Nothing on Earth & Nothing in Heaven

by Susan Fanetti

  She looked over her shoulder at him, her eyes round with surprise. “You’d live here? What about your father, the business?”

  “My father has a vision for a global business. How better to find our way in than to be based across the ocean?”

  “You don’t like England.”

  No, he did not. “I love you, and I can do that anywhere.” He picked up her left hand and kissed the diamond ring she now wore. “Marry me, Nora, and I’ll be home wherever we are.”

  “Oh, how I love you,” she whispered and wound herself into his embrace.

  By the time they’d settled up their affairs in Bath and given up the cottage, traveled to Gretna Green, and whiled away the three weeks’ residency Scotland required before a marriage could take place, March had become April, and spring had found its footing. William and Nora were married by a blacksmith on a bright, warm, flowery day.

  Gretna Green, just across the border from England, had been famous for centuries as a place particularly welcoming of eloping couples, and in the three weeks of their stay, they managed to put together a wedding they could remember fondly for more than the act it accomplished. As part of a fairly extensive wardrobe Nora happily collected, and William happily purchased, during their three weeks of leisure in Scotland, she had an elegant white suit made at one of the many competing boutiques in town, and bought a fetching, broad-brimmed, veiled hat at another. He wore a new bespoke suit. Their vows were spoken before strangers, with nary a guest in sight, but that was as they preferred it. There was no one with whom Nora wished to share the day, and those William would have shared it with were thousands of miles away.

  William’s mother had probably come over with a case of the vapors when she got word that her one and only child intended to finally marry, at the age of thirty-four, without a guest list of hundreds or a celebration of any kind, but he expected she’d survive the shock. He also expected that there would be a celebration, when they made their way back to California. If there was anything his mother did better than fight for justice, it was throw a party.

  After their vows were spoken, the documents signed, and a stiff photograph taken, William and Nora celebrated with a quiet dinner in the hotel dining room. They shared a bottle of champagne, from which William drank most. Nora had never had champagne, and a single glass coursing through her small frame had her cheeks rosy. After a dessert of strawberry tart, William led her up to their suite, fully expecting that it was the end of their wedding night.

  He knew what had happened to her, the things she’d been subjected to, and she knew he knew. But they’d never spoken of it in any kind of detail. For all the things she’d needed to sort out in her mind about her ordeal, all the talks they’d had, everything she’d told him, those details, she’d kept to herself. The force-feedings, the beatings, the ‘treatments’—she knew he knew and let that stand for all she’d say.

  He could only imagine how those things had shaped her. He could hold her through a nightmare and calm her, and he could wonder, but he couldn’t know.

  For three months, they’d slept together, Nora wrapped in his arms throughout each night. For three months, he’d fought the urges, the needs, of his body while hers pressed innocently to his, while her scent and warmth and delicate softness surrounded him. He had every intention of spending the next three years likewise. The next three decades. Until she was ready. But he’d be lying if he said it was easy.

  So when her arms snaked around his waist as he stood before the armoire and opened his shirt, as her hands pressed flat on his belly and her head rested on his back, William closed his eyes and took a deep breath to steel his will.

  “I love you, husband,” she murmured behind him.

  He smiled and patted her hands. “I love you, wife. Are you happy?”

  “Ever so. I feel like everything will be right. Like it already is, because you’re mine at last, and no one can take you from me.”

  “No one,” he agreed. “Would you like to read before we turn out the lights?”

  “No. I don’t want to read.” Her hands pushed beneath his undershirt, and her palms were on his skin, smoothing over his belly. “I don’t want to read at all.”

  Her hands went for his waistband, and he grabbed them. “Nora.” He turned and cupped her face in his hands. Her hair had grown so that pretty, soft golden curls edged her face and looped around his fingers. “We don’t have to do anything just because it’s our wedding night. We can wait until you’re ready.”

  “I am ready. I’ve been waiting. For this. To know you’re mine and no one can separate us. Not my father, not Christopher, no one. Even by the rule of our archaic laws, now I’m yours. My father has no claim. No one does but you.” Her arms eased around his waist and her hands slid up his back, on his skin. “I’m yours, William Frazier, my handsome unicorn. I’m yours forever, and I’m ready.”

  He nearly asked if she was sure, if it wasn’t the champagne talking—but he knew the look she’d give him, full of fire and challenge. She’d told him what she wanted. Who was he to question what she knew of her own mind?

  “Darling,” he sighed and put his mouth on hers.

  She moaned, the sound so sweet he could taste it on his tongue, and her hands slid up his back and hooked over his shoulders as her body swayed into his. God. They’d kissed, deeply, and held each other, tightly, during these months since he’d found her; they’d expressed their love daily in touch and in words. But there had always been a reserve, a holding back. They’d both known it would go no farther than a kiss, than closeness. They had been waiting.

  For this moment. She was his wife.

  Dear God, she was his wife.

  Let no man put asunder.

  She must have felt the same explosive emotion that surged through his veins, because she tore her mouth from his just then and gasped. William dived in and fixed his mouth to her throat, taking her pulse on his tongue, and closed her up in his arms, leaning over her so that she arched over his arm and all that held her up was his strength. She dragged at his shirt, as if she meant to pull it off while she clung to him.

  Panting, nearly dizzy with need, he stood and released her—not far, not even a step away, keeping so close to her that their bodies still touched. He dropped his suspenders off his shoulders, shrugged out of his shirt and tossed it away, then stripped off his undershirt and sent it to follow.

  “Wait!” Nora cried, when he moved to unbutton the pretty jacket of her wedding suit, and thwarted desire snapped so hard inside him that he flinched. But she wasn’t trying to stop. She set her hands on his chest and brushed her fingers through the hair, then pushed up to his shoulders. Down his arms. Back up to his shoulders, and again to his chest. She lingered over every ridge, every swell, every dip, her eyes on fire with greedy interest.

  William, who hadn’t had a woman since he’d last had Nora, nearly eighteen months past, clenched his hands into fists and withstood the exquisite torture of her gentle exploration.

  “I forgot how beautiful you are,” she whispered. “How could I have forgotten this, when I’ve relived it so often in my mind?”

  Though he wore nightclothes to bed, for his sake as much as hers, she’d seen his bare chest during these months. She’d touched him, innocently—or mostly so. And yet he understood her meaning. “You’ve never seen me like this.”

  She smiled up at him, and he smiled back, diving into those beautiful blue eyes with their gemstone rays of green. “No, I suppose not. I’ve never looked on my husband before.” Her hands slid up, over his shoulders, to the back of his neck, and her fingers coiled in his hair. “Well, he’s glorious.”

  “So is my wife. I’d love to see more of her.”

  “Will you help me undress?”

  Still swimming in the limpid depths of her eyes, William opened the dainty, silk-covered button that closed her jacket at her throat. Her chest swelled with each deep, sultry breath.

  He pushed the jacket from her shoulders and let
it fall at her feet. Beneath it, the matching lace and light silk gown buttoned at the back, from high on her neck to below her waist. He’d helped her finish off those shell buttons that morning, when she’d been unable to reach the ones between her shoulder blades. She hadn’t had a lady’s maid in Bath, and she’d turned down the hotel’s offer to send one up for her. What she couldn’t do herself, William helped her with.

  He turned her around and began at her neck, easing each button open. When he exposed the little moles he loved so much, he paused and kissed them, circling his arms around her waist, holding her body tightly to his. “My love,” he murmured, his lips brushing her satiny skin. He felt her pulse fluttering, smelled the subtle flowers of her scent, heard the soft sigh of each breath.

  He pushed the dress off her shoulders and helped it float down to a pool around her ankles. She wore a corset beneath it, but it wasn’t punishingly tight; he’d been the one to tie it, and he’d made sure. He undid her garters, letting her stockings slide down her legs, and unlaced the corset. Nora raised her arms above her head, and he lifted the rigid garment away and tossed it across the room.

  Now she stood in her underthings, in a silken mound of discarded clothes. He crouched low and slid her shoes off, one at a time, helping her step out of each one, then eased the stockings from her pretty feet. Standing again, he helped her out of her vest and drawers. When she was nude, he turned her to face him again, took her hands and guided her out of the puffy pile of clothes.

  She stood there, tiny and still so very thin. He remembered her body, as it had been before. She’d been slight then, but now, after her ordeal, even after three months of recovery, she seemed as delicate as a bird. Maybe it was simply that he remembered, too, how very frail she’d been when he’d picked her up from that iron bed, how insubstantial her body had felt cradled in his arms. Maybe that image would never leave him, and he’d never see her again without remembering how she’d been lost.

  But she’d been found, and now she was his.

  He dropped to his knees before her and wrapped her snugly in his arms, pressing his cheek against the soft scoop of belly. He felt her hands on his head, her fingers combing through his hair.

  “My God, I love you.”

  “William.” Her voice was soft with wonder. “Please.”

  Standing and sweeping her into his arms, he carried her to the bed and laid her among the soft, silky linens. As he stood back to shed the rest of his clothes, Nora stretched languidly and skimmed her hands up her belly, over her breasts. Those tiny pink points hardened at her own touch, and William’s mouth went dry.

  “Have you touched yourself, Nora? The way I showed you?”

  She bit her bottom lip. “Sometimes … before …”

  Damn, he’d lost his head and hadn’t thought before he’d spoken. “I’m sorry. I shouldn’t’ve—”

  “No, it’s all right. That … what happened … it’s different. Nothing like what we did. It’s not tangled in my head. Not anymore. I haven’t since because I wanted to wait to be with you.”

  Meanwhile, he’d taken matters into his own hand almost daily, trying to curb his appetite for her.

  Her eyes lowered and took in his erection, and her tongue came out hungrily and wet her lips. “Please, William.”

  He slid onto the bed, stretching out at her side. Wanting to be sure of her readiness without asking a question he knew she’d cast aside, he loomed over her, brought his mouth to hers, and whispered, “Touch yourself for me now.”

  The whimpering, sensual sigh that left her lips spoke of her desire, and gave no suggestion that she was anxious. She truly was ready.

  Her graceful hand slid between them, grazing his belly and hers as she found her core. She moaned when her fingers stroked through her folds. William’s own need thudded in his chest and made him groan as he dipped and took the tight knot of a nipple into his mouth and sucked gently.

  She gasped noisily and arched up, and her fingers sped up between them. William sucked harder, swirling his tongue around her bunched areola, drawing her nipple between his teeth. Each of her moans drew an answer from him. Each flutter of her huffing breath in his hair sent sparks from his scalp to his gut. He clasped her in his arms and suckled her, his hips rocking in time with her spasming hand, his strained breaths keeping tempo with hers.

  No—it wasn’t enough, not with her willing and ready. He needed to taste her, to feed on her. Frantic with his own need, he knocked her hand away and sank between her legs, putting his mouth on her, lapping through her folds as if he were starved.

  “William!” she cried and tensed as he sucked her into his mouth. She tried to sit up, then crashed back to the pillows, and still he fed on her, flicking his tongue, lapping, plunging deep, taking all he could get of her. He held her thighs open and he fed.

  She grabbed hold of his hair, and, at first, she pulled hard. Before he could react to that, before he could even quite make sense of it, she held him close instead and began to grunt, and then to cry out. Her climax came in a wash over his tongue, his mouth, his face, and he lapped it all up until she lay quaking and loose-limbed beneath him.

  When he pressed a gentle kiss to the inside of each thigh and then to her belly, and eased up to hover over her on his hands, Nora stared up at him in a daze. “What was that?”

  “Did you like it?”

  “Is it normal?”

  “It can be, if you like it.”

  She nodded. “I did. Oh, so much.” Her hand came up and brushed over his mouth, his beard. “I didn’t know that was possible.”

  His cock wept for the need of the pleasure that was only inches away. So long since he’d felt her around him. But what he wanted more than anything else was her undiluted, unreserved pleasure and comfort. “That and more, my love. There’s a lot we can do.”

  “Not right now. Right now I just want you.”

  “And I just want you.” He hooked her thigh over his hip and prepared to give them both what they wanted.

  “Wait.” Nora reached between them again, and this time, she wrapped her hand around him. William was so shocked at the act, and at the powerful bolt of sensation that blasted through him, that he almost finished right then.

  He clenched through it as she added, “I don’t want a baby.”

  Ever? All the things they’d spoken of in these months, they’d never talked about children. It hadn’t occurred to him they’d need to. Marriage meant children, unless Fate prevented it.

  His surprise served to calm his body down enough that he could ask, “Ever?” He pulled her hand from him and set her leg back on the bed.

  “Someday. But not yet. I want to experience a life that’s only you and me. I don’t want to be a mother yet. I want to be a woman first, and know what it is to be me. I haven’t had a chance to be who I am. And I want to be your wife and have you all to myself. Is that terrible?”

  “It’s wonderful. I’m in no rush. We have plenty of time. I’d like to have you all to myself, too.” He leaned down and kissed her. “Until we’re ready, I’ll pull out. And from now on, I’ll be more careful where I come.”

  She blushed. “You don’t have to be. I … I liked that. Feeling you on me, and you washing me after. I’ve thought of it often.”

  Sweet lord. “You are a treasure, Nora Frazier.”

  “Nora Frazier. That’s who I am.”

  William pushed in and claimed his wife, groaning at the deep bliss of her enveloping heat, and the sweet sound of her happiness.

  TWENTY-FIVE

  Normally, William woke before Nora and was dressed for the day before she opened her eyes. In the first three mornings she’d woken as Mrs. William Frazier, when they’d spent the nights in wild exertions, he was still in bed with her, at least dozing, when she woke, and they’d started the day as they’d finished the one before it.

  She enjoyed that very much. In the past few days, Nora had learned, she thought, almost everything there was to know about her husband�
��s body. And her own.

  Almost everything. She meant to keeping learning. Exploring.

  But when morning light made its way to her senses on their first and last morning in Southampton, she was alone in bed again. Not only that, but the room seemed to have a buzz about it, as if William had been busy while she’d slept.

  She sat up and tucked the covers over her bare chest. He was fully dressed, missing only a suit coat, which hung over the back of the desk chair. He’d packed his small bag fully and sat at the desk, writing.

  “What time is it?”

  He turned in the chair and smiled at her. “Good morning, darling.” Pulling his watch from his pocket, he checked the time. “It’s seven twenty. I meant to let you sleep another ten minutes. I’ve had word that they want to meet us in the hotel lobby at eight-thirty.” The pretty, odd blue stone on his fob dangled as he put his watch away.

  Nora groaned and dropped back to the pillows. “I think I made a mistake. Why did I tell them I wanted to see them?” She curled on her side and hugged William’s pillow.

  He stood and came to the bed, sitting on the side, and set his hand on her hip. “Because we’re sailing across the ocean today, and you don’t know whether you’ll ever want to come back. They’re family, and you don’t want to just disappear. You want an ending.” Bending close, he kissed her cheek. “But I’ll send word that you changed you mind, if that’s what you want.”

  It had been her idea to contact Christopher. In London the night before last, in their bed at the Dohring Hotel, after a warm and companionable dinner with Aunt Martha that had served as a celebration of their wedding and a bon voyage, she’d told him that she wanted to see her brother and father before they left.

  William had been surprised, but she’d told him the reasons he’d just repeated to her: she wanted to say goodbye to them, to see them one last time—and for them to see her, to know she was well and happy, that making her own choices had made her strong, while they’d tried to keep her weak.