She’d sustained him in the dark, and now he needed sustenance again.

Elliot drew his tongue across her lips, touching the moisture behind them when they parted. Juliana’s hands came up to cup his elbows, fingers sinking into his biceps through his coat.

He kissed across her lips, every inch of them, then moved to her cheek, kissing the skin he had the privilege to touch. In the darkness, in the pain, the memory of her kiss had wound comfort through the agony. She’d never know—he never would find the words to explain—how many times she’d saved his life.

I need you.

Elliot moved to the shell of her ear, brushing it with the tip of his tongue. Juliana made a soft noise in her throat as he closed his teeth on her earlobe.

He was seducing her again, but she’d seduced him every night of those months he’d been lost. He’d longed each day for the torture to cease, for his captors to ignore him for stretches of time, because then he could sink into a stupor and be with his visions of Juliana.

They never could make Elliot forget her, because they didn’t know about her. Her name had never crossed his lips. Juliana was his secret, his soul.

And now she was real.

He sucked her earlobe gently into his mouth, liking the way she shivered under his touch. He loved the scent of her, the taste of her, and he’d never be able to have enough.

Elliot kissed his way back to her mouth, one tiny kiss at a time, until he opened her lips and stroked across her tongue. He loved her tongue. He trapped it with his teeth, then he gently suckled it.

Juliana made another quiet noise of pleasure, and Elliot kept suckling, liking the friction, taste, and heat of her mouth. He let her go and reached for the whiskey decanter, pouring more into his goblet.

He touched the goblet to her lips until she took a little into her mouth, then he plunged his mouth across hers and scooped up the whiskey with his tongue.

Her eyes were soft when Elliot drew back. “What are you doing?” she asked.

“Savoring you.”

“Oh.” Her flush, the little word, made his body tighten.

Elliot touched the goblet to her lips again. This time Juliana sipped then closed her eyes as Elliot imbibed the whiskey from her.

Again and again he slid the best McGregor single malt into her mouth; again and again, he drank from her. He was a man dying of thirst, and Juliana was his vessel.

When the goblet was empty, Juliana smiled up at him, her blue eyes warm, her hair mussed. “You’re going to get me tipsy.”

Elliot kissed her one more time without answering. He skimmed his fingers down her throat, bare for evening, the creamy silk bodice hugging her shoulders and bosom. Female fashion had always baffled him—ladies were buttoned up to their chins during the day but décolletages might barely cover their nipples at night.

All the better for him. Elliot unhooked her bodice in the back and took the half sleeves down her arms, revealing the bow at the top of her corset, the coy lace of chemise beneath that.

Juliana’s father was a wealthy man, and Juliana wore rich clothing, all the way down to her skin. The silk of the bodice he parted caught on the rough tips of Elliot’s fingers, the lawn of the corset cover smooth and embroidered with silk flowers.

Elliot loosened the corset’s laces and pulled them out, opening the cage and lifting it away. The chemise beneath billowed free, its lawn folds as soft as the gown’s silk.

Easy to untie the ribbon holding the chemise closed and slide it down, bunching the fabrics of chemise and bodice at her waist.

Juliana watched him more in curiosity than trepidation as Elliot poured another measure of single malt into the goblet. He lifted it to her and trickled whiskey across her collarbone, the amber liquid trailing down to her bared breasts and abdomen.

Juliana gasped. “Elliot, my gown…”

Elliot barely heard her. He leaned down to her, licking the whiskey from her skin, following it to the heat between her breasts. He tasted and drank, closing his mouth over her breast to suck.

He left marks where his teeth and tongue had been, decorating Juliana’s bosom. She’d have to wear higher-necked gowns now, but Elliot didn’t care. She could wrap herself in a sedate package that she unwrapped only for him.

He licked her clean, slowly easing her backward onto the table, until she lay on the tabletop, her small bustle squashed to one side, her skirts rucked up.

He upended the rest of the goblet, lifting it high so the whiskey splashed down on her. Juliana squealed, then laughed.

She stopped laughing when Elliot leaned on top of her, licking, tasting, kissing her lips before moving back to lick every droplet from her breasts.

He paused at her nipples, light pink brown against her creamy skin. He scooped up the droplets there, then closed his mouth over each nipple in turn.

Juliana clung to the edge of the table, her legs parted around Elliot’s hips, a wild feeling building and building inside her. She felt it most between her thighs, but the hot tingling under his mouth made her almost as insane.

His eyes were half closed, his brows drawn in concentration. The hand over her right breast was scarred and hard, the back of it crisscrossed with scars and sun-streaked hair.

Juliana stroked the hair on his head, liking how the bristly ends caressed her fingers. He was more beautiful now, she decided, after being banged about and repaired, than he had been in his untouched youth.

Elliot raised his head, his eyes a flash of hot gray. His next kiss pressed her hard onto the table, Elliot coming full length on her.

He kissed her thoroughly, every stroke of his tongue, every caress of his lips deliberate, taking. Juliana chased his tongue with hers, wanton and not caring.

Just when she thought he’d back away, perhaps help her dress enough so they could go upstairs, Elliot pulled her upright by the wrists. He took her all the way off the table, standing her against him, while his hands went to the back of her skirt.

“I want this off,” he said. “All of it. I can’t touch you with this stupid bustle in the way.”

Juliana fumbled with the catches that fastened her bodice to her skirt, overskirt to underskirt, skirts to bustle.

The bustle itself Elliot loosened with impatient jerks to the hooks, and Juliana knew she’d be sewing them back on again later. He dropped the wire form to the floor, where it settled with a clatter much as Hamish’s bagpipes had.

Next came the drawers; easy to unbutton and slide off. Now Juliana was bare, in her dining room, exposed by the light of the few candles. She still wore her stockings, white silk tied with silk garters, and her favorite beaded slippers.

Elliot set her on the table again. His hand went to his waistband, and he unpinned the yards of tartan that wrapped his waist, to reveal himself hard and fully extended beneath.

He spread the plaid on the table behind Juliana and lowered her onto it, then he scooted her hips to the edge of the table, positioned himself, and slid straight into her.

Chapter 10

Again the sensation of rightness filled Elliot, rising over even the excitement of the sex. Not that entering Juliana’s heat and moisture didn’t pleasure him. Mindlessly so.