Leather and Lace (Gold Sky Series Book 5)

by Rebel Carter

  “Minnie? Are you well? What is it?” Alex’s worried voice was a welcome respite from the deafening storm. “What happened?”

  “Nothing, nothing, I’m fine. I promise.” Mary looked up from the wall to see her wife gazing at her with a worried expression. Her normally warm brown eyes were wide with concern as she looked Mary over. She leaned back, her eyes moving over Mary’s face and body as if she were taking stock.

  “You do not look well, Minnie.”

  Mary husked out a laugh and pushed away from the wall. “I am fine. It’s you that I feared for.”

  Alex’s eyebrows knit together. “Me?” she asked and once more reached for Mary.

  “Yes, you.”

  “There was nothing to worry over, now come with me.”

  “I disagree on that matter entirely,” Mary told her but she went with Alex all the same.

  “And why is that?” Alex asked, guiding her towards the settee.

  Mary flung an arm out towards the storm that still raged and glared at Alex. “The storm, of course! How could I not worry?”

  Alex waved a hand at her. “Storms like this are normal, Minnie. It’s no reason to worry yourself, and especially not when you’re with child.” She crouched down in front of her and placed her hands on Mary’s side. “Can you breathe?”

  Mary swatted at her hands. “I--yes, I’m fine.” She felt the anxiety she had been harboring that evening bubble once more to the surface and she shook her head in frustration. “I thought I could have lost you,” she told Alex, her voice cracking, and it was then the other woman looked up from her ministrations.

  “Minnie? What is it?”

  “You could have never returned.”

  “But I did. I have. I am here now.”

  “But,” Mary sucked in a deep breath, her eyes closing, hands balling into fists, “that has--sometimes people do not return.”

  Alex bit her lip and went still at her wife’s words. “Who was it?” she asked, her voice gentle.

  Mary blinked at her question. “Who what?” she asked looking down at her wife properly for the first time. Her memories of her father’s departure had driven her anxiety to new levels and in her state, she had looked any and everywhere other than her wife. She paused now and placed her hands on Alex’s cheeks and looked upon her until she felt the ache in her chest subside.

  “Who didn’t return?” Alex asked once more. She raised her hands and placed them over Mary’s. “It was someone dear to you, I can see that now.”

  Mary’s fingers tensed slightly against Alex’s cheeks and she was silent for a moment before she drew in a deep breath and answered her wife. “My father.”

  “Oh Minnie. Minnie, no.” Alex moved then and took her wife in her arms, gathering her close to her and she pressed a kiss to Mary’s forehead. “No, darling, I’m so sorry. When you told me that you had lost your father, I did not assume that it was so recent. It was recent wasn’t it?”

  Mary nodded; her cheek pressed to Alex’s shoulder. “Yes, he died at sea, and--and,” she faltered then, a sob she hadn’t been aware was building shook her body. “He told me that he would return and there was nothing to worry over, but that wasn’t true. It wasn’t true.”

  “Minnie.”

  “You said the same thing before you left and the storm, it came so suddenly, I thought anything could have happened to you.” Mary shook her head and drew back to look up at Alex. “I couldn’t bear the thought of losing you. I couldn’t even think it.”

  “You’ll never lose me, Minnie. Never.”

  “How can you say that? Anything can happen and--”

  “Fear is no way to live, Minnie. There is nothing to fear between us, not when I love you as I do. There isn’t a moment that I don’t wish to be with you, and I will always return to you. I am yours.”

  Mary’s hands tightened on Alex’s soaked jacket. “What did you say?”

  Alex raised an eyebrow but repeated herself all the same. “Fear is no--”

  “Not that part.”

  “Then what part would you have me repeat?”

  “The part where you say you love me.”

  Chapter 13

  “I love you.”

  Three simple words had never changed Mary’s world quite so succinctly. They were only words, and words, Mary had learned in the form of broken promises uttered by lovers, or her mother’s compulsion for lies, could and did mean very little.

  But these words--Alex’s words meant everything to Mary.

  “I love you,” Mary had said in return. They had stared at one another then, the deafening sound of the storm the only sound save for their breathing but even that was now lost to the storm’s fury. She wrapped her arms around Alex’s shoulders and pulled the other woman to her in a kiss that was neither gentle nor unsure. It was hungry and needy, and as powerful as the tempest raging around them.

  “I love you,” she said again when they parted. The kiss had left them breathless and staring as if they had never clapped eyes on the other until this moment. And perhaps they never had, not truly. There was nothing between them but the truth now and with it came love and passion, and most of all need.

  Alex’s lips pulled into a slow smile and she rose to her feet, bringing Mary with her. “Come with me, Minnie.” She turned, leading Mary in the direction of the bedroom, though they only made it to the hallway before Mary was once more reaching for Alex. She smoothed her hands over her muscular shoulders and, raising herself up on her tiptoes, slanted her mouth to Alex’s in another eager kiss.

  Alex moaned, her mouth opening to Mary’s questing tongue and she swept the smaller woman up against her. “Minnie. My beautiful Minnie. I love you,” She whispered against Mary’s lips. “I love you.”

  A heat swept through Mary’s body and she swore there wasn't a part of her that did not crave Alex’s strong hands and fingers. She arched her back seeking to be closer and laughed when they bumped awkwardly into the wall and then once more off the doorframe. She supposed it may have been easier to make their way to her bed if they had thought to separate but there wasn’t a less appealing action to her than letting go of Alex. Although she did so reluctantly as the other woman insisted on lighting a fire.

  “I need to see you,” Alex told her once the fireplace was coaxed to life. She crossed the room and dropped to her knees in front of Mary and reached for her foot. She undid the laces of her boots with a patience and focus Mary admired. She, on the other hand, was anything but focused and leaned forward yanking the still dripping coat from Alex’s body with a fumbling jerk of her hands. It landed in a sopping mess on the floor and she knew their impassioned journey to her bed would be a nightmare to clean up... but it would also be entirely worth it. She would relish every second they spent cleaning mud and water from their home. Each and every drop of it would remind her of this night and of the fulfillment she found in it.

  “May I undress you?” Alex asked. She was still kneeling in front of Mary, and the effect of it was nearly too much for her sensibilities to handle. Her wife cut a very fine image.

  “Yes, you may. I insist, actually. Please do,” she said, the last word lingering and heavy with the yearning Mary felt for the other woman’s touch. “I need your hands on me.”

  “Do you?” Alex asked as she rose to her feet, her hands trailing slowly up Mary’s legs, thighs, and then finally her sides.

  “Yes, yes.”

  “And how much do you need my hands on you, my Minnie?”

  “If you were to stop touching me I would stop breathing, I would-I would,” Mary threw her hands up and shook her head, very nearly stamping her foot as she placed her hands on Alex’s and pressed them close to her. “I feel as if I might die if you were to take your hands from me.”

  Alex’s eyes darkened, the rain droplets glistening on her lush lashes as her golden hair glittered in the firelight. The warmth of the fire softened her wife’s normally sharp features into something entrancing, intoxicating even, and Mary
shook her head in disbelief at the raw beauty in front of her, touching her.

  “Then I shall never stop touching you.” Alex’s fingers flexed. The weight of her touch on Mary’s waist made her shiver with anticipation and when her wife carefully turned her to face away, she found she was nearly trembling.

  “I’m going to undress you now,” Alex told her, the other woman’s voice was low and gravely, hoarse in all the very best manner of ways. The tone of it filled Mary’s mind with images of early morning fog on a lake, of the way the mountains broke through the mist at the first sunlight, it was base in need—powerful in its existence because it demanded Mary as she craved to be needed, desired.

  Mary nodded her permission and stood with shaking hands, back to her wife, her eyes fixed on the fire that was still coming to life. It had come quite a long way in such little time, from the embers and first sparks. Now long flames licked at the fire grate, the wood inside popping and crackling as it continued to grow. Before long it would consume the logs in a blaze Mary was sure could take them, house and all, were it not safely contained in its proper place. She felt much like that fire, slowly coming to life beneath Alex’s skilled hands. Until she was capable of taking them both, if it were not that she too, like the fire, were precisely where she belonged.

  Alex’s fingers worked on the buttons of her dress as surely as if she were not attempting to do so after a hard ride and dripping from the downpour. Mary’s mind drifted to what she would be capable of when her fingers weren’t in danger of freezing, but that was not now and now...now Mary had Alex, freezing hands and all, at her back and working her dress free. She swallowed, the pulse at the base of her throat jumping when her dress loosened and slid down to her ankles. She stepped forward and out of the dress at the gentle press of Alex’s hands at the small of her back. Goose flesh rose on her skin despite the warmth of the room. She was standing in only her underthings and Mary was under no illusion that anything other than the woman behind her was responsible for the pebbling of her skin. Alex stepped in close, hands once more coming to rest lightly on the curves of her sides and the woman inhaled sharply when she surveyed the state of the corset Mary wore.

  “Oh Minnie, why have you been hiding this from me?”

  “Hiding? Hiding what?” She looked over her shoulder at Alex to see an expression of sorrow and consternation painting her beautiful features.

  “This,” Alex said, pressing lightly on the corset she wore. She ran a finger up the length of one seam, her touch ginger on the boning that dug painfully into Mary’s side. “This is constricting, Minnie. Why are you wearing it so tightly? Can you breathe?”

  She bit her lip and looked down at the garment. Alex’s fingers were stark against the cream material, the material that was laced as tightly as Mary was able to manage. Morning after morning she had done it under the careful watch and direction of her mother but now...why had she kept doing it?

  There was no reason to hide her baby from Alex, no reason to hide the way her body was changing, rounding and softening in the particular way that came with childbearing. The baby was a gift of life Mary desperately wanted and yet...she continued to dress with the same care and rigidity she displayed under her mother’s direction.

  “I don’t rightly know,” she confessed. Mary gave a quick shake of her head and put a hand over her belly with a frown as she turned over Alex’s question. Could she breathe? Was it affecting the baby?

  “The baby,” she said, suddenly rushing to undo the stays of the corset. “What have I been doing? I kept doing it up so tight and there was no need. I don’t--why did I keep doing it?” Her words were coming quicker now, voice high and tinny at the realization that she had caused harm to her child out of habit.

  When her fingers fumbled Alex shushed her gently. “Let me,” she murmured, stepping closer to Minnie, bringing their bodies flush. The feel of Alex’s chest and the press of her breasts against her back made Mary still and she simply nodded as the other woman began to undo the tight corset laces.

  “Oh, Minnie. My Minnie,” Alex sighed and tutted as the laces came loose to reveal inch after inch of Mary’s abused skin. There were angry red marks on her skin from the boning and corset laces, those tender bruised places were met with Alex’s gentle touch. Mary sighed in relief as she was finally allowed the room to breathe freely. When the corset fell away she nearly dissolved into relieved laughter.

  “I never want to wear that again,” Mary declared, her voice wavered from the sudden rush of air to her lungs, but she was sure of herself. All her life she had wished for freedom and it had been a hard-won thing. Somehow still she had tried to fit herself into a life no longer fit for herself. She would never do that again, and she would not raise her child to do the same.

  They would be free to be whomever they wished. To love whomever they wished.

  “You never will,” Alex agreed. She lowered her head and dropped a kiss onto Mary’s shoulders, hands gently caressing the welts left behind by her corset. Her skin tender, Mary winced, but she sighed as the initial sting of Alex’s touch dissolved into pleasure. Though her flesh was over sensitized it desperately craved her wife’s touch and it was a joy to receive it so freely. Alex laced their fingers together, palm over the back of Mary’s hand the heat of it---the very closeness made Mary’s insides go molten. There was something erotic in the mundaneness of it. They were holding hands, it should not be affecting her as it was, but as it were, they were closer than they had ever been in that simple touch.

  She closed her eyes and leaned her head back against Alex’s chest, chin tipped up to the ceiling. Alex’s lips grazed her ear, cheek, and then finally her jaw as the other woman kissed her way to the column of Mary’s throat. It was there that her breath caught when Alex’s mouth brushed her neck. Mary leaned back, her weight supported by Alex as she kissed Mary, lips and tongue peppering the expanse of her flesh, hands cupping her breasts. Mary gasped, the sound transforming into a moan when Alex’s fingers teased her nipples. She palmed Mary’s flesh, cradling her breast. The touch ignited a fire at Mary’s core, and she opened her eyes to see Alex looking down at her as if she were the most wondrous thing she had ever seen.

  As if she were the only woman in the world. She lifted a hand to Alex’s face and cupped her cheek. The two women stared at one another for a breath before Mary managed to find her voice.

  “Take me to bed.”

  Alex’s eyes darkened, awe transforming to lust in an instant and the blonde didn’t answer. Not with words anyhow. She merely set herself into motion and swept her wife up into her arms and covered Mary’ mouth with her own. The kiss was everything Mary had ever dreamed of, passion and need, made into action. She reached out, hands seeking to get a grip on the rain-soaked material and when it stuck to her wife’s skin she nearly growled in frustration. The damnable cotton needed to be done away with and in quick order.

  “I’ll do it,” Alex chuckled, seeing her wife’s narrowed eyes.

  Mary nodded her hands falling uselessly at her sides. “It must come off.”

  And off it came as they tumbled onto the bed. Alex rose to her knees, she was lying between Mary’s parted legs, thighs pressed thighs as she undid and removed her shirt. She had scarcely tossed it to the side when Mary’s hands were once more upon her.

  “You’re beautiful,” Mary told her, looking upon her in earnest. Everywhere she looked, she touched. “So beautiful.” Alex leaned forward, a hand going to the back of Mary’s head, hands tangling in her hair and holding her up, so the couple were able to kiss while Mary explored the planes and dips of Alex’s body. It was a lovely thing to behold, all hard muscle beneath soft skin creating an irresistible territory to explore. Their kiss was slow now, slower than it had been in the sitting room, and slower still than in their hurried rush to enter the bedroom. In her stolen illicit moments with women Mary had always been forced to hurry for fear they would be seen, and their reputations left in ruin. Fumbling hands and teeth on teeth
, bruising kisses and whispers to be silent in the empty drawing rooms and powdering rooms of society’s upper echelon. She had never been afforded the privilege of exploring a lover as she did now in the comfort and safety of her own home. Their coupling was languid, kisses measured and lingering. Oh, there was softness in this type of passion—it felt real and sustainable. Easy as all things slow did.

  Mary found she liked slow.

  They parted then and brown met green in a look that could only be seeking. “I aim to give you and our baby a good life.” vowed Alex.

  “You already have.” Mary laughed then and kissed her wife once more. “You’ve given it everything.”

  “Then I have yet more to give.” Alex shifted back and settled between her thighs, and Mary’s hips lifted in eagerness that put a chiding smile on Alex’s lips.

  She bowed her head forward as if in supplication and began to tease and kiss the flesh beneath her. Mary groaned hands going to the quilts beneath them when Alex’s tongue began to circle that delicate bundle of nerves. First gently and then gradually with increasing pressure, her fingers joined in her love play and by the time her wife took her bud into her mouth Mary was fit to faint.

  “Please,” she begged, lifting her head to look down at Alex. “Please, Alex.”

  Her wife looked up at her then, blonde hair gleaming as brightly as a halo to her. She could have asked Mary for anything then. She would have agreed to it all if only to summit the wave of ecstasy on which she had been driven higher and higher stil. Oh, what the sight of her wife between her thighs did to her. It ignited her, and her blood went hotter even still when Alex turned her attention back to her, eyes meeting hers even as she continued to suck and lick her. Alex reached up, fingers splaying across the rounded curve of Mary’s belly. The gesture was possessive and tender all at once, and Mary only lasted but a few more seconds under her wife’s attention. Her back bowed off the bed and she peaked with a shout of release.