Demon of Mine (18 page)

He massaged her nipple slowly,
dragging the pad of his thumb over the hardened peak. She barely
felt the delicate sleeves of the wedding gown slip over her
shoulders, falling below her breasts to where the wide ribbon
cinched the dress. “The gown flatters you, Elsie. You were
beautiful at the church today.”

“
Thank you,” she answered
breathlessly as he pinched her nipple lightly, sending a thrill
through her core. She arched her back against him, pressing her
breast into the hollow of his cupped hand. The way he responded,
kneading the soft mound, sent dual waves of confidence and
eagerness rolling through her.

“
I was in such a hurry that
I forgot to tell you at the time. I’m sorry.”

She shook her head, sighing as he
pulled the ribbon free and the loosened gown pooled around her hips
on the bed. “You were worried.”

He cupped both of her breasts and
pulled her back against his chest, pressing his cheek against the
top of her head as he held her firmly, his palms snug against her
breasts. “Yes, and with good cause. But I wish I could have done
things properly. No bride wants to be given away by a
footman.”

She arched her back against him again,
tipping her head back to rest on his shoulder. Her lips brushed his
ear as she spoke. “I don’t care. Honestly. You forget that I was
but a housemaid only days ago. Our wedding was more than I ever
dared to dream of.”

“
Modest expectations, for
such a beautiful woman.” He relinquished his hold on one of her
breasts, trailing his fingertips over her belly, reaching for the
apex between her hips.

She wanted to laugh at his
ridiculously flattering comment almost as badly as she wanted to
open her thighs and thrust her sex into his hand, but she could do
neither. A sour feeling churned the tea in her stomach as she
remembered the man who had crushed her girlish romantic hopes and
educated her on her options in life – Lord Wilkes. She slumped
against Damon, letting her body mold to his as her sureness
ebbed.

Damon was so kind and noble that he’d
probably never suspected that she hadn’t been a virgin when he’d
taken her in the rose garden. Knowing that he thought himself her
first lover weighed on her heart almost as heavily as the fact that
he was not. What would he think if he knew she’d taken a couple of
careless tumbles with a rakish lord who cared nothing for her? The
idea of disappointing Damon with the truth made her feel guilty in
a way that Jenny’s berating lectures never had. But what choice did
she have? She wouldn’t deceive the man who’d bared his own dark
secrets to her, who’d given her his name and his promise to cherish
her for the rest of his immortal life.

Her husband’s hand rested in her lap,
his fingertips entwined in her soft curls. Heat pulsed in her core,
begging for release. It would be so easy to open her legs to him,
so simple to lose herself in a few moments of the ecstasy that his
touch would bring. Stifling a moan, she held her legs firmly shut.
Thoughtful lover that he was, he simply waited, pressing a kiss
against the side of her neck. Her voice trembled as she spoke, and
her tingling body threatened to follow suit. “Damon, I must confess
something.”

“
What is it,
love?”

She really did tremble at the sound of
the endearment. Hopefully he would be furious. Anger she could take
some sinner’s solace in, but if he was only disappointed… She
wouldn’t be able to bear his calm suffering. Nipping the soft
inside of her lip, she forced herself to speak before she could
lose courage. “When you made love to me in the rose garden three
days ago, I was not a virgin.” She swallowed the last of her
inhibitions and continued. “You were not my first lover.” Steeling
herself for his reaction, she stiffened, waiting for him to snatch
his hands away from her hips and breasts.

“
I know,” he said
simply.

“
You knew?” Of course she
hadn’t bled when he’d taken her, but between the darkness, the
grass and the blood-frenzy, it hadn’t occurred to her that he might
notice. And perhaps he hadn’t – perhaps her eagerness had given her
away. No virgin would have been so forward, so anxious to feel him
sink his cock into her body. Surely only someone who’d had a taste
of carnal pleasure before would have been so uninhibited. By God,
he probably thought she’d made a habit of throwing herself at
strange men!

He kept his hands on her body, his
gentle touch at odds with the anger he surely had to be feeling.
“Yes.”

Perhaps he wouldn’t have said anymore
about it, had Elsie summoned the grace to drop the matter, but she
couldn’t stand the thought of him slipping into the quiet
displeasure she feared. Besides that, her own curiosity refused to
be thwarted. She had to know how she’d shamed herself. “How did you
know?”

Finally, his hands tightened on her
body, his caresses turning into possessive grasps that caused her
womb to tighten, even as she dreaded his answer. “I overheard Lord
Wilkes boasting about stealing your virginity a year
ago.”

Because she’d seen her reflection in a
dressing mirror that morning, she knew she now possessed the same
perfect pallor Damon and his family members were known for. Had she
not already been so pale, her face surely would have gone white. A
part of her wanted to sink down into the mattress and out of sight.
If Damon’s touch hadn’t been anchoring her to him, claiming her,
she might have tried. The explanations she’d imagined for Damon’s
knowledge were nothing compared to the truth. She blinked back the
nervous tears that were stinging the backs of her eyes, unable to
admit that she’d never felt so ashamed.

“
Do you have any idea how
hard it was not to kill him?” Damon asked, his voice rough. “How
disgusted I was with myself?”

“
What?” Elsie blinked as a
rebellious tear slid down her cheek. She let it fall, too
embarrassed to wipe it away. Surely he meant to say that he’d been
disgusted with her.

“
Don’t think I’ve forgiven
myself,” he continued. “Don’t think I’m not sorry.”

Elsie trembled, trying to make sense
of what he was saying as she fought a losing battle against her
tears.

Without warning, Damon gripped her
below the shoulders and turned her to face him. She tried to look
away, down at her naked thighs, but his intense gaze held hers
captive. Her bottom fit snugly into his lap, its roundness pressed
tight against his erection as her nipples grazed his chest,
puckering rebelliously. “My God,” he said as his mouth twisted in
an uncharacteristic grimace, “did you really think I’d be angry
with you?”

Dumbfounded, she nodded. “Aren’t
you?”

“
No!” He tightened his grip
on her arms, perhaps unintentionally. “How could I possibly blame
you?”

 “
It wasn’t as if it
was rape,” she replied, worrying that Damon had managed to glean a
false impression of her relations with Lord Wilkes and that she’d
have to confess her guilt all over again.

“
If it had been, I would
not have suffered him to live,” Damon replied, his voice suddenly
hard. “But that’s irrelevant. By keeping my distance from you, I
allowed him to take advantage of you – an innocent girl. If I’d
admitted my love for you and approached you before, none of it
would have ever happened.”

“
Is there anything you
don’t blame yourself for?” Elsie asked. Guilt over her own actions
was bad enough – the added responsibility for Damon’s sense of
self-blame was unbearable.

He tensed against her.
“I
am
to blame for
many things, including what Lord Wilkes did to you.”

She tried to protest, but he cut her
off. “He might have hurt you, might have gotten you with child. It
would have been my fault if he’d ruined your life.”

At last Elsie’s guilt gave way to
irritation. Twisting, she pulled herself from his grasp. “No!
You’re being ridiculous, Damon. I’m not proud of it now, but I went
to bed with him willingly. If it bothers you, I wish you’d be angry
with me.”

Elsie bore the silence that stretched
between them until she could stand it no longer. “You seem to think
yourself the demon people say you are, but you’re not. You’ve done
more good than most, and certainly more for me than I deserve. I
won’t begrudge you this irritation. If you regret that I did not
come to you a virgin, say it.”

He sighed. “I do regret it. But only
because I can’t bear the thought of anyone treating you like an
amusement to be enjoyed and tossed aside. You’re so much more than
that to me.” He wrapped his arms around her waist and pulled her
against his chest again. “Of course I’m not angry with you. You
were seeking the affection I should have shown you long ago, and I
can’t blame you for that.”

Relief washed through her, and she
relaxed against him as the tension drained from her muscles. “I
think we’ve just had our first argument.”

He rubbed a hand down the length of
her back, caressing her from shoulder to hip. “I suppose we have.
What is it that married couples do after a fight, then?”

“
I imagine they say that
they love each other.”

He settled a hand on her hip, where it
fit against the curve as if it had been made to rest there. “I do
love you, Elsie. And not just because we’re married now. I’ve loved
you for seven years.”

“
I love you too,” she said
breathlessly, “though for seven years I tried to convince myself
that I did not.” Had she ever truly believed that her feelings for
Damon were only mere infatuation? She knew now that had been a lie
she’d told herself in hopes of sparing her own feelings. Unrequited
love was torture; a sort of slow death of the heart she hadn’t
wished to subject herself to. But as a girl, she’d loved Damon for
saving her from an orphan’s dismal life, and deep down, she’d never
stopped. Now, she loved him as her husband.

“
No more of that, I hope,”
Damon remarked, a hint of humor in his voice.

“
Never. I think we should
kiss now. I mean, I think that’s the married thing to do.” She
smiled at him.

He leaned over her, pressing a hand
behind her head as he lowered her gently onto the mattress. “I
think we should do much more than that.” He pressed his lips
against hers.

Beneath the herbal tang the tea had
left in his mouth, he tasted surprisingly sweet – both delicate and
sharp at once, but not cloying. Traces of blood gave the taste an
edge that sent a shiver of desire down Elsie’s spine. How had she
never tasted it before? It seemed her sense of taste had improved
along with her vision. She entwined her tongue with his, reveling
in the enhanced sensation. Did she taste the same way to
him?

Perhaps so. He shifted his hips
against hers, showing her the hardness she’d incited.

She arched her hips in response,
gasping as his erection dipped into the hollow between them and
ground against her sensitive mound. “Are you ever going to take
these off?” she thought aloud, splaying a hand over the front of
his pantaloons and running a thumb up the length of the stiff rod
beneath.

“
With pleasure,” he
groaned, reaching down to negotiate the strained fabric.

The front fall fell away, revealing
the pale, gracefully muscled lines of his hipbones. Between them,
his cock reached for her, long and hard. It was perfectly angled,
ready to slide into her eager body. Seized by an irresistible
impulse, she arched her hips, raising her slick folds to meet his
erection. The blunt tip pressed perfectly against her swollen nub,
and she moaned as a jolt of heat struck her core. She was damp
enough that his cock slipped against her flesh, sending a second
wave of core-tightening pleasure through her before the first had
even ended. She was more than ready for him, but an even stronger
desire stopped her from thrusting her hips against him again in
demand. With a sigh, she dropped her bottom to the
mattress.

“
Is something wrong?” Damon
breathed, a note of concern sounding in his voice, which had gone
distinctly husky.

She swallowed her inhibitions and
confessed. “I was thinking of that night when I watched you from
behind the dressing screen.”

A low moan rose from somewhere deep in
his chest, sounding vaguely like ‘yes’. Taking a deep breath, he
spoke in a decidedly more understandable tone. “Does the memory
bother you?”

“
Always, but not in the way
you mean.”

Another moan, and he lowered his groin
to hers, letting his cock rest on the bed of curls between her
hips. Resisting the urge to shift against him, she continued. “I
watched every second of it. I couldn’t look away. I… I was
certainly not in the habit of voyeurism, but the more I saw, the
more I longed for you, until I feared my heart might break from the
wanting.”

“
What is your intention in
telling me this?” he asked lowly. “If it is to encourage me to take
you now, you are succeeding.”

“
I do want that,” she
gasped as he shifted his hips against hers, sinking her bottom into
the mattress, “but there is something else I want
first.”

“
Anything.”

“
I want to see your body.
All of it. That’s what I was trying to tell you. I’ve been thinking
of it ever since that night, remembering what I saw and dreaming
about the rest.” Memories of his leanly muscled torso and broad
shoulders teased her. The sight of him stripped bare to the waist
with the front fall of his pantaloons open to expose his stiff cock
had been the most enticing thing she’d ever seen. What would it be
like to see him stretched on the bed, naked and hard for her? She’d
wondered many a time. Why did asking make her feel like dropping
her gaze? He was her husband, after all.