told her she was safe and it seemed she was.

“All this is so new.” She swallowed. “I like this. I like…you.”

“I like you, too,” he said with a quick change of mood. “Very much. If only you’d thrust your bosom into my hands earlier, I’d have told you that long before tonight.”

Ridiculous to blush when she lay so brazenly in his arms. Ridiculous to recall a time when he’d said he loved her. But she refused to let painful memories spoil this moment. “If I’d known what you could do with those hands, I might have.”

His soft laugh brushed across her skin like velvet. “I don’t believe it.”

How unexpected that humor built her pleasure. She was still laughing when he kissed her with a giddy mixture of elation and passion. This time Marianne let herself tumble headlong into the deep lake of sensation that waited. At last, she felt bold enough to initiate her own exploration.

Tentatively, she ran her hands over his chest. He made a low sound of enjoyment. Encouraged, she tugged at his neck cloth to reveal the hot male skin beneath. Under her depredations, his shirt fell open. She discovered the fine black hair that covered Elias’s chest. Her hand brushed his nipple and he started.

“Elias?”

He caught her hand and brought it to his lips. “You tempt me beyond reason.”

She very much liked that he couldn’t resist her. “I need to touch you.”

She’d never imagined she’d caress a man, not even her husband, like this. And she’d barely started. Greed to know all of him, to see him without concealing clothes, rose like a wave. Control had been the guiding principle of her life. Control had no place in her ferocious need to follow this desire where it led.

Ruthlessness edged Elias’s touch. Until she’d tugged at his clothing, he’d been gentle. Now he revealed unabashed hunger. And a possessiveness that should send her scrambling for safety, but instead set her blood rushing. With sudden impatience, he tossed her skirts up and cupped her between the legs where need pounded most insistently.

Her body turned liquid. She bucked under this invasion and made a wordless complaint. This was like suffering a deathly fever. She shook with excitement and fear.

“Trust me,” he said in a guttural whisper, stroking her through her thin drawers.

“I can’t…” She hardly knew what she said. His hand felt hot and dangerous, even as her secret muscles clamped painfully on emptiness.

“I promised you’ll keep your virtue.”

Frantically she pressed back on his arm until her gaze met his. His face was flushed and his lips full from their kisses. But his eyes remained steady.

“Marianne?” he asked as if the pause had contained an entire conversation.

She managed a nod. “I don’t feel very virtuous.”

Elias smiled and pressed his lips to hers. His hardness jutted into her hip, but his kiss was sweet. When he was forceful, the fire stirred her caution. She had no defenses against tenderness. On a surge of crushing emotion, she answered his kiss with every drop of unspoken love in her heart.

Because that emotional surrender was so much more significant than physical need, she didn’t close her legs when he began a slow exploration. She shook as he gently traced her delicate folds. His long fingers found a place that sent unfamiliar sensation ripping through her.

She cried out and her hands clenched against his shoulders. “Elias?”

“This is for you, my love.” His voice soothed while his hand played fiendish music on her body.

Lost in a fog of carnal pleasure, she closed her eyes and twisted to bury her face in his chest. He was breathing harshly and his heart thumped hard beneath her ear. He stroked her again and a tremor shook her. She’d never felt like this before. She liked what he did, but every touch set her thirsting for some mysterious end.

She wriggled against his hand in a futile quest for ease, then muffled another cry when she felt a subtle pressure. He’d slid a finger into her body. That should seem bizarre. Instead it felt like an invitation to heaven.

When he stroked deeper, a liquid surge greeted him and she whimpered into his shirt. She felt hot and restless and needy. This was like torture.

He continued until she wanted to curse him. Then through frustration, something new started to spiral inside her and she quaked in his hold. On and on he went, tormenting her with cruel pleasure.

She felt stretched on a rack. If he didn’t stop, she’d shatter into a thousand pieces. If he stopped, she’d die.

Higher and higher. The end perpetually out of reach.

In the space between one searing breath and the next, she pitched forward and toppled over some invisible cliff. All that exquisite heat flashed into a peak so clean and pure and transcendent, she flung free to fly through the burning stars.

The foul weather persisted the next day. When Elias arrived early for breakfast, Jonas sat alone over a plate of sirloin and eggs. He grunted to his host and bypassed the steaming chafing dishes on the sideboard, heading straight for the coffee. When sleep had proven elusive, he’d sought refuge in the brandy bottle. Not enough to deaden physical or emotional frustration, damn it, but enough to give him a sour stomach this morning.

He was relieved that Jonas was his sole companion. Richard would expect some attempt at conversation and Elias was in no mood for Baildon or Tranter or Desborough. Jonas was usually disinclined to small talk. This morning, he seemed disinclined to any talk at all. Which suited Elias down to the muddy ground.

Elias brooded over his steaming coffee, sifting last night’s astonishing events, trying to decide what the devil he did now. Was his encounter with Marianne in the music room a beginning or an end? He had no bloody idea.

Marianne would probably sleep late. After she’d found her pleasure, he’d read the glorious peace in her eyes. In all his life, he’d never seen anything as beautiful as the woman he loved half-naked and finding joy at his hand.

Her shy wonder had made that passionate abandon all the more poignant. Poignant and arousing. No doubt she’d slept like an angel in heaven. He’d remained awake, hard, needy—and stewing over the fact that she was no more likely to marry him than she’d ever been.

For half an hour, the two men sat in silence. Jonas made his way through a pile of correspondence at his elbow. Elias stared moodily through the closed French doors to the tumbling rain and wondered whether he could bear to stay in England and watch Marianne become Lady Desborough.

Eventually Elias realized that his host had stopped reading his mail and was regarding him with the familiar sardonic gleam in his eyes. That scarred face was often described as inscrutable, but Elias knew Jonas well enough these days to catch mockery—and to resent it.

“What the deuce is your problem, Hillbrook?” he snarled.

A derisive smile tilted Jonas’s mouth, but his response surprised Elias. “I’ve got to check the flood levels and make sure any livestock we shifted to higher ground is safe. Want to come with me?”

Elias’s gaze returned to the sheeting rain outside. “It’s pouring cats and dogs.” He paused. “No, elephants and carthorses.”

His host’s attention didn’t waver. “Yes.”

“You expect me to brave the storm and mire and wind blowing straight down from the pole?”

“Interested?”

Elias glanced around the snug breakfast room with its blazing fire and dishes full of food he was yet to sample. Then he looked again at the quagmire outside. As if to emphasize the discomforts without, a gust of raindrops hit the glass so hard they sounded like stones.

He surged to his feet. “By God, yes, I am.”

With a groan, Elias collapsed beside Jonas who sat against the barn wall. It didn’t matter that the dark, musty space was almost as wet as outside. At least it was out of the gale. He was dripping and covered in mud. Jonas wasn’t in much better state.

Wordlessly, Jonas passed him a flask that turned out to be full of brandy. Elias took a swig, handed it back, and rested his head on the rough boards behind him. He was tired and soaked and freezing. Every muscle ached and he was covered in bruises. But at least hours of rescuing people and livestock had distracted him from his romantic woes.