Oath

by K. J. Jackson

  His palm slammed onto the stones by her head. “Dammit, Liv, I was on my way to you.”

  She cringed, leaning away, her eyes squinting shut against his ferocity.

  He dropped her wrist, stepping back, yet his words remained a low roar, repeating his words. “I was on my way to you.”

  She opened her eyes only to see revulsion on his face. Revulsion that gutted her. “And I had already given up on you.”

  He stared at her, unflinching.

  She had to gasp a breath just to force it past her cinched throat. “I can see the disgust in your eyes, Tieran. The disgust you have for me. For the taint that still haunts me.”

  “You were never tainted, Liv.” Tieran moved to her, grasping both of her shoulders, his blue eyes intent on hers. His voice still growled, but she could hear him attempt to keep control. “Whatever it is you think you see in me in this moment, Liv, you are wrong.”

  He exhaled a long breath, looking up at the top of the haphazard stones on the wall, his head shaking. His look dropped to her. “Do you want to know how I truly view you, Liv?”

  With a sharp inhale, Liv held her breath, staring up at Tieran. Did she want to know? Would it even be possible to bear to hear how she disgusted him? Did it even matter? If he said the words, said them out loud, then she could be done with him. The air emptied between them, and she could move forth without always wondering, without hoping that someday their paths would entwine again.

  She nodded.

  His chest rose with a deep breath as he centered his gaze on her, the rawness of his look searing into her soul. “The very first moment I saw you, Liv, hiding along that stone staircase in Cheshire. In that moment, you were innocence. You were tall and beautiful and sparkling in the way only a sixteen-year-old could be. You were soft and gentle and soused and charming and bold—even as you were hiding from the world. There was not a flicker of fear in your eyes when you looked at me—you were only curious.”

  His palms on her shoulders slid inward, resting along her skin as his fingers wrapped behind her neck. “You glowed, Liv. A present meant for me alone. I knew it the second I saw you. A present to unwrap, layer by layer, with countless surprises. Innocence. That is how I saw you then. And against my own common sense, that is how I see you still.”

  “Yet the things that have happened—”

  “It is how I see you, Liv, as much as I would prefer not to. As much as I have wanted to let the malice I have harbored for you over the years poison everything I felt for you—it could never overcome the fact that at the core of all of my thoughts, I see you and I still think innocence—I feel the innocence.”

  His eyes on hers terrified her, the depth of what he said, what he believed. Yet she held his gaze, even more afraid of what would happen if she looked away. She was no innocent. He had to know none of what he believed was true, and he was only lying to himself in attempt to make it real—to go back to a past that had long since disappeared.

  The frigid shaking of her body started again, clattering her teeth. “It is not real, Tieran—what you think of me. That innocence you see in me vanished years ago.”

  The corners of his eyes lifted, sparking into a smile that did not make way to his mouth, his lips remaining in a staunch line. “I am not a fool, Liv. And I am not asking you to be a girl of sixteen again. Of course I see the wariness in your eyes, the suspicion of all those around you. But that innocence is still alive in you. I can see it, even if you cannot.”

  Her hands lifted, wobbly, and she wrapped her fingers around his wrists. “I am a caustic widow—capable only of destruction.”

  “You don’t believe that of yourself, Liv. It may be easier for you to have everyone think that, but it is not you.”

  “It is what I have become good at.”

  “Would Lord Canton say that of you, were he alive?”

  She looked up at the barren trees, watching snow fall in great clumps as a gust of wind cut above the ruins. “No.”

  The smile in his eyes reached his lips. “Exactly. I know you are still so much more than what you let the world see, Liv. You always were.”

  She didn’t want to believe him. She couldn’t afford to believe him.

  Her eyes dipping, she shook her head. “I am cold. I need to get my cloak.”

  Pulling his hands away from her neck, she ducked past him, going into the niche in the wall to the stairs. Down the narrow stone steps she stepped into the large bathing chamber, looking to the left in the dim light for where she had set her cloak. The air was just as thick, just as warm as it had been earlier. Only this time it did nothing to negate the chill in her belly.

  Her arms wrapped tight around her middle to hold the shake in her body still, she walked over to her cloak. Tieran’s words echoed in her ears, fighting the arguments in her mind, fighting what she knew of the world.

  She was a vengeful widow, tainted at her core. Scorned but tolerated by society.

  She had to remember that, for she couldn’t afford to hope for more.

  { Chapter 10 }

  She felt him before he stepped into the bathing chamber.

  Of course he followed her down. He never did like it when she avoided him.

  His footsteps crunched onto the decaying stone, stopping by the entrance.

  Liv didn’t turn around to him. “You should not believe in what you cannot see, Tieran. You will only be disappointed by what you will eventually discover.”

  Five steps echoed into the chamber and he stopped behind her. “I do not think so. You are still a present meant for me alone, Liv.”

  He walked around her to plant himself before her, and her look, wary, lifted to him.

  “A gift to unwrap, fold by fold. You need to know the past—what happened to you—does not need to matter in the present. Not in this moment, Liv. It does not for me.”

  “What does matter in this moment?”

  His blue eyes pinned her. “That I have an answer after all these years. An answer that haunts me, because it was I that failed you. But it is an answer I respect.”

  She nodded. “Then we can return to Mortell Abbey and you can leave for London. Leave me in peace.”

  “No.”

  “No?”

  “No, because what matters is that I still want you, Liv. That has always been true. It has been denied, but it has always existed.”

  Her cold belly flipped, the humid heat of the room invading her pores, singeing her cheeks. “Tieran…”

  His fingers slipped behind her arms clamped to her belly. Gently, he tugged her wrists from her body. Stepping close until his chest brushed the front of her dress, he looked down at her, his hands at her wrists neither advancing up her arms nor retreating.

  “I don’t want to deny it any longer.” He leaned down, his lips near her ear, his breath hot on her neck. “What would you say if I kissed you, Liv? If I stripped down the sleeves of your dress? Set my lips on your breasts? Your nipples?”

  Her knees buckled slightly at his words. What she wouldn’t have given a thousand times over to hear those words over the years. “I…I would say I would like that.”

  His lips slid downward, trailing a path along the line of her neck. Dropping her wrists, his left hand went to the small of her back, pressing her body slowly, fully into his. “You do not worry on what others would say were we to be found?”

  The lines he traced with his tongue, the sparks he created along her neck, muddled her thoughts. “I am a rich widow, Tieran. I only need to skirt along the line of propriety.”

  He chuckled into the crook of her neck. His right hand moved upward, untying and slipping off her bonnet before working the front buttons of her heavy wool riding habit.

  She needed this. How desperately she needed this.

  She had spent years wondering on this very thing. How Tieran’s lips would feel on her breasts, on her nipples, not confined to the skin above her dress as they always had been.

  He peeled her jacket away, his fingers qu
ick through the laces of her stays, freeing her skin to the humid air. Picking her up, he walked forward until he reached the stone bench that lined the length of the room. He set her on the long seat, dropping to his knees in front of her as he dragged off his overcoat, jacket and waistcoat.

  Achingly slow—far too slow for Liv—he tugged free her stays and stripped down her shift, his eyes locked on hers.

  She reached out, her right fingers threading through the side of his blond hair, wrapping around to the back of his head. Her legs spread under her skirts, and she pulled him towards her. He took the invitation with urgency, his lips, his mouth, attacking her skin.

  Liv arched backward, the cut of his slight stubble against her skin intoxicating, waking her core, sending it into throbs.

  She could not suppress the moan that escaped, coarse, as he clamped fully onto a nipple, his tongue swirling it, teeth grazing against it, turning it raw.

  Satisfied he had teased her left nipple to peak, he moved onto the other. The second his teeth ran across the tip, Liv bucked under him, her legs spreading further as she pushed her hips closer to him, her hand deep in his hair, pulling him upward to kiss her.

  The kiss stole all her senses until his body pushed forth, the crux of her meeting the bulge straining hard in the front of his black trousers. Through her skirts she could feel the pulsating. Feel his need for her.

  “Hell, Liv, you have always been fire for me,” he murmured, his tongue moving downward from her neck to torment a nipple. “I was always afraid if I touched you too long, you would consume me—send me to ashes.”

  Her left hand joined her right in his hair, holding him tight to her skin, demanding he not stop the onslaught. “And you are willing to take that chance now?”

  He pulled away, his look piercing her. “I am a different man, now, Liv. I have touched too much death to still be afraid of fire.”

  He seized the back of her head, pulling her into a kiss, his lips rough, searing her with wanton need. A kiss of abandon. A kiss weighted with years of unsatisfied hunger.

  Her body reacted instantly, her hips grinding on their own accord into him.

  “Liv—”

  “I want this, Tieran,” she said, breathless against his lips. “Since the day I met you, I have wanted this. I have never stopped loving you. I love you still. And eight years is too long.”

  Savage, his mouth met hers as his hands dove downward, unbuttoning and ripping free the mounds of clothing between them.

  Her boots and stockings he left in place. She didn’t care. Not when Tieran was in front of her, naked.

  Her mouth watering, she stared at the massive size of his shaft, long and sleek and fascinating.

  His fingers ran along her bare thighs as he captured her mouth again, his tongue plunging, tasting every moan that rumbled up her throat.

  His left hand shifted her forward to the very edge of the bench while his right hand dipped deep between her legs, searching her mound, finding the hard nubbin already throbbing for him, begging for touch. Tieran obliged, every stroke he circled drawing quivers and rasping mewls from the center of her body.

  He slid a finger into her, and Liv bowed backward, her hands flying up to the mosaic on the wall behind her head. Fingernails biting into the edges of the tiles, she braced herself as his hand sped, the throbbing in her core building fast, frantic.

  “Hold, Liv.” He slowed, torturing her at her breaking point.

  She screeched, the sound vibrating off the ancient walls as she curled forward, clawing at his back.

  He leaned slightly away, searching for her eyes, his words steel vehemence. “No, Liv, I want you coming around me. I need your body to know exactly who you are coming with. Coming in. Your body is mine.”

  “Yes…yes…” Her words turned into a gargled half plea, nonsensical. But he knew the meaning—she could see it within the fierceness of his eyes as he set the tip of his shaft on her entrance.

  His fingers worked fast, drawing her to the brink again, screaming, and then he braced her hips and slid into her.

  The barrier jarred him as he hit it—jarred her—but his momentum would not be denied, unable to stop until full hilt.

  He jerked his face in front of hers, searching. “You are—”

  He went silent, his hands solid around her hipbones as she exploded in spasms, cutting him off. Streaks of pain twisted with the most brutal pleasure, racking her body. Tiles fell around her, shattering on the stone bench as her fingernails flicked them free with every wave hitting her body.

  Her legs had wrapped around his waist, holding him solid against her. He waited, and she knew it, but it still took her moments to open her mouth, every word halted with another gasp. “I am meant for you Tieran—I always have been. I have always been yours.”

  His head dropped, and she could feel the tremors, the immense control over his muscles that he just barely contained. He slid nearly out of her.

  It sent fresh spasms tearing across her core.

  “Yes. Don’t stop, Tieran.” She ripped one hand from the wall, gripping his neck, pulling with all her strength. “Don’t stop.”

  He plunged into her slowly, taking care.

  She would have none of it. She had waited a lifetime for Tieran. For this moment.

  The clasp of her legs tightened, drawing him close, fast, hard. She couldn’t control him pulling free, but she could control his thrusts, and she did so every time. Hard. Fast. No quarter given to how his length ravaged her body. Her body that only wanted him deeper, longer.

  When his entire body tensed, she took control, pushing herself from the wall and wedging herself on him, her hips swiveling with his shaft fully embedded, forcing him to finish.

  A growl, carnal to its core, ravaged her ears, flooded every nook of the chamber as he came. His body emptied up into her, his hands crushing her hips onto him. The muscles along his back, along his arms went into frenzy, flexing with every vibration coursing through his body. But his clamp on her did not falter.

  He wasn’t going to let her go, nor give her the smallest margin of space. And she didn’t want it.

  She hung on, Tieran on his knees, her body wrapped around him. Their chests battled with each other for space with each breath that was heaved.

  Her eyes cracked open to peek over his shoulder, searching the ancient walls for what was creating the buzzing in her ears. It took her long, dull moments to realize it was her own blood pumping in a frenzy, filling her head.

  Tieran’s chest lifted with an enormous inhale, shifting her upward.

  “Ask me why I came up to Mortell Abbey, Liv.”

  She had never heard his voice so low, with such a raw crackle in it. Angling her head backwards, her spent body screamed against the movement, but she needed to look at his face. “Why?”

  His hand went deep into the back of her hair, fingers digging through the many plaits weaved along her neck for warmth. He took another deep breath, his blue eyes centering on her. “Ever since I saw you at Lady Desmond’s, I have been living in fear.”

  “Why fear?”

  “Fear that I will leave you unguarded for a moment in time, and you will marry another and be lost to me again.” His voice dipped even lower.

  A smile spread across her face. “Well, that is an easy one to assuage. You need not worry on it as it will not happen—I will never marry again.”

  “What?”

  “I have no intention of ever marrying again, Tieran, so you need not fear.”

  He stiffened, his fingers unthreading from her hair. “Why not?”

  Liv glanced at his furrowed brow, perplexed. “I cannot chance it. Lord Canton gave me a life of independence at his death—I would lose all of that if I married again.”

  He lifted her off his body, setting her on her skirts that had bunched on the long stone bench. “And independence is the most important thing to you?”

  His words punctuated the chamber, strained and slow, and a chill invaded her body. The r
oom was warm, but she no longer had Tieran’s heat enveloping her.

  “Oh.” Understanding sank into her chest and she grabbed his forearm as he picked up his linen shirt. “I did not assume this meant anything more than this moment, Tieran. It was what you said and I did not imagine—”

  “That I might actually want you in my life?” He shrugged his shirt on, getting to his feet and giving a crisp snap to his jacket as he picked it up.

  A puff of an exhale, and her head tilted to the side as she watched the jerk in his movements. “You are upset with me.”

  “I am not sure what I am with you, Liv. Not at the moment.” His arm jabbed into the jacket sleeve. “I took your virginity, Liv. Something I should have been well advised of before doing so. And then you are suddenly proclaiming your intention to never wed again. So at the moment—do not ask my thoughts—do not assume my thoughts—as I am not ready to explore either with you.”

  She nodded, her head dropping as she wedged her shift out from the pile of her clothing. She had thought she recognized this for exactly what it was—what Tieran wanted—unattached pleasure, a culmination of what should have been eight years ago.

  They had both needed this to happen—her probably more so than him—and it had.

  She hadn’t dared to hope on the thought that Tieran would want her for anything more. Not with their past, and especially not with him now knowing the truth of what happened to her.

  She hadn’t dared, even though her heart had yearned for hope, begged for it—even started to turn her mind to it—whether she wanted to admit to it or not.

  Her shift on, she settled her stays around her chest. She stood, silently turning her back to Tieran. He picked up the ends of the ribbon, yanking her stays tight without a word.

  At a loss, she woodenly said the only words that came to mind. “I do have to get back to Mortell Abbey before I am missed and Lady Mortell takes offense. I still have business to conclude there.”