Only when he was halfway there did he see the folly in his decision. He should have gone straight up to Elaine. He should be making certain that Holbrook didn’t follow through with his implied threats. Turning around mid-stride, Owen took the back stairs two at a time, heading up to the abbey’s old dormitories where he and Elaine shared interconnecting rooms.
Without bothering to knock, he pushed open the door and came to an immediate stand-still. Elaine turned around, wide-eyed, halfway dressed in some gauzy, almost sheer nightrail and stockings. She wore a long string of pearls, wrapped three times around her neck, and her blonde hair was still pulled into its knot above her shoulders-but his wife had nothing else on. She was still pulling the garment into place with the assistance of the two ladies she’d left with.
He caught the briefest glimpse of one lovely, pink nipple before it was swallowed up by the fabric. His heart tripped into his throat at the thought of swallowing such a divine little bud. “I’m so sorry to interrupt, ladies,” Owen choked out. He took a step backward, then forced himself to turn away from the intoxicating sight.
“ No need to leave, Lord Raynesford,” one of her friends called out after him. “Lady Lipscombe and I were just on our way out.” The two dark-haired women scurried past him, the smaller of them turning and winking at him just before closing the door.
For several moments, Owen stood rooted to the floor in just that position. What on earth was going on? Why had they been with Elaine, helping her put on something so delectable and immodest, something so very different from anything she’d worn in his presence before? He fought to slow his pulse, lest he turn around and ravish her more thoroughly than he’d ever done before, though it seemed a lost cause to even attempt such a thing.
“ Owen?” she said timidly from behind him.
The delicate tips of her fingers landed almost imperceptibly on the bend of his elbow, yet he was so alert to her every bewitching movement it felt like a horse had just thrown him. With faint steps, she moved deliberately to stand before him, robbing him of the ability to breathe. The top of her nightrail hung loose, giving him a painfully clear view of her bosom, the pert nipples straining beneath his gaze.
Stretching up on her tiptoes, Elaine pulled him down to meet her lips in a searing kiss. He growled deep in his throat and wrapped his arms tight around her waist, pulling her against the erection already straining at his breeches, but she pushed against him, resuming the previous distance between them.
“ Not so fast,” she murmured, drawing her tongue against the line of his jaw and stretching it beneath his chin. “I thought we’d do things a little differently tonight.”
THREE
Elaine wasn’t sure if that was a groan or a growl coming from her husband. Either way, she rushed on before she lost the little bit of courage she’d built up. She said a quick prayer that she wouldn’t regret listening to Vivi and Judith.
“ Tonight,” she said, “it’s going to be my way.” Reaching up with her hands, she undid the knot of his cravat and then pulled him by it over to the bergere chair next to her canopied bed. Thankfully, he followed. She wasn’t certain what she would have done if he didn’t cooperate.
His hands came about her waist again, and she minced out of his reach, then turned him around and pushed him down into the chair.
“ You’re to sit there.”
Owen’s blue-grey eyes were clouded with lust in the flickering glow of candlelight, but that was nothing new or unexpected. He’d always had a healthy amount of lust for her. Elaine just wanted him to exercise it in a different manner.
Backing up a few steps, she pulled the pins from her hair and shook her head, letting the mass of blonde hair fall free about her. It came nearly to her waist. Owen had once begged her never to cut it again, because he loved it so much. On more than just the rare occasion, she would awake at night with him drawing his fingers through the length. Even now, his breathing turned rough.
She met his gaze and held it as she sat on the edge of the bed. Then, doing as Vivi had encouraged her to do, Elaine lifted one leg up onto the bed, almost allowing him a glimpse of her secret places but not quite, and slowly rolled the stocking down her leg. She watched her husband the entire time, amazed by how such a simple matter could so enthrall him. He was quite nearly drooling at the sight, yet he remained where she’d placed him. His body was tense and taut, like he might burst at any moment.
When the first stocking was free, Elaine lowered it to the floor again and then repeated the procedure with the opposite leg and stocking. The tent in Owen’s trousers was quite a sight to behold, straining against his buttons in a manner she couldn’t recall ever witnessing before.
As she methodically removed the stocking from her calf, Owen gripped the arms of the chair so tight his knuckles nearly turned white.
Watching his reaction was all it took to make her breath falter. Elaine’s pulse raced through her veins and she trembled from the heat of his stare. Somehow, she kept her wits about her enough to smile at him.
She inhaled and tried to calm herself enough to speak. “I thought it might be nice to slow down some.” Grazing tentative fingers over the insides of her thighs, she drew ever nearer to her sex, his eyes following her trail the entire way. The tips of her fingers disappeared beneath the hem of her nightrail for a moment. “Is this all right?”
“ This is torture,” Owen growled.
Elaine laughed then, surprised at the husky quality of her own voice. She dropped both feet to the floor and glided across to him. Immediately, he reached out for her, but she batted his hands away. “No touching. Not yet.”
He groaned and locked his hands even tighter to the chair arms.
She knelt at his feet and pulled off his boots, tossing them to the side of the room so they’d be out of the way. Then she undid the buttons on his coat and waistcoat and lowered them over his shoulders. “Care to help me get these off?” she asked when she couldn’t get them past the death-grip he had on the chair.
He leapt to his feet and almost ripped the garments in his haste to remove them.
“ Slow down, Owen.” Elaine put a hand on his stomach and his shaft twitched enough that it tugged against his clothing.
He calmed his movements and somehow pulled the coat free without destroying it. As soon as he’d done that, she pushed him back down in his chair.
Elaine moved around behind the chair and leaned down over him. She nibbled his earlobe while tugging his shirt free from his breeches. “Arms up,” she commanded. As soon as he was bare-chested, she ran both hands over his chiseled muscles, teased his hardened nipples with her fingers, tangled them in the trail of hair down his navel until his legs were twitching with the strain of holding himself back.
She smoothed her hands lower still, until her fingers just slid beneath the top of his breeches, and he shot up from the chair, moving halfway across the room in a single movement.
“ This torment is madness.” His voice sounded carnal and animalistic, so much wilder than she’d ever heard him before. Owen stood, staring at her, his chest heaving an irregular pattern with the force of his tattered breathing.
With an air of audaciousness she didn’t know she possessed, Elaine lifted a brow. “Sit down, Owen. I haven’t finished with you, yet.”
Remarkably, he returned to the chair and sat, twining his arms through the wooden arms of the chair as though to force himself to remain still.
She moved back in front of him and straddled his hips, blazing a trail down his chest with her tongue. He sucked in a breath, his muscles quivering everywhere she touched him. When she circled one of his nipples with her tongue and then pressed her lips over it, suckling it inside her mouth, he shouted into the night.
Lifting herself up off of him, Elaine raised the hem of her nightrail and slowly, tantalizingly, pulled it free from her body and over her head.
