Page 21

ELINOR

Alistair is laid out before me like a sensual feast. His hair fans out over the rich red bedspread like a decadent crown. He has one hand propped behind his head. The patch of hair on his exposed underarm fascinates me. Even the smell of him makes me want to rub against him like a cat.

Tremaine always reeked of sour alcohol and old sweat.

I resolve never to think about my stepfather in this context again. After tomorrow, I’ll never have to see him again. I have no doubt he will plague me with demands for money, which I fully intend to ignore. Forever.

“I haven’t the faintest idea what to do.”

“You can start by touching me.”

He really wants my hands on him. I could start with the overlarge appendage jutting toward his left hip.

I begin by throwing one leg over him and sitting with his erection trapped between our bodies. Alistair tents his fingers loosely on my hips. Waiting.

Excitement and curiosity—two emotions I have only ever felt in this context with him—start to edge out the anxiety. It’s difficult to be afraid when that glint of humor is dancing in his eyes. He wants me to be comfortable with this, and it makes me want to try for his sake.

I want this to work.

We are going to have the most wonderful family.

How my heart sang when he said that.

I grind down on his erection, feeling the length and hardness of him.

“Gods, Elsie, you’re so wet.” He groans. “Keep that up and this will be a very short experience for us both.”

“You’ll recover.” I bet he rebounds quickly, too. “Are you worried about your ability to keep up with me?”

It’s a cheeky thing to say, considering how I’m not sure how well I could handle the act. But I like pretending to be confident. Maybe if I fake it, I can make it real.

I rack my memories for things that Tremaine liked to do before remembering that he isn’t welcome here. This is about what I want to do.

First, I want out of this constricting corset. I twist my arms up behind me to reach the ribbons. They come loose with a few tugs. The front clasps make it easy to remove. Alistair’s hungry gaze never leaves me. He’s busy hiking up the hem of my shift while I’m trying to wriggle free.

“I thought this was for me.” I toss the corset aside.

“I didn’t say I wouldn’t help.”

The only barrier between us is my thin shift.

He urges me to sit up enough to tug it out.

Then I’m seated directly on his erection.

He’s hot against my bare sex. I put my hands on his pectorals.

He slides the shift up my back and tugs it over my head.

My heart flutters like a trapped bird, but I let him strip it down my arms.

Naked, astride an almost-naked man, is not how I expected to spend this afternoon.

He glides one hand between my thighs to where our bodies are connected. From this awkward angle he finds my nub and makes light circles. Teasing.

“Ride me,” he commands.

“Am I in charge here, or not?” I like that he tells me what to do, though. Without his guidance, I’d probably sit here until he was no longer hard and I started shivering. Instead, I feel like I’m on fire.

“You’re completely in charge. I’m only making suggestions.”

I rock against his stiff length, rubbing myself shamelessly on him.

Coating him with my dampness. I glance down to where the rounded base peeps out beneath my bottom.

My stomach undulates when I shift my hips.

The ruddy head pops into view. I repeat the movement, reveling in the obscene view.

Everything below my navel clenches around emptiness.

In theory, I want him to fill me. In practice, I’m less sure. I’m warming up to taking the risk. But this is how I felt last time, too, and that ended poorly. If this is what he meant by saying use my body , I suppose I’m doing alright.

Alistair’s dark gaze meets mine.

“Sit on me.”

“I already am.” I’m not, this is more leaning over him with my hands braced on his shoulders, but with my legs on either side of his hips, isn’t it the same thing?

“Higher.”

He tucks his hands behind my knees and urges me to rise. I shuffled forward. He keeps bringing me forward. I grip the headboard for balance. He inches down until his face is between my thighs and says again, “Sit.”

Flames scorch my skin. He can’t be serious.

“How will you breathe?”

“Let me worry about that. You just sit and enjoy.”

He licks and sucks, using everything he’s got to drive me wild.

At first I perch gingerly, but he curls warm hands around my thighs and soon I can’t resist sinking down.

He feels so good. The empty feeling returns tenfold.

He thrusts one finger inside me and worries my sensitive nub.

My spine stiffens at the intrusion, but within seconds I’m melting.

Then I’m flying, pulsing around his pumping finger.

It doesn’t hurt one bit. I’m starting to think I can do this.

Triumph gleams in Alistair’s eyes as he shifts my hips backward. I slide bonelessly along his body until my still-tender sex bumps into his cock. Startled, I yelp and freeze. The prince drapes one heavy forearm over my waist.

I relax.

“Your face is a mess.” I’m embarrassed by the shiny coating all over his handsome face.

“Kiss it off.”

My instinct is to recoil , but if he was willing to put his face there on me, it can’t be bad. I touch my lips to his. Tasting myself on him is strangely erotic. I never would have thought to try this.

“You should get something out of this.” His erection digs into my low belly.

“Believe me, I am.” He squeezes my ass and kisses me again. I snake my arm between our bodies and position him at my entrance. This feels so different from anything I’ve experienced before that I don’t have time for fear.

“You don’t have to, Elsie.”

Hearing my fake name makes me smile.

“I want to try.”

“Stop if it makes you—” He breaks off with a groan. I’m not doing anything more than sliding his blunt tip along the wet seam of my body, but he clearly likes it. His lashes fall to half-mast. “Tease.”

“You like it.”

“I love it,” he growls. I touch his nose. He tries to bite my finger. We end up kissing again.

He slides into me almost by accident. I hesitate, then decide that I will not let anyone steal this from me. If there is a path to reclaiming this part of myself, then I will keep trying for as long as Alistair lets me.

I aim downward and take him a little further. His quiet grunt tells me how hard he’s working to hold back. Being patient with me can’t be easy for a man who’s used to getting anything he wants, whenever he wants it. He’s enduring this torment for my sake.

A surge of tenderness swamps me. “I love you,” I whisper.

“I love you,” he answers, holding my gaze. There are only the two of us in the entire world. He is my home.

I bear down. My body tries to rebel, tightening against the intrusion. Pain edges into the experience. I let it come, anchored by his eyes on mine and all the emotions I read there. I exhale and push down again.

All of a sudden, he’s embedded so deep inside me I feel like my organs have been rearranged.

“Are you okay?” he croaks, not moving.

“Mhm.” For a moment, I just lay there, panting, breathing him in, staring into his eyes and waiting for the rest of me to get the message that there is no danger here.

I press my lips to his and move. He tents his fingertips on the back of my head and holds me close, kissing me so sweet and slow that my heart can’t take it. I want more. I move my hips, this time reveling in the intrusion.

My fears fall away in bits and pieces, then collapse all at once.

Emboldened, I sit up slightly, the way I was positioned at the beginning, with my hands braced on his glorious chest. It’s different, feeling him inside me this way. Experimentally, I thrust down. He clutches my hips to steady me but allows me to maintain control.

He could take it, if he wanted to. Turn me over. Take me from any angle he wished. But that would only bring my fears rampaging back. Judging from the worship in his eyes, he wasn’t lying when he claimed to be getting something out of this.

The way he’s watching me makes me feel like the most beautiful woman in the world.

“Sunshine. This is yours, now. I am yours. Use me any way you like.”

“What if I do something you don’t like?”

“Then I’ll tell you to stop. The same way you can do with me,” he says, playing with my hair. “But I promise you won’t do anything wrong.”

I can tell him to stop.

What a revelatory idea. I shift forward, experimenting, sinking down over him again and again, until I have to close my eyes and yield to the intense pleasure coursing up my spine, down my thighs, tightening everything around him.

His cock, his muscular legs trapped between mine, all of him beneath me.

A low growl tears out of him. His gaze remains locked on my breasts.

A thrilling sense of power rockets through me when he bares his teeth and grips my hips, holding me there, embedded so deep inside me I can scarcely breathe as he spends, the hot pulse a shock.

At last, the waves subside, leaving us breathless and sweaty.

“Come here.” He drags me into his arms. I’ve never felt safe like this after an…event. His warm solid arms wrap around me in a comforting cocoon.

He nuzzles my hair. “No falling asleep, now. We’re due for dinner soon.”

I had been on the verge of slipping into a nap. I’m strong from years of physical labor, but this has been an intense few days. I can’t deny I’m tired. Tomorrow, we can sleep together, in both senses.

“Do you think Tremaine will return for the wedding?” He’d better.

“No.”

His certainty takes me aback. “No?”

“He returned to Scinder House, remember?” Alex doesn’t meet my gaze. I take his chin and guide his green eyes back to mine.

“I need his permission to marry.” A stab of queasy fear strikes me.

“I have his verbal consent.”

I don’t trust Tremaine’s word on anything. I want to see this in writing.