“Silk is expensive. Lawn is more practical. And you shouldn’t see me in either.”
Hart lifted the drawers again. “When you put them on tomorrow, think of me.” He pressed a kiss to the worn fabric that would go over the round of her bu**ocks.
Eleanor’s eyes widened. “Cheek.”
“Cheek? Was that a pun?”
“You’re horrible.”
“I never pretended to be anything else.” Hart dropped the drawers on the pile and lost his smile. “You make me wicked, El. When I walk into a room with you in it, everything and everyone goes to hang.”
“Then you shouldn’t walk into rooms with me in them. You have so much responsibility now.”
“And you danced back into my life just as I’m poised to grab my greatest success. Why?”
“To help you. I told you.”
Hart leaned to her, looking into her blue eyes. “I think God is playing games with me. Having his vengeance.”
Eleanor frowned. “I’m not sure God works quite like that.”
“He does with me, but then I’ve always had the devil in me. Maybe you were sent to save me.”
“I highly doubt that. No one could save you, Hart Mackenzie.”
“Good. I don’t want you to save me. Not right now.”
“Then what do you want?” she asked.
“I want you to kiss me.”
Eleanor’s eyes softened. She wound her arms around his neck, and Hart forgot about darkness, forgot about Neely, forgot about everything but Eleanor.
Their mouths met in the silence of the room, Eleanor’s a point of warmth. The laundry slipped and slid beneath them as Hart laid her down all the way and pressed his knee between her skirts.
He longed to wrest off the skirts and the cage of the bustle that kept him from her. From there, it would be easy to remove her drawers and be inside her in one swift thrust. And then he could be with her, complete. Finding her heat, becoming one with the woman he’d always wanted. Craved. For years.
If he asked politely, she’d say no. So, he’d have to be impolite.
Hart tugged her glove the rest of the way off and pressed a hard kiss to her palm. He wrapped the glove once around her wrist and then around his.
Eleanor watched, startled, not sure what he meant by it. Hart wasn’t certain either. He only wanted her close, and to stay.
The strange binding of the glove licked heat through Eleanor’s body. Hart was heavy on top of her, and the glove around both wrists bound him to her, she to him.
He’d taught Eleanor to kiss long ago. Showed her how to part her lips, how to let him inside her mouth. She’d let this man slowly, slowly take all her innocence. Seducing her, teaching her to give in to her desires and not be afraid.
“El,” he whispered.
Breathing hurt. Hart had said her name like that on the day in the summerhouse in Scotland when he’d laid her down and kissed her in the sunshine. He’d told her that he wanted her and exactly how he’d wanted her. Eleanor had laughed, pleased with her power. Eleanor Ramsay, bringing the great Hart Mac-kenzie to his knees.
Foolish, foolish Eleanor. She’d never had power over Hart, and that very day, he’d proved it.
He was proving it again. He kissed down to her décolletage, his breath heating her bare skin, his hair like rough silk. She found her unbound hand coming up to stroke his hair—she hadn’t told it to do that.
He would unmake her. Again.
Hart, no. Let me go.
The words wouldn’t come. Hart kissed her throat, lips lingering, searing like a brand. She was hot from dancing, cold from their brief moment on the terrace, and burning inside.
Hart’s body fitted against hers. Hart Mackenzie, again in her arms, where he belonged.
He raised his head, his golden eyes dark. “I’ve missed you, El.”
I’ve missed you. I’ve missed you so much it’s breaking my heart.
Hart kissed her again, and Eleanor knew she’d surrender. Tonight, she’d let him have her, never mind the cost. It frightened her how easily she was going to succumb.
The glove wrapped around their wrists made her shiver. More so when Hart lifted her bound hand and pressed a kiss to the inside of her wrist.
He followed that with a lick and then a gentle bite. He nipped her again, then he raised his head. “El, I want…”
“I know.”
“No, you don’t. You can’t.” He shook his head. “You are innocence itself, and I am evil incarnate.”
She smiled, her heart beating faster. “You are a bit devilish, I admit.”
“You have no idea what a man like me wants.”
“I have some idea. I remember the summerhouse. And your bedroom upstairs, and at Kilmorgan.” Three times she’d been Hart Mackenzie’s lover; three times in her life she thought she’d die of happiness.
“That was innocent. I was holding myself back, because I didn’t want to hurt you.”
Hart was holding himself back now. Eleanor saw something desperate in his eyes that she didn’t understand. She longed to reach it but couldn’t.
“I tell myself that you’re precious and breakable,” he said. “But you have a fire in you I want to touch. I want to show you my evil games and bring that fire to life, to teach you what that fire can be.”
“That does not sound like so bad a thing.”
“It could be, El. I can be very bad.”
“I’m not afraid,” she said, still smiling.
Hart’s laugh was laced with heat. “That is because you don’t truly know me.”
“I know more than you think.”
“You tempt me every time you look at me. You with that fan.” Hart picked it up from the laundry table and threw it across the room.
Eleanor put her hand out in protest. “Good heavens, Hart, if you’ve broken that… Fans are expensive.”
“I’ll buy you a new one. I’ll buy you a cart full, if you promise me never to use it like you did tonight—telling me and every man in the room that you wanted to be kissed.”
Her eyes widened. “I did no such thing.”
“You kept tapping the confounded thing to your lips and looking coy over it.”
“I did not.”
“It made me want to take you, right there in the ballroom. I want to take you now. I want you bare on this table, and I want…”
He checked his words, and Eleanor’s pulse raced. “You want what?”
Hart looked at her with eyes that were molten. “I want everything. To be your lover in all ways. I want to come to your bedroom every night and teach you things that will shock you. Best lock your door, El, because I don’t know how long I can stay away.”