“I’m not sure that’s legal,” Elijah said. His voice was husky and dark, and ran like brandy through her blood. He didn’t sound like Pitt’s opposition in the Lords, like the bright young hope who would save the English nation.
“I’d like you to—to touch my breasts, just as I did your chest.” She’d never said such a thing out loud, and she had to steady her voice. “If you would be so kind. And I want you to tell me what it feels like.”
“Tell you how it feels for me?”
“Talk to me,” she said, sliding flat and stretching her arms above her head to the wooden headboard.
“Tell me what you feel, since you can’t see my breasts. I loved what you told me in the baths.”
She felt maddened with desire, waiting for the touch of his hands. When finally—finally!—she felt strong hands cup both breasts, she let out an involuntary moan. And when he started moving his thumbs, she found herself shaking, her breath coming fast.
“Tell me,” she gasped.
“You have the most beautiful breasts in the world,” he said, and the guttural sound of his voice told her everything she needed to know. He was being a little rough now, and she couldn’t help twisting up against his touch. “I can’t feel well enough with my hands to describe you, so…”
His lips set trails of fire across her body. He spoke the whole time, talking of sweet curves and cherry something, but she wasn’t listening. Without her eyesight, her body seemed to have taken over. She couldn’t stop moving, twisting under his hands and his mouth, begging silently.
It was hard, surprisingly hard, to remember the chessboard. But she did, and they played on, until:
“Bishop takes Knight,” Elijah said, his voice dark and sweet.
“My turn,” she said with a gasp, breaking free. She found his head with her hands and pulled him down to her lips. “Kiss me,” she breathed.
Elijah’s kisses were like words. This kiss was a rough caress, a controlled warning from the pirate king to the maiden. Tremors of fire crept down to Jemma’s stomach.
“Queen takes Bishop,” she said, shocked to hear the hunger in her own voice.
“I’ll take a kiss like this,” he whispered, and he thrust his hardness against the cradle of her legs. Their kiss was like a fire in the blood. Jemma found herself instinctively arching against him.
“Pawn to Queen’s Rook’s Three,” Elijah murmured.
Then she tried to remember what move should come next. She knew it all…she knew the next move. But just when she almost remembered, Elijah ran a hand down her body and her mind went blank. Was it a pawn she meant to move? To take his bishop, perhaps?
He stretched toward the table, and his body shifted deliciously against her. She was thinking about that, and trying to ignore the urgent signals her body was sending, when she suddenly gave a little scream. Elijah must have drunk from the Champagne bottle because cold lips slid across her throat.
Her skin felt as if it were burning. “No,” she gasped, turning her head toward him.
“It’s not your turn to ask for a kiss,” he said, laughter running through his voice. “Not even if you beg, Duchess.”
“I never beg!” Jemma said, instantly remembering the move she planned. “Knight takes Bishop. Your boon.”
A cold tongue ran shockingly up her throat.
“Oh—”
His lips trailed fire and ice across her cheek and hovered at the corner of her mouth. She opened her mouth, but his lips evaded hers. “I’ll have you begging,” he said. “That’s what I want, more than a boon.”
“Oh—”
“Rook takes Knight,” he whispered in her ear.
The very sound of his voice turned Jemma’s legs to sweet fire. She tried to think of the next move, the one that was going to smash his game and win her the top spot in the Chess Club. He was braced over her, nuzzling her chin. He smelled wonderful, like clean male. His lips were tracing patterns on her cheeks.
She couldn’t think. The only thing she wanted to do was tear off the blindfold and run her hands into his hair. Kiss him again, and again.
“Your move!” he commanded. She didn’t answer, and she felt his ripple of laughter as clearly in her body as in his.
Jemma suddenly realized something that she should have known all along.
There are times where winning at chess doesn’t matter. She loved Elijah. She loved him with all her heart—and that meant that she wanted him to win. Or rather, she didn’t care. She didn’t have to win every game of chess.
“You win,” she said huskily, and gave him a free kiss, one that had nothing to do with boons or chess pieces.