Modern Romance Collection: October 2017 5 - 8. Heidi Rice

KISS WAS different from the last.

      Eleanor would not have imagined in a million years that she would ever be in a position where she was noting the difference between kisses, having never expected to spend much time kissing anyone, but here she was. This one was different than the lazy way he’d taken her mouth in the hall outside the nursery.

      Much different. Much...hotter.

      There was urgency this time. Bright fire and driving need.

      Or maybe, she thought with no little wonder, that was her.

      Hugo dropped his hands from her face and slid them down her back. He pulled her up against him, and it was as if everything inside her head simply went white. Blank. She disappeared into the sound of her heart, clattering wildly against her ribs, and the impossible, wild beauty of his mouth on hers.

      Over and over again.

      In some distant part of her mind, Eleanor knew this was a mistake. She knew it. But she couldn’t seem to stop herself. She didn’t want to stop herself. He angled his head and took the kiss deeper. Hotter. Wetter and wilder.

      And she was content to let him guide her. Teach her. Take her over and burn her alive.

      He kissed her again and again, bending her backward as he did. One of his hands found the small of her back and held her fast against him as he continued to use that mouth of his like some kind of slick weapon. Eleanor found her arms around his neck, but had no memory of putting them there. Maybe there was something inside of her that knew she needed to hold on. Or be lost forever in this storm she should have had the good sense to avoid.

      But she didn’t want to avoid it. She wanted to dance in it. She wanted to shout down the thunder and let the rain wash her clean.

      She didn’t even know what that meant, but she wanted it, and every time he dragged his lips across hers, she thrilled to it.

      And then there was what he did with his hands. She couldn’t work out which was worse, that he seemed to know her so much better than she knew herself, or that she was afraid she might explode with every sizzling new touch.

      He slid his free hand down her side as if he was testing her shape, spilling heat wherever he went, then sliding around to grip her bottom and pull her even closer.

      “Perfect,” he muttered against her mouth, and a sheer, shivery sort of reaction burst inside of her at that.

      Pleasure, she thought. Pure pleasure.

      She had never allowed herself that sort of thing before. She hadn’t known it existed, if she was honest. But Hugo’s hands on her body opened up a new window into near-unimaginable delights and Eleanor couldn’t seem to keep herself from tossing herself headfirst into them. Whatever they were. Whatever the price.

      “More,” Hugo said in a low, dangerously gruff voice, moving his mouth down the line of her neck.

      And when the world seemed to shift, the floor moving beneath them and the fire spinning in a giddy loop, it took Eleanor a moment to realize that it was because Hugo was doing it. She didn’t think her feet hit the ground as he picked her up and swung her around until her back was to the bookshelf.

      Then he pressed himself against her as if he couldn’t bear another inch of separation between them.

      Eleanor supposed she should have objected to that—to all of it—but she was entirely too busy being overwhelmed by him. All of him. Her mind could hardly keep up with what was happening to her body. What he was doing to her body.

      And what her body was doing to her, every time she shivered. Every time she surrendered. Every time she let out sounds she didn’t recognize.

      Hugo’s mouth was a torment. A reward. Both at once.

      He stroked his hands down the length of her arms and threaded his fingers with hers. Then, never breaking contact with her lips, he lifted her arms up above her and pinned her wrists to the bookshelves at her back.

      “Stay still,” he ordered her.

      And it didn’t occur to Eleanor to do anything but obey him. She was quivering too much. She was too undone. She was lost in this, whatever it was, and she wasn’t sure she could make her way out of it.

      Scarier still, she wasn’t sure she wanted out in the first place.

      Hugo muttered something that she couldn’t quite make sense of, and then he shifted back slightly so he could look down at her, moving his hands so that one rested on each side of her face. In some far-off corner of her mind it occurred to Eleanor to worry that he might find her lacking. That looking at her the way he was might break this spell, whatever it was. Because this was a man who could sleep with any of the great beauties of their age at will. And had.

      But when he finally dragged his gaze back to hers, all thoughts and insecurities vanished. Because Eleanor might not have done this before. She might have no idea how this had happened or what she was meant to do next. But she’d never seen anything so hot or so needy in all her life as that look on Hugo’s face.

      It was so intense it felt like a kind of devastation, rolling over her and flattening her and changing her, but she was still standing.

      Somehow, she was still standing, and she couldn’t seem to step away from him. She couldn’t even bring herself to try.

      Hugo moved then. He traced his way down her neck, then moved his hands to cup her breasts, making her breath desert her in an audible rush that embarrassed her, it was obvious. But there was something reverent in the way his hands curved around her, testing her through the layers she wore and dragging those expert thumbs of his over her nipples—and the crazy part was that she could still feel the heat of his palms. Flooding into her. Making her feel even more needy and wild.

      He made another one of those distinctly male noises deep in his throat, low and somehow untamed, that made everything inside Eleanor bristle into a kind of liquid awareness. Shocking and bright, even as it pooled low in her belly.

      “Later,” he said, and it sounded like a promise.

      Eleanor had no idea what he was talking about. And she didn’t care, because he kept going. He bent closer to her as he traced his way down the length of her body, finding the indentation of her waist and then the swell of her hips and taking his time learning both.

      And then he found his way to the fastening of her trousers, and it was as if everything inside of her toppled over and crumbled into dust. Just like that.

      “I told you not to move your hands.” Hugo’s voice was dark, demanding.

      And it wasn’t until he spoke that Eleanor realized she’d brought her hands down toward his shoulders. To push him away? To draw him closer? She had no idea. But she did as he asked, because she couldn’t think of what else to do, and she raised her arms back up over her head again.

      And Hugo simply pulled the fastening of her trousers open, then dipped his hand inside, as if it was inevitable.

      It felt as if it was.

      There was no sound in the library. There was the snap and rustle of the fire, and then a harsh sort of noise that it took Eleanor long moments to realize was her own breathing. Panting, more like, that she could barely hear over the noise in her head that she thought was her heart. Beating madly.

      But if Hugo heard any of it, he liked it. That was what that hard smile on his beautiful face told her. She could feel it wash over her like its own sort of glare, making her feel exposed. As if he could see things she wasn’t even aware she was showing.

      “I’m pleased that you’re allowing this experiment, little one,” he said, a certain satisfaction in his voice that should have alarmed her. She knew it should have, but she couldn’t quite bring herself to react to it. “Given how well you know your own desires.”

      “I don’t know what you...”

      “Hush.”

      Once again,