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

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       CHAPTER TEN

      IT WAS LIKE DANCING.

      Eleanor wasn’t sure she should let herself fall into something that felt a little too much like a fairy tale here in the middle of a ballroom, but his mouth was on hers again and she couldn’t seem to think of anything else. Or she didn’t want to think about anything else.

      She didn’t want to think about how little she’d cared for her sister tonight, which made her feel small. Petty. Selfish beyond measure.

      But not enough to stop.

      She didn’t want to think about the fact that she’d left her room after tossing and turning for hours, and despite what she might have let Hugo think, she knew that she hadn’t been dressed like a governess should have been. Or even as a guest should have been when she’d eased her door open and crept down the hall. She been filled with a kind of despairing recklessness, a restless need that had urged her to do something with all the pent-up hurt and betrayal she’d felt after dinner. She’d convinced herself that it was an excellent idea to wander the halls of Groves House half-dressed. Hair down. Bare feet.

      Had she wanted this all along?

      But she didn’t really care if she had, because it felt like dancing.

      Hugo kissed her and he kissed her. His hands moved from the nape of her neck, smoothing their way down the line of her back, and fastened thrillingly at her hips, drawing her against him.

      He kissed her as if there was nothing else but that. Nothing in all the world but the slide of his mouth on hers.

      “I can’t get enough of you,” Hugo muttered against her lips, as if it hurt him to say that. “I can’t get enough.”

      And when he bent, then lifted her into his arms, Eleanor knew she should have protested. Nothing had made this any less wrong than it had been yesterday. Or a week ago. Or ever. She was still his employee.

      But he was Hugo Grovesmoor. And Vivi was right here, in this house, but he hadn’t chosen her.

      He’d chosen Eleanor. He’d called her beautiful and he’d kissed her, after meeting Vivi. After Vivi had launched a full-scale offensive, in fact, and gotten nowhere.

      For the first time in her life, someone had chosen Eleanor.

      She didn’t have it in her to pull away.

      Hugo carried her through the house. Eleanor had no concept of what time it was, only that the last time she’d heard the clocks chime, it had been after midnight. But as far she was concerned, the night could last forever. She hoped it would.

      She rested her head against Hugo’s wide shoulder, and let the house drift past her as he carried her. Through the halls and up the stairs that led to his private wing. And this time, he did not take her to his library, or to that dining room of his where she’d spent all evening feeling as if she didn’t exist, but further on. Down to the end of that same hall, and into the rooms that waited there.

      She had a dreamy sort of impression of magnificence. Bold, masculine furnishings, dark woods and impressively large paintings and rugs so lavish it seemed a shame to walk on them. A massive stone fireplace that made her think of medieval castles, and that was only the living room.

      But Hugo kept going. And with every step he took toward what had to be his bedroom, Eleanor’s heart kicked at her. Harder and harder.

      And then they were there, standing by the side of a massive bed that would have dwarfed a room any smaller than this one, and Hugo was shifting her. Placing her down on the edge of his mattress as if she was infinitely precious to him.

      And Eleanor felt shivery. Fragile all the way through.

      Because she couldn’t think of another time in her life that anyone had treated her like that, as if she mattered. Oh, she assumed her parents had. But the truth was that she couldn’t remember any longer. What she remembered was taking care of others.

      She tilted her face up, so she could study Hugo’s gorgeously male expression—hungry and intense—as he gazed back at her. He made her feel like she was dancing even when she was still. He made her feel small in all the best ways.

      The truth was that he made her feel like the kind of girl she’d never been. Light, airy. Charming beyond measure.

      He made her feel the way she’d always imagined it felt to be Vivi.

      Eleanor still couldn’t believe that she was the one sitting here, on the edge of the Duke’s bed. That he hadn’t picked Vivi when he’d had the chance.

      But she had no intention of throwing this away. This was her chance at last. To experience everything she never had before. To be that girl some part of her had always dreamed she could have been, maybe, if things had been different.

      “I would tell you I don’t bite, little one,” Hugo said in that smokily amused way of his. It reverberated up and down her spine, then pooled somewhere low in her belly, where it began to pulse. “But that would be a lie.”

      “I’m not afraid of you,” she managed to say.

      Hugo looked amused. Something like delighted.

      “No, you are not. And it is one among many reasons you are under my skin.” СКАЧАТЬ