Trenton Lord of Loss (Lonely Lords) (26 page)

He positioned her at the edge of the mattress then leaned in and kissed her onto her back, her legs over the side of the bed, her arms around his neck. He got her slippers off, mostly while he was still kissing her, and then in sheer desperation Ellie scissored her legs around his flanks, drawing him to her. 

“Ellie, wait.” He dropped his forehead to her chest. “There’s no rush. Let me…” 

She
had
waited. Waited years for her husband to notice her, and now she waited months for her child to be born, then she’d wait more months for mourning to end. 

“Enough waiting.” She arched against him, communicating a need for immediate, pressing haste. 

Trent got his falls undone and her skirts rucked up, and then he swore softly.“You’re not…” He was staring between her legs. Right, straight between her legs. “You put me in mind of roses and hot, perfect summer days.” 

Ellie opened her eyes to prop herself on her elbows and glare at him. “If I wore drawers, they wouldn’t stay up, and I’m too…” She waved a hand around her middle and flopped back onto the mattress. “Trenton…
please.” 

She had apparently inspired him to new feats of teasing, because all he gave her, slowly, slowly, was a single finger. 

“Damn you, Trenton Lindsey.” And bless him, too. Ellie rolled into that finger, some of the urgency leaving her. “Damn you to Halifax, and…oh my.” 

With his free hand, he’d ruffled her curls then brushed his thumb over a certain spot. She clenched around his finger in retaliation, and he pressed a kiss to the inside of her knee. 

“You’re looking at me,” Ellie said, a little forlorn, for over the small mound of her belly, she could not see him.

Though she could
feel
him. 

“I’m looking at you,” Trent said, kneeling between her legs. “Inhaling you, tasting you.” He swiped her thigh with his tongue. “Feeling you.” He moved his finger inside her. “And wanting you.” 

“You left one to wonder.” Ellie got the words out, the last one misshapen by pleasure. 

“I’m sorry. Do you want to discuss this now?” He added a second finger.

“Yes.” She closed even more tightly around him. “I thought you’d sampled my wares, restored my spirits, and jaunted off along your way. Oh…God…” His enterprising free hand had abandoned her mons and gone
jaunting off
up to her breasts, where he carefully, carefully toyed with her nipples though the fabric of her dress and chemise. 

“I want to keep you safe,” Trent said, his hands slowing. “I mean that, Ellie.” 

“I feel very safe.” She thrust up against his hand, emphasizing her point. “Also very frustrated.” 

He took both hands away and peeled her dress up and off of her, dealing with her jumps and then her loose, summer-length chemise. 

“Blessed saints…” Trent bent over her when she sprawled on her back, stark naked but for boots and stockings. “You are mine for the pleasuring. One cannot grasp the extent of such bounty.” 

“For God’s sake, Trenton.” She wrapped her legs around him tightly. “Come here and grasp my bounty soon or I’ll expire for wanting you.” 

“I’m still dressed.” He sounded surprised. 

“I know.” She reached between them and searched through his undone falls to wrap her fingers around his cock. “It’s naughty this way, and I like it.” 

He held still, balanced over her, while she traced the length and shape of him, his balls, his belly, and then, when she’d positioned him snugly against her sex, her hands burrowed under his shirt, her fingertips fanning over his nipples. 

And he, dear man, withstood her attentions uncomplainingly. Emboldened by the hitch in his breathing, Ellie got his shirt unbuttoned and tried to push it up so she could use her mouth on the skin she’d exposed, but Trent’s patience apparently was at its end. He thrust forward slowly, two small inches with his hips, and Ellie went still. 

“I love this part.” Loved him. “It’s all too much with you, but this…” 

“It’s precious.” Trent caged her beneath him, withdrew to the tip, then pushed forward again. “Sweet. Special.” 

He kissed her, though Ellie would not have minded a few more of his soft admissions. She craved pleasuring
and
poetry, and with his body, his hands and his kisses, Trent gave her both. 

“Go easy,” he whispered when Ellie began to importune him with her hips. “No more thunder and lightning, just go easy, like ripples on the pond.” 

He kept his tempo slow, his penetrations lazy but deep, and gradually, Ellie relaxed into the contemplative, cherishing tenor of his loving. Her hands in his hair moved slowly, her sighs against his neck took on a sleepy quality, and her pleasure arrived as a long, powerful, nearly silent submersion into bliss. 

The moment when he again went still inside her, and Ellie could simply hold him was both dear and somehow worrying.

“How could you hold back?” And
why
had he held back? 

“My back and arms ache. That helps if I can focus on it.” 

While Ellie’s heart ached. 

When she’d recovered somewhat, he started again, but more briskly, likely to deter her from falling asleep, and before long, she was again clinging and keening softly against his neck. Then he followed her to that place of sweetest pleasure, until Ellie was so deluged with shared satisfaction, she nearly wept with its slow, inexorable power.

Then he shifted away, and her tears became real. 

Chapter Fourteen 

Ellie’s tears were different from Paula’s, nothing of despair in them, only sentiment and sweetness. Trent would have moved further, but Ellie’s hand in his hair stopped him. 

“Don’t do yourself up,” she whispered. “Not yet.” 

He should never have
un
done himself. 

He moved away to stand, panting, by the bed. He used his handkerchief first to blot her tears, then on himself, then tucked it against her and sat beside her where she sprawled on the bed. 

The bald intimacy of that shared scrap of linen smacked at his conscience. 

“Storm’s passing,” he noted, pulling off his boots. Sweet, everlasting God, he’d actually swived her with his boots on. He hadn’t had sex like that since university, and this had been so much better than any of his harried, boyish escapades. He ran a hand down the midline of her slightly convex belly, and she shivered. 

Reaching around her, he pushed her dress to the foot of the bed, extricated pillows from under the counterpane and grabbed a quilt from the bottom of the mattress. 

“Scoot up,” he urged, climbing onto the bed to prop himself against the headboard. “Let me hold you. I’ve missed holding you.”

He honestly had, which was worse than swiving her with his boots on as a testament to sincere regard. 

“How can you speak coherently?” Ellie pillowed her head in his lap. She gathered his softening erection in her hand, swiped her tongue over the head of his cock and settled back for her nap. 

Trent endured the resulting shiver of pleasure and arranged the blanket over her, then rested his hand on the swell of her belly. While Ellie dozed, her fingers still wrapped loosely around him, he tried to rehearse what he must now find a way to tell her. 

“What was that?” Ellie put her hand over Trent’s where it lay against her belly. “Did you feel it?” 

He waited while Ellie did the same. 

She shifted to stare at her own belly, as if she could see through the blanket. “That. It doesn’t hurt, but it’s…different.” 

She tried to push up, but Trent stopped her. 

“It’s the baby, Ellie.” He kissed her temple, a gesture too small for the sense of privilege overwhelming him. “Your child has quickened.” 

“My child…?” She pressed his hand more tightly to her, and the fluttery sensation came under his palm again. “That’s the
baby
? Are you sure?” 

“I’m sure. Three children, if you’ll recall.” Though only with Ford, through several layers of nightclothes and with much blushing all around, but he had felt a child quicken beneath his hand before. 

“Did we wake him up?” Ellie’s voice held concern. “That wasn’t very considerate of us, but there it is again… Do you suppose he’s playing? Or she. It might be a girl.” 

“I think it’s easier for the child to move about when you’re recumbent, or maybe the change in position registers somehow, but you’ll feel it off and on until you deliver.” 

“Oh…my…gracious.” She laid her cheek against his thigh and curled against him, keeping his one hand on her belly. 

She dozed off again, and Trent let her, treasuring the moment, treasuring the woman who’d shared it with him. When she awoke the second time, Trent marshaled his waning self-discipline and tried to find a balance between affection and pragmatism.

To hell with that. Between love and honor. 

“Time to stir, Elegy. The rain has all but stopped.” 

She pushed up and scrubbed her cheek against his belly. “I realize we must have a trying discussion of difficult matters, Trenton, but someday…” She nuzzled his genitals. 

“You are naughty.” He sighed with the thought of how naughty, and how dear. “But, yes, someday, if you really want to, it would be my pleasure, though there are consequences, IOUs, for somedays like that.” 

“Are we still dallying?” She sat up and knelt beside him, arranging him back into his clothing and doing up his buttons. 

“We should not be.” 

She gave him a pat when he was properly covered. “Oh, should. That word needs to be deleted from all manuals. I’ll help you tend to the revisions.” 

“I am, to use your word, gluttonous when it comes to you, Ellie Hampton. You flutter your eyelashes, and my clothes end up on the floor.” 

She fluttered her eyelashes, then glowered in the direction of his buttoned falls. “The mechanism is faulty, then, for you’re still clothed. One hopes it can improve with practice.” 

Trent traced his finger down her jaw. How he would miss her.

“I’m being stalked, essentially, by my in-laws or somebody in their employ. If they perceive I’ve replaced Paula in my affections, then you could become a target, too, if you aren’t already.” 

This time when she touched him through his clothes, the caress held something of regret. “So, caution is in order. Great caution, but I am more concerned for you than for myself.” 

“You would be. Consider the child you carry, though, and rearrange your priorities, Ellie.” 

As he would have to rearrange his priorities, so the clamoring of his lonely heart—or his cock—did not further imperil his honor and her safety. For an instant, as he regarded the soft, elegant curve of Ellie Hampton’s bare breast, Trent wished he could have one iota more of his father’s selfishness.

“Speaking of children.” Ellie rummaged around and found her dress, which Trent plucked from her hand. “You have a daughter I’ve yet to meet.” 

“My Lanie.” Trent sorted the chemise from the dress. “Here.” He settled first the chemise over Ellie’s head, and while she sorted out the mysteries of properly donning and doing up her jumps, he bent to find her boots.

“Elaine is two, and it’s as if she was only dabbling at talking until now, and by God, the world will hear what she has to say, her brothers especially. She has such a combination of sweetness and determination, and she’s so dear, and precious, and intrepid—she reminds me of you. Where in the hell did your other boot get to? I can’t have you…what?”

Ellie sat cross-legged on the bed, her skirts and the blankets frothed around her. 

“You say the sweetest things. You make me want you all over again, and I keep trying for perspective. Some maturity, but it eludes me. I don’t think any manual will be of much aid, either.” 

“The manual is out of date, I fear.” Trent peered under the bed. “Found it.” He took her foot in his hand to put the boot on her. Instead of rising, though, and getting Ellie the hell back downstairs before the servants sent out a searching party, he rested his forehead against her thigh. 

“If it’s any comfort,” he murmured, “I desire you until I’m cross-eyed and panting with it, and I can’t see the attraction abating any time soon.” He shifted to pillow his cheek on her belly. “Such an admission is selfish of me, and greedy, and downright ungentlemanly.” 

When she made no reply but instead stroked a gentle hand over his shoulder, he realized what he’d said. The attraction might not abate soon, but that only implied it would abate later, which wasn’t at all what he’d intended to convey.

His attraction to Elegy Hampton, his affection for her—hell, his love for her—was unlikely to abate in his lifetime, however long or short that turned out to be. 

*** 

“What has you frowning so thunderously?” Cato moved a pawn and eyed the brandy decanter. The trouble with helping oneself to the good stuff was that the thirst for the good stuff was only reawakened, not slaked. 

Just as an appreciation for being warm at night, thoroughly scrubbed at the end of the day, and clad in clean clothes could become an itch under a man’s skin.

Even the books in Amherst’s library— 

“I’ve had a letter from my brother, Darius.” Amherst moved a pawn as well. “He’s heading back to Town soon but has had a rollicking good time with Lord Valentine Windham in Oxfordshire. My brother is happy to count out board feet of lumber when he should be contemplating marriage, for pity’s sake.”