That pleasure released, climaxed so suddenly, that it took Elena’s breath away as it rippled and surged, then exploded in a cascade of overwhelming sensations, the moisture rushing freely between her thighs, wetting Adam as he thrust one finger deep inside her even as he continued to stroke her into ecstasy.

  On and on it went, as the tears coursed hotly, unknowingly, down Elena’s cheeks.

  Chapter Eleven

  ‘We are not finished yet,’ Adam said as Elena, flushed and obviously self-conscious after her loss of control, turned her face away and would have moved out of his reach. Instead he continued to hold her lightly with one arm about her waist as he reached up to release the pins from her hair, so that he might admire those long silky dark curls as they cascaded down the length of her spine and fell softly about her flushed face. ‘You are a very beautiful woman, Elena…’

  She moistened full and swollen lips, those blue-green eyes slightly unfocused from her recent climax. ‘I—thank you.’

  Adam chuckled softly at the obvious absence of her usual calm and composure—he was feeling less than calm or composed himself! Nor had he had his fill of her beautiful body. ‘Come, lie here beside me, love,’ he encouraged as he turned with her in his arms to place her down gently upon the chaise.

  His gaze darkened appreciatively at the totally wanton picture she presented as he sat back to look at her, those dark curls falling wildly about her shoulders and breasts, breasts swollen from his ministrations, the nipples tight red buds, becoming even more so as Adam’s gaze lingered there before moving down to the slenderness of her waist where her chemise was gathered.

  ‘These need to come off.’ He suited his actions to his words as he rolled both her chemise and her drawers down over her thighs and legs before discarding them completely, Elena now wearing only those white stockings held up by rosebud-adorned garters. ‘Please do not.’ Adam reached out to clasp Elena’s hand in his as she would have self-consciously covered the curls between her legs, dark and silky curls that He could see were slightly damp from her recent release. ‘Will you allow me to kiss you here?’ He allowed his fingers to tangle lightly with those silky dark curls as he raised his soft grey gaze to hers.

  Elena’s eyes widened. Adam wished to—he wanted to place his mouth against her there?

  She had not known what to expect from Adam’s lovemaking, her past experience with Neville—both painful and terrifying, and one she had tried in vain to erase from her memory—having in no way prepared her for the pleasure she had just known. He had been so gentle with her, so careful not to hurt her, as he showed her that lovemaking could be a pleasurable and caring experience. With him, at least.

  Even so, could she—dare she—allow him to kiss her there, to feel those sensual lips against her most intimate place?

  ‘Your husband did not deserve you, love!’ Adam rasped as he obviously saw, and understood, the uncertainty in her expression, though he did not know the correct person to blame for it. ‘Lovemaking is for the enjoyment of both parties, Elena,’ he continued gently. ‘And it would give me as much pleasure to kiss you here as I believe it would for you to be kissed. But I appreciate that some ladies do not even like the thought of such intimacy. Do you trust me, Elena?’

  She looked up at him. ‘I trust you, Adam.’

  His eyes darkened. ‘Thank you.’

  She nodded. ‘You have been very kind and gentle and I have enjoyed our time together up to this point.’

  ‘I promise I will stop if you decide you do not like what I do to you now.’ His caressing fingers gently parted her legs so that he might separate the dark curls and stroke against that already swelling nubbin between her thighs as he draped the leg nearest to him across the muscled hardness of his own thighs before his head began its slow descent. ‘I so badly wish to taste you!’

  Elena swallowed the saliva that had gathered in her mouth, that swallow turning to a breathless sigh, her lids closing, at the first touch of Adam’s lips against her swollen folds, pleasure coursing through her anew as she felt the rasp of his tongue against her most sensitive place.

  ‘You taste divine, Elena.’ The warmth of his breath moved lightly, arousingly, against her moist heat. ‘So sweet and creamy,’ he murmured.

  Elena’s hands seemed to move of their own volition as her fingers became entangled in the darkness of Adam’s hair. Her back arched as her hips began to undulate in the same rhythm as the almost unbearable rasp of his tongue, his fingers moving to stroke the little nubbin, causing Elena to shift restlessly.

  He raised his head only slightly. ‘Do you wish me to stop?’

  ‘Heavens, no!’ Elena’s husky laugh caught on a sob—she wished him to do the opposite!—as she glanced down into those dark-grey eyes rimmed by black, allowing her to see lips damp from her. ‘Unless…Do you wish to stop?’

  His gaze continued to hold hers as he once again lowered his head and resumed that skilful flicking of his tongue, at the same time as both his hands moved up to cup her breasts, capturing the nipples between thumb and index finger and pinching gently. This combined assault upon her senses was altogether too much for Elena as she felt the burn of that pleasure coursing through her once again, hotly, frantically, until she exploded a second time, even more fiercely than the first, her back arched up as wave after wave of pleasure consumed her.

  ‘Does that answer your question, love?’ Adam asked as he lay his head against her bare thighs. ‘I would kiss and caress you here all night long if you allowed it,’ he assured her. ‘You are as beautiful here as you are everywhere else.’ His gaze lowered as the gentleness of his fingers stroked against her sensitive flesh. ‘So, so beautiful, Elena.’

  She chewed lightly on her bottom lips before answering him shyly, ‘And you…you really enjoy performing such…such intimacies?’

  ‘Any man would, love.’ A smile curved those sensual lips as he looked up at her. ‘To give you pleasure is to give myself pleasure also.’

  ‘Would you not enjoy it more if I—if I were to touch you now?’ She looked at him anxiously, unsure if she had gone too far as she saw his eyes widen. Except…she ached to touch Adam, to explore the hardness of his arms and chest, the flatness of his abdomen, and perhaps lower still?

  ‘You do not have to do so,’ Adam said gruffly, that reassurance belied by the heated glitter that had entered his eyes and the deepening flush in his cheeks, the bulge in his breeches seeming to grow larger still.

  Elena had only seen a man’s rampant rod once before in her life, seconds before it was pushed painfully inside her, ripping through her innocence and causing her immeasurable pain. What had followed had been even more excruciating and unpleasant.

  But this, here and now with Adam, was so unlike that last time, both the man and the experience. Adam was intent only on giving her pleasure, to a degree that he had asked nothing of her in return. She wanted to give something back to him, to perhaps be able to give him the same release he had given her—twice.

  Well, perhaps she should not expect it to happen twice for Adam, for Elena had overheard two of the maids gossiping once at Sheffield Park, in regard to one of the footmen, a gentleman with whom it seemed that both young ladies occasionally engaged in love-play, and there had been much giggling between them over that gentleman’s need to rest for several hours before he could ‘perform’ a second time.

  She looked up at Adam shyly once again. ‘And if I should wish to?’

  His throat moved as he swallowed before answering. ‘Then I would like that very much indeed. You are sure, love?’

  She nodded as she tucked her legs beneath her before moving up on her knees and placing her hands upon his bare shoulders as she knelt in front of him. ‘If you will help to instruct me as to what I may do, how to touch you, so as best to please you?’

  Adam’s breath caught in his throat as he gazed at her unashamed nudity: those firm, uptilting breasts, reddened now from his ministrations as they peeped through the ebony waves of the long hair cascading over her shoulders and down her spine, the curve of her waist, her legs slender and shapely, slightly parted so as to reveal the dampness of the curls between her thighs.

  ‘You would perhaps find such intimacies…unpleasant.’

  She gave him a calm, trusting look. ‘I do not believe that I should. Not with you.’

  Something welled up in Adam’s chest. Something too fleeting to be recognised. Something he had no time or inclination to analyse, as Elena reached down and began to unfasten the buttons at the sides of his breeches.

  His shaft, already a painful throb, surged to even greater heights as those slender fingers brushed lightly against his heat, a small amount of liquid moistening his smalls as it eagerly escaped.

  ‘I believe you will have to be the one who now lies down.’

  Adam dragged his gaze away from Elena’s flushed face to glance down and see that she had his breeches completely unbuttoned and pulled down to his thighs, along with his smalls, his manhood bobbing free and far longer and thicker than Adam could ever remember seeing it before. ‘I believe he is pleased to see you,’ he murmured ruefully as he lay down on the chaise in order to completely divest himself of his clothing.

  ‘“He”?’ She gave an uncharacteristic giggle as she moved to kneel between his parted thighs.

  ‘All men call that part of their anatomy “he”, love,’ he teased.

  ‘As if “he” is an entity apart from yourself?’

  ‘Sometimes I believe he is,’ Adam drawled ruefully. ‘Certainly, men have allowed themselves to be led about by it. Myself included—’ He broke off as once again Elena smoothed the frown from between his brows caused by memories of the past.

  ‘We will not talk of anything but the here and now,’ she spoke firmly, as if she too had memories she would rather not dwell on. As no doubt she had. ‘My instinct is to curl my fingers about him, is that correct?’

  ‘Your instinct is perfectly correct.’ Adam nodded, watching between narrowed lids as Elena moved her hand to allow her fingers to curl about his girth. Well, almost to curl about his girth, for it was now so thick and throbbing that her fingers were too tiny to span him completely. ‘Perhaps you should use both hands?’ he teased, only to catch his breath in a gasp as she did exactly that, those fingers tightening and relaxing at the same time as she began to pump lightly and rhythmically.

  Elena was obviously completely enthralled by what she was doing and Adam was more aroused by her wonder in his response than he had ever been aroused by anything, or anyone, in his life before. It was almost as if she were seeing a man’s responses to her for the first time—and perhaps she was? Her surprise earlier, when she had reached her first climax, would seem to imply that whatever manner of man her husband had been, he had not seen to Elena’s physical needs before his own. That he had not seen to her needs at all, or shown her how to please him!

  Not so unusual, in any marriage. Indeed, the marriages of the ton especially tended to be arranged or loveless affairs, forged only to produce an heir and a spare, before the gentlemen returned to their mistresses and the woman very often took a lover of her own. Why should he have assumed it would be any different between men and women of the lower classes? Elena’s lack of experience in what pleased her or the man in her bed made a complete nonsense of any such assumption. He—

  ‘Dear God…!’ Adam groaned low in his throat as he felt Elena’s tongue against him, trailing up the velvety side, seconds before she parted her lips wide and took the sensitive tip fully inside the hot cavern of her mouth. ‘Elena!’ His fingers became entangled in her hair as she took him deeper still, at the same time as her fingers tightened about him and her other hand moved to cup him beneath.

  At which time Adam knew he was never going to hold!

  Elena had never seen or felt anything as beautiful as the shapely length of Adam’s rod: long and thick and hard, the skin surprisingly soft to the touch. It was no longer enough for her to merely hold him; she needed to taste him fully, in the same way he had tasted her.

  Instinct had told her to part her lips and take him into her mouth. The same instinct that told her to pump her fingers lightly along the shaft as Adam began to thrust his rod into her mouth, slowly at first, and then faster, his breathing laboured.

  ‘It is all over for me, Elena,’ he cried out in a strangulated voice. ‘I cannot hold any longer. I am going to—oh, dear God…!’ The last was a low and husky cry as hot and creamy spurts of Adam’s release poured out of him like molten lava.

  ‘We should both dress and go upstairs to bed.’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘The candles have both burnt out.’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘The fire will soon have burnt down, too.’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Elena…?’

  ‘Yes?’

  He chuckled softly and glanced down at her as she lay in his arms upon the chaise, the darkness of her hair a silky curtain across his bare chest. ‘I believe you would make that same reply to anything I were to say to you at this moment!’

  ‘Possibly.’

  ‘Ah, a different reply, after all.’

  ‘I would not wish to become boring.’ There was a smile in her voice.

  ‘I doubt you could ever be that, Elena,’ Adam murmured, and, to his surprise, meant it.

  Women had become a necessary inconvenience to him before and since Fanny had died, something Adam had need of every now and then in order to assuage his physical needs, but none of those women had been for conversation, certainly not for lying in each other’s arms once he had found his release, or sharing a conversation which did not appear to be conversation at all but what he believed to be lovers’ nonsense.

  Was that what Elena was to him now? His lover? Had he taken her as his mistress, after all, without so much as even asking her?

  Without any of the finer details of that relationship having been discussed and agreed upon?

  That very much appeared as if it might be the case.

  An occurrence he should have thought of sooner.

  Adam scowled the following morning as he walked through the capacious entrance hall and through to the breakfast room. He paused only long enough to bestow a kiss upon his grandmother’s powdered cheek, as she sat at the table drinking the herbal tea she favoured in the mornings, before turning his attention to where the array of breakfast foods were laid out in covered silver dishes and plates for his selection. Jeffries had already disappeared to the kitchen to collect the pot of strong tea he knew Adam preferred with his breakfast. His stomach gave a sickening lurch as his nostrils were assailed with the smell of the breakfast foods.

  ‘No appetite this morning, Adam?’ his grandmother prompted as he sat down opposite her at the table.

  ‘None whatsoever,’ he muttered gruffly.

  His grandmother nodded. ‘You did not sleep well?’

  Adam was uncertain as to whether or not he had slept at all after being assailed with the worst feelings of guilt once alone in his bedchamber. Guilt. And uncertainty as to what the future held, if anything, in regard to his relationship with Elena. The latter emotion was due, he knew, to his feeling out of control whenever he was with her. An iron control he had maintained over all of his emotions since shortly after his wedding to Fanny. For his own protection. A protection that he could not, dared not, allow to be pierced. Even by a woman as sweetly responsive as Elena. Especially by a woman as sweetly responsive as Elena!

  ‘Obviously not,’ his grandmother said drily. ‘Perhaps that is because you did not sleep alone?’

  Adam stiffened. ‘Grandmama!’

  ‘Adam,’ she bit back with uncharacteristic firmness. ‘I am not so old that I am unaware of a man’s desire for a woman. And my insomnia is such that I heard you and Mrs Leighton talking softly together as you passed my bedchamber late last night. Very late last night. Had the two of you arranged an assignation after I had retired?’ She arched questioning brows.

  Adam and Elena had parted outside Elena’s bedchamber, a long and lingering goodnight, neither of them in any hurry to bring the night to an end. Except Adam’s euphoria, his physical satisfaction, had ended the moment he entered his own bedchamber and realised the enormity of what he had done.

  He had not realised she had heard them and would not have wished for his grandmother to have done so if he could have helped it. ‘I do not—’

  ‘Ah, thank you, Jeffries.’ Lady Cicely turned to bestow a smile on the butler as he entered with Adam’s pot of tea.

  ‘That will be all, thank you, Jeffries,’ Adam dismissed distractedly.

  ‘Shall I pour?’ his grandmother offered once the two of them were once again alone.

  Adam scowled darkly. ‘I am quite capable of pouring my own tea, thank you, Grandmama.’

  ‘As you wish.’ She gave him a nod before continuing to sip her own cooling brew.

  Adam poured his own steaming tea from the fresh pot, his thoughts in turmoil as he contemplated his grandmother guessing what had taken place between himself and Elena the night before. It was not only embarrassing, for any man of eight and twenty to be ‘caught out’ by his own grandmother, it was also damned inconvenient.

  ‘Oh, do stop looking so po-faced, Adam,’ Lady Cicely said briskly. ‘I only mentioned the subject at all because I wished, if you intend to continue the relationship with Mrs Leighton, to offer a few words of warning.’

  Adam’s spine stiffened even further. ‘This really is not a fit conversation for the breakfast table.’

  Grey eyes twinkled at him merrily over her teacup. ‘Would you prefer I wait until luncheon?’

  ‘I would prefer that we not discuss the subject at all!’ He glared at her down the length of his nose.

  ‘I feel I must, my dear.’ She placed a hand upon his. ‘I have no wish to see you hurt or disappointed again—’

  ‘I shall not be.’

  ‘How can you be so sure?’ she asked gently. ‘Mrs Leighton is a beautiful young woman. And one whom you obviously desire. But there can be no future in such a relationship. None that would not see both of you hurt—’