Slowly, he tugged it free, and the nightgown, inch by inch began to gape at the neckline. He dipped his head, kissing her skin as the nightgown gradually revealed her. It slithered down her arms and caught momentarily on her painfully hard nipples, until he nudged it free with his chin and took one in his mouth. It pooled to the floor at her ankles.
Her head fell back and she swayed on her feet as his tongue and his teeth worked their gentle magic on her. He moved to the other side, banding an arm around her waist to keep her steady as he slowly drove her mad. The ache between her legs intensified. She pressed her thighs together to alleviate it, to no avail. He was the only one who could.
Fingertips, so light and soothing, skimmed down her chest, over her belly, and then lower. When he slipped his hand between her legs she nearly moaned with relief, biting her lip to keep from making a sound. All the blood in her body seemed to pool at the sensitive spot he touched and she was very much in danger of coming apart right here, standing up, in his arms, but then, abruptly he withdrew.
Her mouth opened in a protest she wasn’t supposed to be making, but he silenced her with a brief gentle kiss against the corner of her mouth, as close as he could come without crossing the line she’d drawn, the one she wanted to erase herself every time he touched her.
“Today you gave me something, and now it’s my turn to give you something back.”
Her eyebrows furrowed in confusion. He pushed her to sit on the edge of the bed and she did, sinking into the thick feather mattress. His hands came up to her head, sliding into her hair, his fingertips caressing her scalp. Shivers ran down her spine, loosening her taut muscles. Slowly, he guided her onto her back.
“I told you I loved your hair, but every inch of you is beautiful. Every single inch.”
She began to make some pointless protest, but he was dropping kisses down her body and when he did that to her breasts, she really did lose her wits. He lingered there until she was arching up into his mouth, her hands gripping his hair. He went lower still.
His tongue swept a languid arc along the lower curve of her abdomen, and across to her hipbone where he gently bit her, before kissing his way down, over her hip and to her thigh. When his hands clasped the backs of her knees and slowly slid her legs apart, she finally understood what he meant to do.
“Andrew, I don’t think—”
He looked up the length of her body at her. His dark hair was a tousled mess and those sapphire blue eyes were dark with lust.
“It’s my turn to give back to you.”
“But—”
“Shhhh.” That was whispered against the sensitive skin of the inside of her thigh. His breath tickled her sex, and she bit back a moan. No, it was too much, far too intimate. And it had absolutely nothing to do with creating an heir. Still, she watched in shocked fascination as he slid to his knees on the floor and his dark head lowered. He began to kiss along the inside of her left thigh, starting above her knee and moving up.
Her whole body tensed as he worked his way closer to the apex of her thighs. She couldn’t imagine such a thing, how it would feel, what it would do to her. But her stomach cramped with the desire to find out. Just when it seemed he would, when the next kiss had to land there, he paused and started over, on the right knee.
Her head dropped back on the bed and she groaned with frustrated need. He chuckled against her leg and the vibration of the sound moved through her body, making her writhe. Still, he took his time making his way up, kissing and licking as he went. Her thighs were trembling and he hadn’t even truly touched her yet.
He lingered in the hollow between her leg and hip, tracing it with his tongue, blowing across her damp skin and raising goose bumps everywhere. Then, without warning, his mouth closed over her. Instinctively, her thighs pressed together against the overwhelming sensation and she gasped. Andrew eased her legs back open, teasing her with his tongue, up and down the length of her sex, to either side of the most sensitive spot, and then finally, right there. He set up an inexorable rhythm, one she couldn’t resist.
Pleasure unfurled in her. She dropped her head back and pressed her eyes closed, getting lost in the overwhelming sensation. Her hands came back to his hair, gripping him for dear life. She heard herself making the most helpless, needy sounds, and she was shamelessly holding his head against her, but he didn’t seem to mind. Indeed, he seemed to be enjoying the act almost as much as she was.
The sensations became acute, sharpening into a deep, unsatisfied, aching need. Her hips were moving. Good God, she was thrusting herself against his mouth. He urged her on, sliding one hand under her hip to angle her better for his explorations. It grew so intense, she wished both to stop and to never stop. She wanted more, more of his mouth and this blistering heat. With his other hand, he slid two fingers inside her, bringing her that last distance to release.
There was no way Victoria could stop the cry breaking from her lips. She gasped and whimpered as her body bucked under his mouth. Her legs trembled and her heart pounded. Still, he kept on, working over her, drawing it out, until she was in danger of fainting from the pleasure of it.
Finally, when she was sated and weak, he eased back, kissing each thigh, then each knee. Her eyes were closed as she floated on the delicious sensations surging through her limbs. She wasn’t even aware he’d shed his clothes and climbed onto the bed with her until he’d hooked his hands under her arms to drag her further up.
“You see?” he said. “Beautiful.”
He angled his body over hers, his weight pinning her down, his hips settling in between her thighs.
“So, so beautiful.” He kissed her neck, her earlobe. She could feel his hardness brushing against her tender sex, rubbing gently with each tiny thrust of his hips. Her hips moved to match him instinctively. He kept kissing and whispering endearments into her skin, propping himself up on his elbows and taking her face in both hands. “Beautiful and strong and kind.”
This was too much. Sex was one thing, but he couldn’t do this to her now, not when she was so thoroughly vulnerable to him. She tried to turn her head away but he held her fast.
“No, don’t. Look at me, darling.”
She wanted to refuse, to retreat back inside herself. But she couldn’t. His voice was soft, somewhere between a plea and a command and she was helpless to resist either one. So she opened her eyes and looked at him.
His face was only inches away, his blue eyes boring into hers intently. His hands held her face, gently, but implacably. He would not let her run away from this moment. Tremors began to ripple through her. Oh, God, he terrified her. This emotion terrified her. If he could undo her this way using only her body, what could he do with her heart?
But he held on, refusing to let her pull away. “I want you, Victoria,” he murmured. “And not just in my bed. I want it all.”
She whimpered, unable to speak.
“Please,” he pleaded, his mouth a breath from hers. His hips shifted against hers, driving her need ever higher. Even as her heart fought to keep him out, her body was desperate to let him in. It was becoming all tumbled in her head until she began to suspect they’d become one and the same.
“Let me in, Victoria. Please.”
He was begging for her mouth, but he was begging for more, too. He wanted all of her, and she no longer knew how to tell him no. The kiss, though...God, how she wanted his kiss. It seemed like the only thing that might anchor her as she slowly came apart.
She nodded, one tiny dip of her chin, and his eyes darkened with triumph, desire and a million other complicated emotions she couldn’t put a name to. She didn’t have to, because in the next second, his mouth came down on hers and there was no need for words anymore. Their lips could say it all without a sound.
After all they’d shared with their bodies, it seemed impossible a kiss could threaten to unravel her. B
ut Andrew’s kiss could, that’s why she’d held him off. He left no part of her mouth unexplored. The intimacy of it was undeniable. There was no way to hide from a kiss, no way to disengage. He possessed her the minute his lips touched hers.
As his tongue swept in to claim hers again, he rocked against her, and when she would have cried out, he swallowed the sound and plunged into her. She would have arched up underneath him, but he held her too tightly. She was surrounded by him, held fast in this moment as it spiraled out of control. The pleasure was there, so familiar to her now. But this time it was bound with something more. There was no way she could close her eyes and feel with only her body. He held her face, gazing down into her eyes, as he thrust into her, and the intimacy of the moment threatened to break her in two.
Another climax bore down on her. Her breath came in hitches.
“That’s it, darling.” His eyes never left hers. She wanted to close her eyes, shut him out of this, but it was impossible. Her body tightened unbearably and still he held her fast. “I want this from you, Victoria.” He wasn’t talking about her release or her kiss. He wanted her heart and in that moment, it was his. He’d had it almost from the beginning.
It broke over her at last, and Andrew held her tight as she trembled under him. His hands still gripped her face as she came undone around him, his eyes on hers until the very last minute. When he reached the edge, they finally closed and he came with a groan ripped from deep inside himself.
Finally, she closed her eyes, too. Tears leaked from under her lashes, running in hot trails back into her hair. Her throat ached with unreleased sobs.
“Shhhh. Don’t cry, darling,” he whispered, kissing away the tears, running his thumb under her lashes. She drew in a breath to speak and it caught, coming out as a strangled sob. He rolled off of her, but not away. Instead, he lay on his side and pulled her in tight, wrapping his arms around her as she cried. She ought to leave the bed, to run while she still could. But as he kissed her hair and ran a hand soothingly down her back, it was already too late. He held her heart just as tightly as he was holding her body. She could only hope he wouldn’t crush it in his carelessness.
Every night he’d come to her, she’d made him leave the bed afterward and return to his own room. Tonight, that was impossible. The words wouldn’t come as he held her and she let herself be held. And when her tears dried, he held her while she slept, the first night she’d ever spent at her husband’s side.
Chapter Eighteen
Briarwood was magic in the summertime. Andrew followed Louisa, Emma and his wife across the gently rolling lawn toward the lake. The girls pulled Victoria along as Emma eagerly described a duck’s nest she and Louisa had found several days ago and the multitude of adorable ducklings living there. It was remarkable to see Emma bloom under her care. In the time he’d been at Briarwood, she’d truly become a different child, not nearly so somber and quiet.
As they passed under the willow tree growing by the shore, he stopped and directed the footmen following him to set down the picnic hamper they carried. Wilson spread a blanket on the soft grass as another young man set out plates and glasses.
“Will that be all, Your Grace?”
“Yes, thank you, Wilson.”
The footmen departed with a nod and he lay back on the blanket to read, enjoying the summer sun and soft breeze. In due time, the ducklings had been admired and counted and followed as they waddled down to the water. Emma came back to retrieve a crust of bread from their lunch, and she and Louisa wandered farther down the lakeshore to feed the rest of the colony. Shielding her eyes from the sun, Victoria watched them for a moment, as if she was reluctant to sit down with him.
“Victoria.”
She looked down at him. “Come sit with me.” He held out a hand to her. A month ago, when he’d first arrived at Briarwood, she’d have snarled at him and retreated. Today, she blushed slightly, took his hand and let him tug her down to the blanket. She wasn’t totally at ease with him, but things had definitely improved. She was certainly sexually satisfied. He’d made that his mission in life. As for the rest, she would get there, he was sure of it now. They needed a little more time. They needed more moments like this, relaxed and intimate. He needed more time to weave his way into her life.
Victoria busied herself with retrieving grapes and cheese from their picnic basket while Andrew lost himself in the myriad of colors her hair turned in the dappled sunlight filtering through the willow branches.
“It’s too bad the gazebo is in such disrepair or we could have picnicked there.”
“Hmmm?” It took him a moment to catch up to her thought process.
“The gazebo. We’d hoped it might do with a few structural repairs, but Mr. March said it’s too far gone. It’s all got to come down.”
“Well, he’d best get the workmen started on it.”
Victoria shrugged. “There’s no great rush now. It’s August. Summer is nearly over.”
“But we’ll want it for next summer.”
She looked up, her face set and serious. Throwing out that casual “next summer” coupled with that “we” had been no accident. He watched her carefully, seeing how she absorbed it. Whatever her reaction, she kept it to herself, looking away and sliding a grape between her lips. It made him imagine something else sliding through those lips. Perhaps that would come in time, too.
He cleared his throat. “You did well hiring March. He’s a good man.”
“It was just luck. Luck and a suggestion from Mrs. Palmer. He was invaluable in the beginning. There was so much to be done, and I have no head for farming. I’ve spent all my life in cities.”
“I did, too.”
“You never stayed here when you were younger?”
He shrugged. “Only overnight once or twice as a child. I hated it.”
Her brow furrowed. “But why?”
“You saw it when you first came. It was terrible.” He waved a hand at the idyllic landscape and the house, graceful and stalwart in the distance. “Nothing at all like what you’ve made it into. Besides, this was Edmund’s legacy, not mine. It was not a future I was welcomed into, and eventually it wasn’t one I wanted any part of.”
“What was he like? Edmund?” When he didn’t reply right away, she continued. “I’m sorry. You probably don’t like speaking of it. You don’t have to tell me—”
He reached his hand out and covered hers. “It’s all right. I don’t mind.” He started talking again, but didn’t release her hand. She didn’t pull it away, either. For all the passionate embraces in her bed, all the ways he’d explored her body, this simple gesture—her hand in his—was the thing to make his heart beat faster.
“Edmund was three years older than me. He was the perfect product of our parents.” He couldn’t help the sneer accompanying those words.
“What do you mean?”
“He was like my mother in his vanity and self-interest, and like my father in his dissolution and irresponsibility. He knew he was the favorite, the heir, utterly untouchable, and it made him a beast. Doubtless you noticed my father didn’t care much for me. And he mostly pretended the girls didn’t exist.”
“Because...”
“Because we weren’t his.”
“None of you? What about Louisa and Emma?”
He cocked an eyebrow and shook his head. She shot him a conspiratorial smile. “Only Edmund?”
“Only Edmund. Louisa, Emma and I don’t even share a father, as best as I can surmise.”
“And still you married to save the family.”
“I married to save my sisters,” he said grimly. “I would have walked away from my parents. My father was a bastard and my mother’s a monster. I certainly didn’t owe them any loyalty. But I would never walk away from Louisa and Emma.”
Her eyebrows furrowed. �
��Of course you wouldn’t. Only—”
“Victoria, what are you thinking?”
“The night after your father’s funeral, in the library.” Color stained her cheeks. “What you said to me about taking a lover.”
Her meaning sank in and he grabbed for her other hand. “I didn’t mean that.”
“Maybe not at first. But then my reply... I had no idea how it must have sounded to you. I didn’t understand about your mother at the time, or I’d have never said something so flippant and cruel.”
“I never thought you meant it.”
She glanced up at him and cocked her eyebrow. “Truly?”
He chuckled and dragged a hand through his hair. “All right. I didn’t believe it for long. Certainly not once I arrived here.”
She laughed, too, but after a moment she sobered. “I’d never do that, you know. Even when you were gone. I still wouldn’t have—”
Curling a finger under her chin, he nudged her face up until she met his gaze. “No, you never would. I know that now. You’re nothing like my mother. She’d have never done something as unselfish as this.” He waved a hand, encompassing Briarwood and everything surrounding it.
“It wasn’t entirely unselfish. You’ve met my parents. I wasn’t happy as a child. I wanted someplace that was mine, someplace where they couldn’t touch me. I wanted a house of my own.” Her eyes had dropped again, her lashes casting shadows on her cheekbones.
“A house is only a pile of stones. You’ve created something far more important. You’ve made a happy home. And you’ve shared it with my sisters. I’ll be forever grateful to you.”
Her teeth caught at her bottom lip, as if she was considering whether or not to speak. Her eyes, those emerald eyes that always devastated him, flashed up and met his. “It’s your home, too,” she said, the softness and fragility of her voice showing him how much it cost her to make that tentative statement.
Happiness shot through him like a spear to his chest, so unfamiliar and foreign it nearly hurt. After years spent wandering in darkness, running from this place as if from the mouth of hell, he’d never imagined he’d land back here, only to find it held a happy future he hadn’t even dared to hope for. A home for his family, a home for himself, and this wondrous woman at his side for it. He didn’t have words. But maybe he didn’t need them. He wrapped a hand around the back of her neck and tugged her forward until her face was inches from his. Her eyes went wide and she tried to pull back.
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