The Butterfly Formatted

by Vale, Victoria

  He grasped her legs and opened them even wider, pressing her knees back until they nearly touched her chest, keeping her open and pinned beneath him. Her breath accelerated, and she closed her eyes, her entire body going stiff in anticipation. He’d given her the reins, but it seemed she would now surrender control to him. If it were out of fear she acted thus, he did not like it.

  Aiming the head of his cock at her sheath, he nudged her entrance. “Open yer eyes, Livvie. Look at me … talk to me. Yer in control right now, remember?”

  Releasing the breath she’d been holding, she nodded, her eyes opening so she met his gaze. He smiled at her, ignoring the tingle that broke out over his body from his prick and overwhelming the surface of his skin—the urge to seek more of the heat and wetness kissing his tip.

  “Who’s in control, Livvie?” he urged, never breaking eye contact, even as he gave her the barest half-inch.

  She shivered, wrapping her tiny hands around his straining biceps. “I am.”

  He nodded. “Aye, ye are. And that means ye dinnae need to hide, or close yer eyes. I want ye to keep yer eyes on me and tell me how it feels, what ye want me to do. If ye want me to stop, ye’ll say so. If ye want more, ye’ll say that, too. Aye?”

  “Yes.”

  He released a shuddering breath as he went deeper, lodging the thick flare of his head just within her. Pausing for a moment, he let them both adjust to even that small invasion, the tightness of her sheath downright painful. With as much care as he could, he plunged deeper, the way made slick enough for him to lodge half his cock in her at once. She issued a little surprised huff, her wide eyes never straying from his. She trembled beneath him, her fingernails now biting into his arms. He focused on the sting of her mauling him, used it to keep him focused. As it was, the feel of her would surely kill him, and he wasn’t even all the way inside.

  “More,” she whispered, her voice tiny and strained, but somehow heavy with certainty.

  Pulling back slightly, he paused, arrested by the sight of his cock, glistening wet from her honey, gleaming in the light of the fire. Then, he was thrusting in again, withdrawing, then sinking, creating a slow and agonizing rhythm. The tight clasp of her stole his breath away, making it difficult to think, to function beyond the primal thrust and clench of their joined bodies.

  Lips parted, gaze growing heavy-lidded, she watched him with eyes set aflame, the dark coals blazing with heat and light.

  “Tell me, Livvie … tell me how ye feel.”

  “Full … stretched … but it is good … it’s … it’s so good.”

  Yes. It was good—the satiny grip of her around him, the warmth of her body against him, her ragged breaths tickling his cheek. It was more than he’d ever dreamed, even as he knew they’d barely even begun. He took his time, clenching his jaw and keeping an iron grip on his will. This had to be perfect for her, and that meant he had to be slow, give her time to adjust to his length and girth.

  “More, Niall,” she urged, one of her hands coming down to clutch at his buttocks, urging him deeper with a squeeze. “Please … I need more … I need to feel all of you.”

  “I dinnae want to hurt ye, Livvie. Ye’re so tight … I cannae …”

  “I don’t care. I’ve waited too long for this, and now that I know I can do it … please, don’t make me wait anymore. I am not made of glass. I won’t break. Just … take me, Niall.”

  Her words were like the crumbling of a dam, releasing the last of his reticence and doubt—the last of the fear he had attributed to her, but that had really belonged to him. He seated himself inside of her with a grunt and a forceful surge of his hips. His pelvis met hers like two pieces of some shattered thing coming together, her slender, seemingly fragile body speared on his powerful one.

  She cried out, her fingernails gouging him so deep, he was surprised she did not rend his flesh from his bones. Even if she did, he could not have found the mental faculties to care. She was open for him, stretched and throbbing with every beat of her heart, her chest rising and falling with each rapid, sharp breath she took.

  Glancing down to where they were joined, he could not hold in a primitive growl of satisfaction, more aroused than ever by the sight of her wrapped around him. His cock was a bestial thing tearing into her … big, and pulsating, and running her through like some crude sword. However, she did not weep, or struggle beneath him, or beg to be relieved of it. Instead, she tightened her hold upon his arse, holding him against her as if attempting to guide him farther into her. If he were any deeper, they would cease being two people and become one.

  He couldn’t resist the need to move any longer, his stare fixated upon where they were joined as he withdrew almost entirely, then thrust into her again, finding a rhythmic ebb and flow. She opened to him even more, her body stretching to accept him, the juncture where her thighs met her hips easing to part her legs even further.

  And, just as she had boldly declared, his little doll did not break. On the contrary, she came alive, igniting in his arms, burning like a bit of kindling set aflame. Darting a glance up at her face, he found her intently focused upon the same view he had been so fascinated with—the sight of their bodies finally joined as one after so much waiting and wanting. She moaned and sighed, whispering to him everything he would have ever wanted to hear—that it felt divine, that she loved him, that she never wanted him to stop.

  Her words urged him on, his hips picking up a swifter rhythm as he dug as deep into her as humanly possible, releasing her legs so that he could wrap her in his arms. Clinging tight to her, he rested his head on the pillow beside her, face buried in the crook of her neck. He was mindless by now, fucking her with countless years’ worth of need and starvation, driven by the realization that he could never have broken her … not when he loved her so much, he thought it might kill him.

  “Mo cridhe,” he whispered, nuzzling and kissing the patch of skin just behind her ear. “Mo gradh … ye’re everything I knew ye’d be … and ye’re more.”

  She clung to him, her lips finding his forehead, the arch of an eyebrow, his cheek, her hands wandering over his shoulders and the back of his neck. “Niall … oh, God, I …”

  Her words choked off on a gasp, and then, she splintered, shaking and falling apart as her sheath contracted and rippled around him in climax. He forced himself to forestall his own finish, fixing his gaze upon her face—not wanting to miss a single moment of her triumph. She moaned and trembled, tears springing to her eyes as her cunt clenched and spasmed with such force, he thought it might kill them both. Only when she’d stilled beneath him, body gone limp from exhaustion, did he allow himself to follow. His own release proved as powerful as her own, ripping through him with such power, he could barely breathe through it, his body jerking and shaking atop hers as he spilled into her.

  One of her arms came around him, her hold weak but reassuring, the touch of her hand upon his back speaking more than words ever could. They lay there in silence for a moment, breaths ringing out in harmony, sweaty bodies pressed together, limbs tangled.

  Only when he realized that her heavy breathing had morphed into soft sobs did he raise his head and gaze down at her. Worry clenched his throat, the sting of tears already coming to his eyes as he wondered if maybe he hadn’t gotten so lost in the moment that he truly had hurt her.

  However, when their eyes met, she smiled at him, the expression at odds with the tears running down her cheeks and the sobs making her shoulders shake. He cupped her cheek and swiped away a tear with his thumb, then kissed her brow.

  “Talk to me,” he urged.

  She threw her arms around him and, weeping all the harder, refused to let him go.

  “Thank you,” she sobbed. “Thank you, Niall.”

  After dozing in each other’s arms for a time, Niall woke to find that the sun had set outside Olivia’s bedroom window. They had wiled the day away in bed, and he could not bring himself to regret a moment of it. Glancing down at the slight figure in his a
rms, he discovered her peering back at him, apparently having awakened before him.

  “Hello,” she whispered, a mischievous smirk pulling at the corner of her mouth.

  “Hello, ye little minx. How do ye feel?”

  “Hmm,” she mumbled, tightening her hold on him. “Hungry. We slept through dinner.”

  He snorted. “We fucked through dinner. We slept through dessert.”

  She giggled at that, shifting one of her legs and reminding him just how entangled they were. The remnants of dried tears remained upon her face, but her eyes were clear and bright, her cheeks rosy with the glow of a well-loved woman.

  “Aside from hungry … Are ye all right?”

  “I am more than all right, Niall. I am … sublime. And it is all thanks to you.”

  “No. Ye were bold enough to take what ye needed. Ye’ve always been the braver of the two of us, really. I was always too afraid I’d hurt ye, that once would never be enough, or—”

  “It doesn’t matter anymore,” she argued, reaching up to stroke a lock of hair back from his face. “The past is behind us, Niall. Bertram, the Fairchilds, my stepfather … all of it. I just want you. It is all I’ve ever wanted.”

  He pressed his lips to her forehead, letting them linger as he inhaled the freshly washed scent of her mingled with his own smell, which had rubbed off and become as much a part of her as her own. “Ye’ve always had me, Livvie. Even when you left Dunvar, I was with you. My heart’s always been in your hands.”

  “I want to ask you something, but I am afraid I don’t have the right.”

  Niall frowned. “Ye can ask me anything ye want.”

  She paused for only a moment before letting the words out in a rush. “Were their others … women, I mean? Not that I’d hate you if there were … and God knows I was too much a mess for you to have found satisfaction with me. In truth, a part of me hates to think of you—”

  “There were others,” he blurted, before he could lose his nerve. “Whores … maids … but not often, and it was never with anyone I ever cared about, or laid with more than once, or—”

  Placing a hand against his face, she shook her head. “You do not have to explain. It has been five years, and you had a right to seek whatever comfort you could find.”

  “That’s just it,” he murmured, closing his eyes. “It was never comforting. It wasnae often, either. Those women … they were vessels for me and nothin’ more. I never cared for a single one as much as I did you—never fucked one without wishin’ she was you. And I never stopped feeling like a bastard for it.”

  “Don’t,” she urged, giving him a short, swift kiss. “That time in our lives is over. We have each other now, and none of that has to matter anymore.”

  He returned her kiss, a weight lifting off his shoulders now that he’d told her about that part of his existence. It had never sat right with him, using the occasional whore to satisfy his physical needs. Knowing she did not hold it against him made him feel a bit less of a bastard.

  “I know that things may not be the way we planned,” she went on. “I know that I may not be who I was, but … I want it to be different when we go home. I want … I don’t know, Niall, something good. For me, and you, and Serena.”

  He gave her a little squeeze, allowing the hope he’d kept at bay for so long to grow and swell. There were so many uncertainties—such as the fact that Bertram’s threat still hung over their heads. But, he now had every reason to believe they would be all right. Perhaps not the future they’d wanted, but something better.

  “It’ll be different,” he promised her. “But we’ll speak of it later. For now, I s’pose I ought to feed ye before ye collapse in my arms.”

  Rolling onto her back, she pulled the bedclothes up over her chest. “A bite would be wonderful, thank you.”

  He tucked her in more comfortably and went to throw his legs over the side of the bed, crouching to grasp his breeches. “Will ye be all right until I come back?”

  His voice held a bit of the trepidation he still felt at leaving her alone. She seemed all right now, but he could not forget what had occurred that afternoon. Her weight shifted on the bed, and he turned to glance over his shoulder, finding her crouched behind him, the covers fallen to pool around her hips. Her nudity stirred his blood, even so soon after he’d just had her.

  “If you’re afraid to leave me, I’ll understand,” she replied. “I feel fine, Niall … more myself than I have in a long while. If it makes you feel better, I will tell you that there is one last bottle of laudanum in the open trunk in the dressing room. You may dispose of it as you see fit, and there won’t be another drop here to tempt me.”

  Despite trusting her good mood and steady demeanor, Niall crossed to the dressing room, pulling his shirt on as he went. The odor of laudanum still hung heavy in the air here, reminding him too much of what he’d found when he had last stepped into it. Swallowing past the nausea welling in his chest, he crouched before the trunk he found hanging open, bits of clothing strewn out of it. The empty bottle she had drained lay tangled up with a nightgown, so he retrieved it, holding it in one hand while rifling for the other. He found it and carried it back into the bedchamber with the empty one.

  Olivia had left the bed and stood near the hearth with a poker in hand, using it to stoke the dying flames. She had pulled on a dressing gown, the fire casting shadows over half of her face as she straightened to face him.

  “I thought we could throw it in here,” she said in response to his questioning glance.

  Holding the bottle up between them, he studied the red-brown liquid sloshing about inside. Odd, how something so innocuous had ruled their lives, and how its elimination had changed so much in such a short time.

  “Are ye sure?” he asked, glancing back up at her. “Ye needed this for a while. If ye decided ye needed it again, I’d never begrudge ye, and neither would Adam.”

  She reached out to take the bottle from him, her hand shaking as she gazed upon it. For a long while, neither of them spoke, Niall watching Olivia while she studied the laudanum, her eyes unreadable and her expression neutral. In a split second, he wondered if she might change her mind—uncorking the stopper and chugging its contents in a fit of deranged madness. Could he give her up for good then, forcing himself to realize that what they’d just shared could only be temporary? Could he watch her destroy herself again?

  His worries were assuaged when she turned to face the fire, swiftly flinging the bottle into the hearth. The sound of the glass shattering echoed through the silence of the room, the flames sparking, then sputtering and popping as the scent of the substance filled the room. It made his stomach turn, but he ignored the sensation, coming to her side and taking her hand in his. She threaded her fingers through his and leaned into him.

  “I do not need it to survive,” she murmured. “I now realize I never did … not when I have you, Adam, and Serena … and flowers, and music, and art. I have always had the things I need to survive. I’ve been walking about as if dead long enough to be able to see that now.”

  He took her into his arms, holding her against him and resting his chin on top of her head as they watched the flames. The last of the laudanum eventually burned itself away, gleaming shards of glass resting among the ashes.

  After what felt like an appropriate time, he urged her back to bed while he finished dressing. His own stomach had begun to growl, hunger setting in for the first time in hours.

  “I’ll see what can be scrounged from the kitchen,” he told her, before finishing off the buttons of his waistcoat and going to leave the room.

  He did not bother with a coat or cravat, having every intention of undressing again so he could climb back into bed with her. Niall left the chamber with every confidence that she would be safe where he’d left her when he returned.

  His walk to the kitchen turned up a handful of scullery maids and the cook, who were tidying up before turning in for the night. The meals that had been set aside for them
after they’d missed dinner only needed to be warmed, so the maids promised to have it ready for him by the time he returned from the wine cellar.

  He went straight there, thinking that Olivia might enjoy Madeira or some such. It had been so long since she’d been able to manage anything other than broth or tea. He made quick work of his selection, settling on a fine bottle of Burgundy, grateful that his time as Adam’s butler had taught him all he needed to know about fine wine and spirits. He’d come a long way from sneaking his father’s bottles for a taste of the blue ruin.

  On his way back from the cellar, he encountered Daphne, who appeared to be in search of something—or someone. Not unusual to find her prowling about so late in the evening, as she seemed a creature of the night like Adam, always up reading or playing the harp well past midnight. He would not have bothered with her but for the strained expression upon her face. Apparently, her row with his master that afternoon had not gone over well.

  From deeper in the house, he could hear the haunting melody of the pianoforte—Adam’s method of dealing with whatever emotions he might be wrestling with in light of Bertram’s extortion plot. It was what the man always turned to when he needed to think, or exorcise his demons.

  “M’lady,” he said, coming to a stop as he met her in the midst of the corridor. “Is there somethin’ ye’re needin’?”

  He ignored her wide smile at his use of ‘m’lady’ in addressing her and hoped she would not call him on it. Yes, things had changed between them when she had helped coax Olivia into playing the harp. But, after the day he’d had, Niall did not feel much like rehashing all of that. He would admit a grudging respect for her, and that he’d pegged her all wrong. There was no need to stand about yammering about it.

  Glancing over her shoulder as if worried they might be overheard, she took his arm and propelled him behind the nearest door. They stood in an empty, dark drawing room—a small one that was not often used.

  “I need your help,” she said, turning to press her back against the door as if to bar his escape.