The Earl With the Secret Tattoo by Kieran Kramer

her knees. “It’s a stunning picture.” She fumbled with her
     own ties and shimmied out of the top of her gown. Silent as a mouse, she removed her
     stays. “A circle of three cats, their tails intertwined in the center of the circle.
     Tell me about them.”
    And so he did. He told her a wonderful story about how the Celtic cat design had come
     to her father in a dream and he’d woken up and quickly sketched it to represent the
     men of the Brotherhood. The cat was the legendary guardian of the secrets of the hidden
     realm—clever, silent, and stoic. Three cats with their tails intertwined represented
     the unity of those who’d chosen to serve their country without public recognition.
    “How fitting for Papa and you. Did everyone in the Brotherhood get the tattoo?”
    “No,” James said, warming to the subject. “Only I.”
    “Really?” she said, feeling a bit breathy. “It makes a special bond between you and
     Papa, doesn’t it?”
    “That was my intention.”
    “Ah! That makes me very happy. But for now let’s not talk about the Brotherhood or the tattoo.” What she
     was about to do was extremely daring. And naughty. “Let’s talk of you. Of us .”
    And she wrapped her arms around James’s back and squeezed him tight. The feeling of
     her breasts pressed against his hot, naked form was exquisite.
    He almost flinched but caught himself. Instead, just like a man, he tried to get control
     of the situation by grabbing her forearms. “You minx,” he said on a groan. “What happened
     to your gown?”
    “It’s around my hips,” she said, and kissed the back of his neck.
    “Not for long,” he said, and twisted around to kiss her.
    Ah, she thought. Love was a heady, wondrous banquet—and she had James with whom to share
     it. She reached for the hard length of him beneath his taut breeches and squeezed
     gently.
    “What shall I do with it?” she whispered as she stroked him with a slow, burning anticipation.
    “Nothing,” he croaked, and kissed her. “It’s you I want to touch, you I want to bring
     to pleasure again.”
    “I want that, too,” she said. “But I also want to do the same for you. I want to see
     you as euphoric as you make me.” Without asking permission, she went to work on unfastening
     his breeches, which annoyed her at the moment as they were preventing her further
     explorations of his athletic form.
    “Don’t,” he said.
    She laughed. “That was the most insincere don’t I’ve ever heard.”
    He chuckled. “Perhaps it was.” Then he grabbed her wrist and pulled it up. “Fine,”
     he whispered. “But you first .”
    He took her other wrist, too, and laid her down on the carpet. His eyes sparked with
     an appealing masculine triumph that sent shivers through her.
    “Have it your way, then,” she said softly.
    “I shall.” His tone was silky.
    A thrill went through her.
    She couldn’t help a nervous giggle when he pulled her already rumpled gown off her
     body and then her silky drawers. His next surprising move was to spread her legs with
     sure hands and kiss the inside of her thighs, pausing only to run his tongue in light,
     lazy circles that moved ever closer to her most sensitive flesh.
    The next thing she knew, Eleanor was in Heaven, or as close as she could come to it
     while still on earth.
    In London.
    Beneath Aunt Phillipa’s attic bedchamber.
    And in Mother’s stuffy drawing room, which would never look the same to her again.
    <#>
    Eleanor was in a love stupor. That was all she could think to call it when she and
     James strolled through Hyde Park an hour later. Could anyone tell how happy they were?
     Did they sense that mere moments ago, the two of them had been naked and prostrate
     on the rug in her mother’s very proper drawing room?
    Could they tell that she’d kissed the Earl of Tumbridge’s tattoo? That she’d managed
     to get his breeches off, after all, and stroked that marvelous creation between his
     legs until he’d