Copyright © 2015 Sierra Simone
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No part of this publication may be reproduced, distributed, or transmitted in any form or by any means, including photocopying, recording, or other electronic or mechanical methods, without the prior written permission of the author, except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical reviews.
This is a work of fiction. References to real people, places, organizations, events, and products are intended to provide a sense of authenticity and are used fictitiously. All characters, incidents, and dialogue are drawn from the author’s imagination and not to be construed as real.
Cover by Date Book Designs 2015
To Ivy and Julian’s earliest fans—thank you so much for taking a chance on corsets and parlor games.
“I want you to be my wife,” Julian Markham pronounced. Julian Markham: owner of Markham Hall and owner of my heart. And possible murderer of my cousin two months since.
Panic—swift and sharp—seized me, squeezing my ribcage, making my heart pound. All I could feel was how small the library had become, how low the ceiling, and how I needed to get outside, away from this—from this overwhelming thing and this overwhelming man who summoned such strong emotions within me. Love and desire twined together within my panic, grating against the doubts, the worries, the incredulity.
His mouth twisted at the corners, amusement lighting along his eyes. “You look so surprised.”
A sharp retort came to mind, but it never made it to my lips. Of course I am surprised. Surprised and flattered and terrified. For one thing, someone like me couldn’t marry someone like him; he needed to marry someone in his social station, someone wealthy and distinguished. Surely he knew this.
For another, there were the frightening things I had learned from the polite police officer in Scarborough—that my cousin Violet had been pregnant when she died, that the baby was almost certainly not Mr. Markham’s, and that the entire narrative pointed to Mr. Markham’s guilt.
Practicality and fear warred with emotion, and I looked away so that he wouldn’t see the tears pricking at my eyes. I tried to speak, but the words wouldn’t come. The vise around my chest continued to squeeze and press.
A beat passed, then another.
“Wildcat,” he said. “Say something.”
“We can’t marry,” I said, and I couldn’t keep the pain from my voice.
“And why can’t we?”
“Because—” I was dangerously close to sputtering. “Because! It’s not right!”
This I meant in light of Violet’s death, in the light of his role in it, that it wouldn’t be right for me to place myself at his mercy when I didn’t know if he had any.
But he misunderstood me.
“You don’t want to be my whore, but you balk at becoming my wife? You are more feral than I thought. Are you so afraid of being trapped?” He took my wrist in his hand, his thumb pressing against my pulse, and I vividly remembered the first night we met. “Haven’t I shown you that some restraints can be freeing?”
He had. Oh God, he had. And just like that, lust spiked through me, all the sweeter for the doubt surrounding it.
Julian Markham. My lethal forbidden fruit.
“It’s more than that,” I continued, trying to summon logic in the midst of the hurricane inside me. “Violet died only two months ago. We haven’t been in mourning long enough to honor her memory—”
“We can remember her just as well if we were married as if we were not. And as for honor, she has no family left that I know of and neither do I. This choice is ours and ours alone. Honor be damned.”
“But—” I didn’t finish my thought out loud. But what if you killed her?
Suddenly, he was in front of me, kneeling on the carpet, his hands on my knees. “Every moment away from you today was a torment. All I could think about was the way your eyes looked when I fucked you by the stream. The way you run through the woods at night like a fox. The way you are so unspoiled by worldly things, yet so eager for pleasure.”
There were tears burning at my eyelids now. I did everything I could to will them away.
“We fit together, Ivy. All my life I have been looking for you, you who are so wild and willing and yet strong enough to withstand even my fiercest urges. You are what I thought I saw in women like Molly, what I thought I saw in Violet. I’ve known this for a while—since our night here in the library perhaps—but I truly realized it last night after I couldn’t find you. I need you. I need you in my life, completely and totally. I want to be the husband I was pretending to protect you for.” His eyes searched mine. “Hasn’t it been obvious? I love you.”
“You do?” It sounded so weak, so insecure, but in that moment I needed to know if he was telling the truth. I needed to know that he was as absolutely consumed by me as I was by him.
“You are perfection. You are made for me, with your independence of spirit and your resilience. I never have to worry about frightening you or breaking you. How could I not love you?” He grabbed my hand and pressed it against his chest. I felt his heart beating, steady and sure. “You belong in here, my love. You belong in my bed, in my house, and you belong there with the right to own me. To own my time and my attention. Say yes.” He pulled my fingers up to his lips and began kissing them, one by one.
“I want to,” I whispered. It was the truth, pulled from me almost involuntarily. God, how stupid I was!
“So say it.” His teeth were nipping at the pads of my fingers now, nips that turned into bites, bites that turned into sucking.
I want to. So much.
He drew my finger into his mouth, and my breasts strained against my corset, my legs parting unconsciously. My protests about station and honor and the nature of Violet’s death grew fainter in my mind, dimming like lamps being turned down.
He moved forward and brushed his lips against mine, softer than the touch of a feather. This—this offer, this love—was unequivocally what I had hoped for in my most secret of hearts, the dream I only dared dream alone in the bitter hours of night. I would be cruel to myself—and to him—if I let these weak worries pollute a chance at happiness. Officer Mayhew himself had said that there wasn’t enough evidence to charge Mr. Markham with Violet’s murder. Wasn’t I making something out of nothing? Hadn’t we both suffered enough?
His kiss deepened and my eyes fluttered open to see his face as he kissed me. His eyes were closed, but there was no mistaking the vulnerability and the need, a need that superseded the sexual.
Love.
He’d admitted it: He loved me. And I loved him. Of course I would say yes.
As if he knew what I was thinking, Mr. Markham slid a hand behind my neck, tilting my face ever so slightly upwards and letting his fingers trail down my neck. They plucked at the modest neckline, which rested against my collarbone, and finding no purchase there, they moved down to my waist.
My mind began putting away my worries, one by one, shutting them into a chest and nailing it shut. Arabella went in one, Violet in another. Honor, decency, fear for my own safety, disparity of station and wealth…they all slowly packed themselves away, ordering themselves in rows in some distant corner of my mind. I could worry about them later. Right now, there was only Julian.
He pulled me to the edge of the couch and raised my skirts so that my legs were exposed. He pulled away, as if truly noticing my dress for the first time. “Why aren’t you wearing one of your new ones?”
“I didn’t think you’d be home tonight,” I said.
“The dresses are to be worn all the time, not just when I’m around. I want to know that you’re wearing only the best, even when I can’t see you. After we marry, I�
�ll buy you so many dresses that you’ll never have to wear the same one twice.”
I started to protest but my words were cut off when his fingers started tracing circles on my thighs. “I haven’t said yes yet,” I managed as his fingers crept higher, finding the edge of my underthings.
“What can I do to make you say yes?” he asked, leaning in to press his lips against my neck. “Anything you want, I’ll give it to you. Money, jewelry, travels abroad…just name it and it’s yours.”
“I only want you, Julian,” I said. “That’s all I’ve ever wanted.”
He made a deep noise at the sound of his name, and his kisses on my neck turned into fierce biting and sucking. I could not hide my desire now, spreading my legs as far as I could, desperate for his fingers to reach the part that most needed him.
But he wouldn’t satisfy me, not yet. His fingers danced just out of reach, refusing to go any further.
“Say that you’ll marry me,” he said again.
“I still don’t—”
His fingers stopped, his lips pulled away from my neck, leaving it cold and sensitive. He stared into my eyes, his own not giving any quarter. He wouldn’t let me skirt by on this; he wanted a firm answer and he wanted it now. He stood.
“Don’t leave,” I cried.
“Quiet,” he said. He was directly in front of me, his hips at the same level as my head, and even in the dim firelight, I could see the way his erection strained at his trousers. “Take it out,” he said.
I looked up at him, expecting to see lust but instead only seeing determination.
“Take it out,” he repeated. I shivered—not in fear but in excitement.
I unbuttoned his trousers, tugging them down to free his cock, which was magnificently stiff, taking my time so I could admire him. Every part of him was so virile, so male, and especially this part of him, which was stone hard and without regard for anything but its own fulfillment.
“Touch it,” he commanded, his eyes blazing down at me, and I did, running my fingers from the base to the tip, feeling the veins ridge under my fingers, feeling it jump as I caressed the sensitive underside. I remembered our time in the temple folly, how I had gripped him then, and I did so now, circling my fingers around him and sliding them gently up and down. I was rewarded with a hiss.
“Open your mouth, Ivy,” he said, trailing a finger from my lower lip to my chin.
I hesitated. This was something new to us. I had an idea of where this was going, but what if I did it wrong?
“Open,” he ordered again, his tone stern, and I obeyed without thinking, parting my lips. The smooth crest of his cock brushed against them once, twice, and then slowly pushed inside. I opened my mouth even more, allowing him farther and farther in, until he hit the back of my throat. My throat closed against the invasion, and I made a choked noise, but Mr. Markham didn’t stop. He slid out and in again, his hand on the back of my head, his eyes on mine the entire time.
“There,” he said. “See? You are already mine. You opened your mouth for me, and you’ve opened your legs for me. I imagine in the eyes of the church, you’d be wrong not to accept my offer at this point. You already belong to me, so why fight it any longer?”
He was right, of course. Why was I resisting? I’d packed all my worries with their murmuring voices away, there was nothing in between me and what I most wanted…
I pressed my tongue against the underside of his cock, enjoying his groan as I did, loving the way his breathing grew faster and his eyes grew darker as he held my head and fucked my mouth. I closed my lips around him, increasing the suction, and reached up a hand to stroke the parts of him that weren’t in my mouth.
“Your mouth feels so good. So warm and soft. Look up at me, darling.”
I lifted my eyes once more, not breaking my rhythm. I sucked as hard as I could and cupped and squeezed as much as I dared, loving how powerful he looked at this moment, both hands now on the back of my head as he used me to chase after his own orgasm.
I felt him thicken even more in my mouth. “I’m going to come,” he growled. “And you’re going to take it. Because you’re mine.”
My only response was to suck harder, to tongue him more, and after a few more thrusts, he grunted, shooting warmth down my throat in long pulses that took more than a minute to start fading in strength. Once he finished, I let him slip from my mouth, and he swiftly buttoned himself back up with steady hands, the slight flush in his cheeks the only betrayal of what he’d just experienced.
Perhaps there was a hint of a pout to my face, because he said, “I’m not touching you until you say yes.”
“You can’t seduce me into marrying you.” I knew I would say yes, it was on the tip of my tongue, but there was something incredibly arousing about his frustration, about his need to hear me accept.
He lifted me from the couch and deposited me on the large reading table in the middle of the room. He disappeared for a minute, and I propped myself up on my elbows to watch as he went to the desk and retrieved a pair of metal shears, which glinted dully in the light.
He walked toward me, and for a moment, all I could feel was the distinct fear that I was trapped alone in a room with the man who had been accused of killing my cousin and what if I was next? I shut that thought in another box. Mr. Markham wouldn’t hurt me. At least, not in a way that I didn’t want.
If he saw my fear, he made no mention of it. Instead he put the shears to the hem of my dress and began cutting. I made a noise of protest, but a swift, sharp look from him made me stop. So I did nothing but watch as he destroyed one of the few things I had brought to Markham Hall, one of the few things I truly owned in this world.
“If I had my way, I would destroy all of these rags,” he said. “They hide you. They dull you. You are too beautiful to wear such hideous things.” The shears went snip snip and my fear starting melting into something lower, something deeper. They snipped up to my waist, and then Mr. Markham laid the shears down, took hold of the two edges, and ripped the dress right to the top, giving an extra rip to tear cleanly through the tired lace neckline. I wore only my corsets and petticoats now, the latter of which he removed after tugging the shredded dress off me and discarding it in a heap on the floor. My other underthings were cut away as well, until my legs and hips and sex were completely exposed, though my corset still bound my breasts.
“Oh the things I want to do to you, wildcat. Sometimes I have to remind myself that we have all the time in the world…but I’ll be damned if I still don’t want to spend every minute making love to you.” He went over to an end table. “I want to eat your pussy until you can’t think coherent thoughts and you forget how to speak. I want to play with you in public; I want to make you come at the dinner table or in the middle of a crowded ballroom. I want everyone in society to see how gorgeous you are when you’re being pleased. I want everyone to see that pretty little mouth wrapped around my cock.” He took a lily from a vase on the table. “But mostly I want to fuck you. I’ve fucked many women, Ivy, and I’ve never fucked one like you. Your cunt is perfect—did you know that? Hot and wet and so goddamned tight. And the way you beg for it, the way you snap between fierceness and frenzy—well, it’s almost more than I can bear.”
He walked back to me, holding the white lily. Its stem arced gently, weighed down by the large petals.
“I’m still waiting for that yes,” he said.
“I know,” I whispered, desperate from his words, and then froze as I felt the cool, silken skin of the petals brushing against my bare folds. After being so aroused with no stimulation, the sensation was almost overwhelming. My head fell to the side. “Oh.”
The flower swept up to tickle my clitoris. My toes curled.
“You’re wet, wildcat,” Mr. Markham observed. The flower left and then there was a sharp flick as it struck my clitoris. I moaned.
“Now,” he said. “Will you say yes?”
I nodded.
“I need to hear you say it.”
But I couldn’t at that moment, because he bent down, his head between my legs, and I could feel his warm breath everywhere—on my thighs, on my folds, on my sensitive bud. My mind seemed to leak out information, leaking out everything I knew and everything I was, filled with only one thought: I need him to touch me.
He blew on me, and goose bumps raced up my arms. “Please,” I said. “I need you.”
“Not good enough,” he declared, straightening. He undid his pants and pulled out his cock, which was hard again, hard and glorious, and I moaned once more.
“Please.”
He stroked himself a couple of times, watching me as I watched his hand, moving over that wonderful thing that I now needed with such desperation it left me breathless. Then he grabbed my hips and jerked me roughly to the edge of the table so that my legs hung off the edge and so that the tip of his cock was less than an inch away from my opening. I squirmed, trying to get closer to him, but he planted a wide hand on my stomach and pushed down hard enough that I couldn’t move. Then he did something unexpected and ran the head of his cock up my folds, from my wet entrance to my swollen clit.
“Oh Julian,” I whispered. “Please.”
“Say it,” he said, with another rub against my clit. My body shuddered with need. “Say it or I swear to God, I’ll make you watch me stroke myself. I’ll make you watch as I come on that snowy white corset of yours, and then I’ll leave you here to suffer alone.”
One more rub, this time with his cock spending extra time pressing against my bud, and I finally caved. “Yes,” I cried. “Yes, I’ll marry—”
I hadn’t even finished my sentence before he thrust into me. My back arched off the table, pleasure and pain lancing through my core and out to my limbs, out to my toes and fingertips. I felt every curve and crest of him and whimpered as he slowly withdrew to the tip, his hand still flat on my stomach. He bore into me again, slowly but not softly, his other hand coming around to grip my thigh. After he sank all the way in, he ground himself against me, rubbing against my clit, and my back arched again.
The Education of Ivy Leavold Page 1
