by Win Hollows
“I could look at you all day,” he murmured, sliding his hand up her corseted side to where the fabric ended and her skin began. “You’re a goddess, forged in celestial magnificence. Too high for me to touch, and yet here you are in my arms.”
He heard Elorie’s breath stop and then start again as he ran his finger over the cleft between her breasts. “So says the Lord Eydris, who sits in the highest realms of power a man can possibly have, lowering himself to touch his enemy.”
“I do not think of you as my enemy this moment,” he confessed, his head swimming with her. Every movement she made underneath him turned his member hard as the stone on which she lay.
Tendrils of her delicate scent rose up from her heated body, apples and cinnamon, as though she’d been in the kitchens. It made him want to lick every inch of her to find out if she tasted as good as she smelled. In fact, it was as incongruous a scent as could be, the domestic, earthy sweetness nothing like what he knew the Viper to be.
He frowned, taking his fingers from her cleavage and licking one out of curiosity. “You smell like a pastry.”
The blush that came over her cheeks only served to heighten his desire for her. “I like apples,” she said matter-of-factly.
“Apples have suddenly become my favorite fruit,” he told her, ducking his head to her neck to feast on her once more.
****
Elorie bit her lip to stop from groaning at the sensation of his clever tongue on the sensitive skin at her neck. The buttons of his waistcoat came undone one by one as she worked them apart with her fingers, wanting to feel his abdomen without barriers. While he suckled her neck, she shoved the starched fabric aside with eager hands and unbuttoned his white evening shirt as well. When she finally slid her hands under his shirt, his heat seared her palms, and he hissed.
“Are you—are you all right?” she asked tentatively, pausing.
“Don’t stop,” he said hoarsely, hovering above her with perfect control.
Elorie reveled in his response, letting her hands explore the hard ridges of his stomach. It was strange to feel strength where she was weak, unyielding muscle where she had soft hollows.
She had always had to keep herself physically fit for her role in the Hand of Charlemagne, for one never knew when a situation would turn against one and more forceful measures were required. She would have been dead by now if she hadn’t learned that no mercy was given for those who could not defend themselves or outpace their enemies. Yet for all her formidable suppleness, he was infinitely stronger than her. He would always be bigger, stronger, more capable of dominating her with the sheer force of his body.
She felt the raw power emanating from him in the way he pinned her to the chilled stone and the way he claimed her inch by inch with his mouth. Elorie had never felt as overwhelmed as she did by him, the sensation of having a man like him within her grasp dizzying.
Yet she also felt the most meticulous gentleness in his every line—the way he propped her head away from the hard stone, the way he held himself against her, never allowing his full weight down on her. The way he controlled himself was in every touch, and his leashed power only served to heighten her awareness of how very much she wanted to make him lose that control.
With his teeth, Max nipped at the spot where her shoulder sloped down from the base of her throat, and her breath puffed out in surprise. “Ouch! Max!”
He chuckled, and she began another protest, but he possessed her lips again, and all thought was lost. She moaned into his mouth, the sound between them vibrating at the edges of their joined lips.
His hand followed the curve of her body down from the top of her bodice to her buttocks. When he got there, he slid his hand around and cupped one cheek hard, forcing her to arch up from the bench.
“Mmmm,” he hummed into her mouth. He thrust his hips downward, notching himself between her legs.
Elorie gasped, feeling the unmistakable shape of his steel-hard member against her thigh. Already on fire, she couldn’t help her audible groan when he shifted, allowing himself to press directly into the soft mound that her skirts were not thick enough to protect from the sensation.
She knew what came next. One couldn’t infiltrate a harem in Marrakesh without learning a thing or two, but the very real possibility of what he clearly wanted terrified her.
Not because she thought it would be unpleasant, but because she knew it would be perfect.
Thick waves of desire flowed through her heated veins as he rolled his hips forward again. It felt like she was already his, and Elorie knew it wouldn’t be long before she would say yes to anything he asked. His hand squeezed the firm flesh of her rear end, and then moved lower along the back of her thigh. Reaching where her dress had fallen up to the crook of her bent knee, Max curved his fingers under the hem of her skirts and drew a finger along the back of her knee. The tickling of the thin skin there caused goosebumps to rise all along her thigh. He followed the sensation upward, as if he knew exactly what his touch was doing to her, creating ripples of raised hairs all over her limbs.
Feeling his hand move toward the inside of her thigh, so close to his goal, Elorie felt herself begin to tremble. She needed to anchor herself to something, and his firm, arrow-shaped torso was the only option. Reaching around his sides, Elorie splayed her palms over his taut back, the muscles near his shoulder blades flexing in response to her touch.
Voices sounded nearby, and a woman’s giggle began to grow closer from the direction of the pathway.
Max’s hand froze, and Elorie cursed everything from the moon to the idiots coming their way. He looked into her eyes for the briefest of moments, the gold flecks in his own still burning with desire. Then they leaped into action. She retracted her hands from around him, and he did the same. Both were breathing hard, yet it was with complete silence that they came to their feet and fled the confines of the gazebo into the surrounding trees.
Max pulled Elorie behind him as they swept through layers of branches that whipped at their faces and clothes. As they swiftly put distance between themselves and the gazebo, exclamations from the intruders upon finding the folly could be heard.
The intimacy of his fingers intertwined with hers as they ran was exhilarating. Elorie had made quick escapes before, but there was nothing like the feeling that overtook her as she flew through the tangled trees with Max, nothing but the moon lighting their way. His white shirt billowed behind him, the formal jacket she had halfway taken off clutched in his other hand. She followed him, grinning like a loony, not caring where they were headed. Knowing this area of Covent Gardens had large copses of trees, she estimated they had a ways to go before reaching any open spaces or buildings. However, that wasn’t even a factor in the way she felt.
Max was.
She knew he wouldn’t let them be seen. She trusted him completely at this moment, and somewhere in the back of her mind, she knew that was just about the most foolish thing she’d ever done. No one, least of all the Earl of Eydris, could be trusted with her safety or her reputation.
Then again, she wouldn’t expect him to trust her either.
The chilled night air filled her lungs, and she rejoiced in the heady freedom that flowed through her as she chased him between patches of moonlight. Darting back and forth through the trees, she felt able to hide from anything and everyone here with him. Perhaps she would never go back…
And then the most amazing thing happened.
Max turned to look back at her, and Elorie saw he had the exact same smile of unadulterated joy on his face that she did. She couldn’t help it. She threw her head back and laughed as he slowed their pace. A larger tree up ahead provided Max with a wide enough trunk to lean against, and Elorie let him pull her toward him as their harsh breaths mingled. His chest heaved against hers as he held her to him, and he let his forehead touch hers. She stepped in between his legs, needing to be closer.
Max didn’t let her complete the movement, swinging her around until she was the
one against the rough bark of the tree trunk. She let out a squeak of surprise, and then laughed again until he caught the sound in his mouth. He took her savagely, the hard pressure of his body along hers causing the pattern of the bark to grind into her shoulder blades. The sting only spurred her on, and she found she liked the sensation of both pain and pleasure at once.
Her hands mapped their way in between his open buttons to knead the muscles covering the sides of his ribcage. His kiss tasted of fresh spring air, and it mingled with the spicy wood scent she had noticed on him before to overwhelm her senses.
He paused to whisper at the opening of their lips. “I want to take you right here against this tree.”
The husky words sent molten desire from her stomach down through her thighs, and her knees threatened to collapse if not for his frame holding her up.
“Max,” she murmured, grazing her lips along the sharp line of his jaw. She had to tell him. She couldn’t let this happen, not when she was so close to finishing what she started four years ago. Everything in her wanted him to continue his assault on her primed body, but there were so many limits on her choices now. “I—”
“I have to go,” he interrupted, giving her arms a squeeze before stepping back.
Elorie inhaled as the heat from his body left her, and her legs suddenly had to support themselves.
His bright eyes rimmed in sable lashes held a desperate regret that she was sure was mirrored in her own. “Intermission is over, and they’ll be wondering where I am.”
“Who?” The word was out before she thought about it. She had no right to ask him anything, but she found herself unbearably interested in whatever things he did while not with her.
“My mother and sister,” he replied, running a hand through his mussed locks. “My sister, it’s her debut season, and…” He shrugged. “I must be there for her.” He let out a bark of laughter. “I’m sure that’s not what you were expecting.”
Elorie smiled wryly, and she shook her head. “I know more of younger sisters than you would expect, Lord Eydris.”
His gaze turned to one of curiosity. “Is that so?”
Elorie gulped. “Yes, they are … both the best and worst burden, non?”
Max stepped closer and took her face in both hands. “I’m going to make you tell me all your secrets someday,” he declared, and Elorie felt herself swaying under his touch again.
She pushed him back before she hadn’t the will to. “Don’t you know, Max? A spy is made of secrets, and if you learn them all, you’ll find there’s nothing underneath to hold on to. We are like moonlight,” she stated, holding out her arm to watch it play across her skin. “Beautiful and mysterious to look at, but without substance.”
Max chuckled. “If I believed that, Viper, I would not be here, chasing your light.”
His surety in his conviction about her sent lightning bolts of fear through her heart. Before she could let herself come under the spell his tempting words created, she broke eye contact and fled, lunging through the trees while knowing he wouldn’t follow.
His last words echoed around her as she went. “I’ll find you, Viper. I’ll always find you.”
Chapter Seven
She would not murder her mother. It simply wasn’t done, no matter how much of a pain in Elorie’s arse she was. Besides, the plum day dress she wore with its severely tight sleeves all the way down her wrists didn’t leave any room for her cyanide or paralytic darts.
Lady Cosette Crescenfort prattled on in her native tongue, pouring a draught of French bourbon into her morning cup of tea. “And your father has been no help at all. He says to me, that’s the way it is being done in England now, but it is clearly a mistake. Young women should not be forced to attend lessons with a governess past the age of twelve, except for deportment and dancing. What is the point?”
Elorie cringed from where she sat on the opposite chair in their family’s drawing room and put one hand over the other to stifle the twitch of her wrist. Not that that was the only way to kill her. She could strangle her, stab her with a knitting needle, suffocate her with a round pillow from the settee…
It wasn’t her mother’s fault, though, and she had to keep reminding herself of that fact. Her mother had made some assumptions about Elorie’s activities for the past several years that were incorrect, and Elorie wouldn’t dream of correcting those assumptions. Any proper lady with an assumedly limited experience would probably agree with Lady Crescenfort. In English society, there was no reason for ladies of their station to be worried about being highly educated. Independence was only for those women of the upstart merchant class or a scorned woman who engaged in unladylike behavior. It wasn’t her mother’s fault that she didn’t know of women in far-off places who owned their own businesses, took lovers openly, left their lazy husbands, or traveled wherever they wanted without a chaperone. Even in France, Elorie knew her perception would have been shocking. She couldn’t blame her mother for thinking exactly as she had been raised to.
“Here, drink this horrid stuff,” Cosette directed, handing Elorie a teacup.
“Do you have any bourbon left?” Elorie asked sweetly.
Cosette narrowed her catlike hazel eyes. “When you are married, yes.”
Elorie didn’t bother to argue. After all, what was the point? She still loved her mother, for all her dramatic mannerisms. She had even, once upon a time, sought to emulate her in everything, from her sensual movements to the way she had everyone wrapped around her finger like the queen of her own kingdom.
In reality, Elorie knew she had mastered those traits, and it had been a large part of why she was successful as an operative. But she no longer took pride in that sort of thing the way she thought she would. She had thought she would use such skills to be the belle of the ball, to have suitors and society proclaim her a diamond of the first water when she came out.
That had not happened. None of it had.
“Celise is beginning to look like you,” her mother told her with pride in her voice.
Elorie swallowed and looked down into the amber liquid in her teacup. She had noticed. Her thirteen-year-old sister was beginning to develop the same full lips and heart-shaped face as herself, with hair of a dark honey-blonde a few shades deeper than her own. Elorie felt her heart beat faster, the feeling clawing its way from her stomach to her chest.
No.
She tamped it back down. Elorie would never let Celise face what she had. Her younger sister would have every chance at a normal life that Elorie had not.
Looking around the room with its familiar hexagonal shape and Parisian blue walls, Elorie noted the new drapes, furnishings, and décor of the once-shabby space. “I notice you changed the color of this room,” Elorie said, trying to talk about something with no meaning at all. But even that had its pitfalls.
“Yes, our monthly funds—” Her mother paused, watching Elorie’s reaction before clearing her throat and starting again. “I have made long-overdue changes since you’ve been gone.”
Elorie forced herself to not feel anything as she took another sip of the tepid tea and replied, “It looks lovely.”
Cosette waved away the subject. “Your aunt had nothing useful to say about the Littonway affair, but I heard you danced with the Earl of Eydris.”
Her eyes snapped to her mother. “And?” She tried to control the sudden change in her breathing, using years of practice to do so.
The pale brow that rose on Cosette’s face was not easily misinterpreted. “You must be careful, Elorie.”
She thought of Max’s skillful lips and hands on her from the night before. Careful wasn’t the word she would use to describe their interactions. “I must dance with eligible bachelors, Maman, and he is one. Am I not supposed to be acting the part of a fresh-faced debutante, at least for now?”
Cosette pursed her lips. “I suppose.”
Elorie let out a silent sigh of relief. Although her mother wouldn’t question where she’d been for the past f
our years, Elorie’s every move was now subject to the same restrictions and scrutiny any other young, unmarried daughter of the aristocracy had. It was something she was growing to despise with every passing minute.
“Celise will be done with her lessons at one o’clock?” Elorie asked, for the third time. She wanted to take her sister for a walk along the Serpentine River, to speak as sisters could without anyone else there. Although Elorie was seven years older than her sister, they used to be close. Before she had left, that was. Now, her younger sister was much more demure than she remembered, and nothing like their mother or herself. Elorie needed to know her sister as much as she suspected Celise needed the same thing from the way she had looked at Elorie like a scared animal hoping for scraps.
“Yes, she should be,” her mother answered, flouncing back into the divan’s cushions.
Elorie nodded. Only another two hours until she could leave the house with Celise. “What news from France?” The subject, she knew, would have her mother talking for days, even though Elorie already kept abreast of everything.
Cosette’s face lit up. “You’ll never believe…” she started in.
Her mother’s love for her home country was a palpable joy that Elorie had been caught up in for much of her childhood, the place taking on a fairytale-like quality in her young mind. Everything was larger, better, more colorful in France the way her mother described it. When she had visited her mother’s side of the family there, the mythical sheen had only grown in her young mind with the observance of the lavish life her relatives lived there and the wild social whirl her mother had participated in. Though she had long since abandoned that simplistic view, Elorie knew she still had a fixation in her mind that had nothing to do with reality.
