throat. At the same time, he reached out to cup her breast. The warmth from his palm seared her skin, and a moment later, his mouth joined in, grazing her nipples with arousing caresses.
When he shifted his position to cover her body, however, settling his weight between her thighs, Damon raised his head to look at her. His eyes shimmered with a hot, primal haze of desire, Eleanor saw with mingled excitement and elation.
Desire churned inside her as well, along with an exquisite heat that throbbed in time with her racing pulse. She wanted him with an intensity that frightened her.
Yet she wasn't afraid when his hard arousal found the wet haven between her legs and probed her entrance. Then slowly, ever so slowly, he began his careful penetration.
His intense, dark gaze never left hers the entire time. “Tell me if you want me to stop,” he ordered softly.
“I will…”
Yet she didn't want him to stop. His powerful thighs kept her own parted as he sank lower, pressing inexorably into her, yet her body was opening willingly for him, stretching, accepting his swollen male-ness.
When at last he lay buried deep inside her, Eleanor felt overwhelmingly full of him, although she could not call the sensation painful. Her breathing had shallowed, however, and she was certain he could feel her pounding heart against the hard wall of his chest.
“Are you all right, Elle?”
The deep husk of his voice held a note of worry, but she reassured him with a faint smile.
“Yes,” she whispered truthfully. Having their flesh joined in the most intimate way possible seemed somehow right… perfect, even.
Careful and tender, Damon lay completely still, waiting for her to grow accustomed to his impalement, and after a while Eleanor realized that the coiled tension inside her was growing more urgent.
When her rigidness began to relax, Damon withdrew, then slowly slid upward once more, making her tremble, before pulling back again. He repeated his sensual action numerous times, stroking her with each gentle plunge and retreat, surging slowly, withdrawing rhythmically, coaxing her response, until instinctively her hips lifted and sought to match his pace in a dance of sweet abandon.
Her whimpers turned to moans as Damon stoked the bright flame of sensation at the center of her. His own breathing was rough as he moved inside her, yet he tempered the powerful thrust of his flesh into her, intent only on increasing her pleasure.
Eleanor was nearly sobbing now at the unbearable sweetness. Almost desperate, she strained and twisted under him as the incendiary sparks burgeoned into a conflagration. When the rush of fire crested and broke, her passion burst deep inside her in a delirium of joy and she arched against him, stunned, crying out.
He captured her wild moans with his mouth yet kept driving with the same compelling rhythm, expertly prolonging her ecstasy as wave after wave of rapture convulsed her.
Only then did Damon surrender to the same tumult that had swept Eleanor. A harsh groan ripping from his throat, he buried his face in the curve of her neck as his body wrenched and shuddered and finally went still.
Their ragged breaths quieting as the sensual reverberations waned, they clung together, weak and spent in the aftershocks of pleasure.
Damon recovered first. Raising his head, he kissed her flushed face again and again… slow, soothing, soft caresses of his lips that seared Eleanor's heart as much as his exquisite passion had done to her body.
“After all the fantasies I have had of you,” he murmured against her lips, “reality was infinitely sweeter.”
She hadn't the strength to reply, so she only smiled her agreement with her eyes still shut. Damon's weight was pressing down on her, but she had no desire to move. She only wanted to lie here, savoring his hard strength, relishing the feeling of being completely, achingly filled by him. She felt joined to Damon utterly, not just their bodies but their hearts. Their intimacy had been spectacular, hot and bold and thrilling, beyond her wildest imaginings. Yet the intense sweetness of it, the sheer enchantment, had flooded her with the same overwhelming, overpowering emotion she had known before…
Eleanor froze at a sudden, shocking realization. The yearning pouring through her was love.
She still loved Damon. She had never stopped loving him-
The sound of voices and running feet seemed to come from far away, yet it was far too close to their cocoon of silk, Eleanor noted in one dazed part of her mind.
Damon went rigid, and so did she upon comprehending that they would not be alone for much longer.
He voiced a soft oath before carefully easing off her and fishing in his coat pocket for a handkerchief. “I was afraid this might happen.”
Then offering her a rueful smile, he began to wipe away the traces of his seed from her thighs and his loins. “We had best repair our dishevelment, Elle, and quickly, since I suspect we are about to be interrupted by the local citizenry.”
Eleanor was still reeling with the shock of her realization, but the awkwardness of being caught in flagrante delicto with Damon took precedence. They scrambled to right their clothing moments before several tenant farmers from the nearby fields came running to investigate the startling phenomenon from the skies.
Once the sagging balloon had been pulled off the basket and Damon calmly explained their predicament, the farmers offered to take them to the local squire's manor so they could borrow a carriage. But he declined, possibly, Eleanor surmised, because the fewer members of the gentry who saw them just now, the better.
Instead, Damon offered one farmer a substantial fee to convey them back to London in his cart and promised to pay another lavishly for returning the balloon.
Eleanor still had not recovered from her recent shock when they began the long drive to London. She was still in love with Damon, heaven help her. Since the moment he'd reappeared in her life, she had fought her emotions, struggled to crush any lingering feelings she still held for him, to no avail.
And she had just compounded her error by making love to him and giving him her innocence.
Eleanor squeezed her eyes shut, assailed by regrets and self-recriminations. Now that their enchanted lovers’ spell was broken, she felt like an utter fool. She must have been mad to surrender to her yearning for Damon.
What in heavens name would she do now? She couldn't tell him how she felt, of course. It would be too hurtful when he rejected her love.
She had to get away from him, that much was certain. She was much too vulnerable to him now, loving him when her love wasn't returned.
Yet that wasn't the most urgent issue at the moment. Over a hundred people had watched them fly off into the skies together. They needed to decide how best to avert the possible negative repercussions. They couldn't discuss the matter just now in front of the farmer, however.
As for Damon, he remained mostly silent during the journey. Whenever Eleanor caught his eye, his enigmatic expression gave her no clue to what he was thinking or feeling, or if he was experiencing similar regrets.
Perhaps he was merely concocting a story to explain their long absence, she thought hopefully. By the time the farmer set them down in Portman Place in the early afternoon, they had been gone for nearly four hours.
“Damon,” Eleanor began in a low voice as he escorted her up the front steps of the Beldon mansion. “My aunt will doubtless be unhappy about today's mishap, even though it was beyond our control. I think we should emphasize that we were discovered shortly after we landed.”
Damon's expression remained inscrutable, although his tone was strangely nonchalant. “Allow me to deal with her, Elle.”
As it turned out, Eleanor was given little chance to comply. When they were admitted by a footman, her Aunt Beatrix came rushing into the entrance hall from the nearest parlor, as if she'd been waiting on pins and needles for any news of the lost aeronauts.
“Thank God!” Beatrix exclaimed, flinging her arms around Eleanor. “Oh, my dear girl, I was frantic with worry. I feared you might have been killed.”
Eleanor had never seen her aunt so agitated or so effusive in her display of affection, either. “The danger was not as grave as it might have been, Auntie. Lord Wrexham safely navigated the balloon to land in a field, and then we were rescued by some farmers.”
At the mention of Damon's name, Beatrix stiffened and drew back, the profound relief on her face turning to disdain as she shifted her attention to him.
