by Lynne Barron
Olivia gasped at this new invasion, her hips bucking wildly, twisting and wiggling, as she sought to take his tongue deeper into her body. Jack thrust and withdrew, thrust and withdrew, opening her, stretching the swollen portal before returning to her neglected clit with a vengeance.
He lashed the pebbled flesh, grazed it with his teeth, and slowly, steadily, pushed one finger into her cunny to the hilt.
“Can you take it?” he panted against her moist, hot flesh.
“Yes, oh yes,” she mewled, her inner walls clasping tight.
Jack withdrew and gently thrust his finger back into her, again and again, while he latched on to her clit and sucked it between his lips, setting up a tempo that matched the slow, relentless thrust of his finger.
“More, I need more,” Olivia begged.
Jack gave her more, adding a second finger to the first, forging deep into her clenching quim until his knuckles bumped her folds with each gentle thrust. He changed the angle of his hand, pressed the knuckles of his two remaining fingers against her rosette. Each slow lunge of his hand between her spread thighs speared his fingers deep into her hot little pussy while his knuckles tapped against the puckered flesh beneath.
Olivia let out a cry, her cunny clasping his fingers, her clit pulsing between his lips, and her anus puckering against his knuckles. She bowed her back, lifting her convulsing flesh higher, tighter against his mouth and hand as she came long and hard. Her entire body shook with the force of the orgasm that racked her body, from her toes pressed into the mattress to her fingers yanking at his hair.
Jack held her there above the bed and absorbed her passion, pulled her fragrance deep into his lungs, her taste deep into his mouth, his cock pulsing, his breath rushing past his lips to caress her flesh.
When her trembling subsided, when her fingers released their death grip upon his hair, and she pulled a long, broken breath into her chest, Jack lowered her to the bed and rose to his knees between her legs.
He tore at the belt around his waist, shrugged the silk robe from his shoulders, wrapped his fingers around his aching shaft, and began to pump his hips in counterpoint to his stroking hand. Olivia’s eyelashes fluttered and her eyes slowly opened, her gaze cloudy and dazed. A soft smile drifted around the edges of her pretty mouth as she met his gaze.
Jack wondered what she saw in his eyes, what she saw in his clamped jaw, what she heard in his rasping breaths as he fought to pull air into his lungs and his hand stroked the length of his cock, faster and faster.
Her eyes dropped to his pulsing shaft. She drew a fractured breath, let it out on a low moan. Her tongue came out to brush against her lower lip. Trembling arms rose, her hands hovering in the air between them before falling to rest on her belly. She kneaded the soft flesh, her eyes riveted to his throbbing cock and the hand that pumped down the rigid length.
Jack felt his balls tightening, knew he was only a few seconds from coming on her belly, on the small, delicate hands that drifted over her flushed skin.
He’d be damned if he’d waste his seed on her belly.
“Pull your legs up,” he gritted out between clenched teeth, his free hand moving to lift one long leg up and push it back so that she was open to him. Olivia hurried to lift the other, until her thighs were wide apart, her knees pressed against the sides of her breasts, pushing them together.
As the first shivers of release slammed into him, racing through his balls and pulsing down his shaft, Jack lunged over her. He brought the fat tip of his shaft to the opening of her quim, pushed forward, forging his cock into her body.
Olivia gasped as he filled her, stretched her. Her muscles clenched around the engorged head, clamping like a tight ring around him.
And then he was climaxing, hard and fast, a feral groan ripped from his lips as he pumped his hand down his shaft, the fat head buried in her tight cunny, and wave after wave of pleasure roaring through him.
Collapsing on the bed beside her, Jack hauled her into his arms, tucking her head beneath his chin. Olivia curled her body around him, her legs entangling with his, one hand coming to rest over his furiously beating heart.
They lay wrapped around one another until Jack gained control of his breathing, until the blood slowed in his veins, until his mind began to clear of the swirling fog of mingled pleasure and satisfaction.
“I’ve missed you,” Olivia whispered, her hand idly circling his nipple.
Jack drew in a deep breath, let it out slowly as his hand came to rest over hers, trapping it against his heart.
Marry me.
The words were on the tip of his tongue, he even opened his mouth to deliver them before he thought better of it.
You must not ask me to marry…not ever again.
She’d stuttered the words out between heaving sobs as she curled around him, her tears wetting his neck.
Where is the freedom I was promised?
Her wailing words echoed around in his mind and Jack latched on to the clue they provided. The Countess of Palmerton quite clearly believed she was owed some measure of freedom in return for the years she’d spent imprisoned in a loveless, passionless marriage.
Jack knew all about holding fast to the promise of repayment of a debt owed. He’d waited more than a decade to seize the life that should have been his. He’d endured his own hellish marriage. There had been times during his years with Elizabeth when it had seemed that the only thing that kept him sane was the fantasy of one day, somehow, some way, seeing that debt paid in full, of claiming what was owed him.
If Olivia needed more time and a bit of freedom before she settled into marriage once more, Jack would give her that. And in giving her that which she desired, he would be that much closer to achieving his own just reward.
The too-soft bed jostled and Jack opened his eyes to see his future bride leaning over him on one elbow, a smile upon her lips and a twinkle in her eyes.
“What was that you did to me?” she asked, her voice smoky.
“Liked my mouth on your clit, did you?” Jack asked.
“I quite liked your mouth on my clit, and your tongue buried in my cunny, Mr. Bentley,” she purred.
Jack rolled her onto her back and leered down at her. “What do you say we see just where else you might like my tongue?”
With a toss of her head that sent sunlight shimmering through her sable curls, Olivia wound her arms around his neck and pulled his mouth down to hers.
Chapter Eighteen
Live a little, Lady Palmerton.
Jack’s words whispered through her mind in the days that followed.
“You’re in a pensive mood today.”
Olivia looked away from the view of the flourishing garden beyond the low wall of a gray stone balustrade. She turned to find her sister watching her with a soft smile, her brown eyes warm, the wind teasing her long, golden tresses against her neck and shoulders.
“Do you think that I worry overmuch what others think of me?” Olivia asked curiously.
“Honestly?” Beatrice Carlisle, Viscountess Easton asked.
“No, I’d prefer you lie to me,” Olivia replied with a grin.
“I don’t know that I’ve ever met a woman who worries more about other people’s opinions,” Beatrice said. “Well, perhaps your mother.”
“Is it foolish of me to care what others think?”
“Foolish? No, of course not,” Beatrice answered. “But when you deny yourself in order to please others, when you allow yourself to be controlled by other people’s expectations, it is the height of foolishness.”
“Other people’s expectations,” Olivia repeated softly. “You’ve a way of hitting the head on the nail.”
“I think you mean hitting the nail on the head.”
Olivia waved away the correction, accustomed to mangling the simplest of expressions.
“I have allowed myself to be controlled by other peoples’ expectations,” she admitted. “Boxed in by the fear that I might lose their good opinion. My
mother, my husband, my neighbors and friends. I even worry about what strangers think of me.”
“Is there such a thing as strangers in London?” Beatrice asked. “Doesn’t everyone know everyone, if not by acquaintance then by reputation?”
“Precisely,” Olivia agreed. “The woman I passed this morning on my way to visit you…”
“Passed? You walked here?”
“I miss my morning walks at Idyllwild.”
“Yes, but you walked here. You who once took a carriage from your house to your cousin’s four doors down,” Beatrice replied with a laugh. “Goodness, we’re a good mile from Palmerton House.”
“Hadn’t you heard? I am a respectable widow now,” Olivia said. “With a widow’s …”
“Freedom,” Beatrice finished for her. “You’ve been saying that twice daily since your return to Town and I’ve yet to fully grasp what the words mean to you.”
“I can walk down the street all by myself if I choose to. I can wear bold gowns in jeweled tones. I can learn to play the violin,” Olivia replied.
Beatrice only looked at her, one brow raised.
“I can take a lover,” Olivia added in a whisper.
Beatrice tossed her head back and laughter tripped from her lips, the merry sound carrying up into the cloudless sky.
“Beatrice…” Olivia began as her cheeks heated.
“Oh my God!” Beatrice jumped to her feet. “You’ve taken a lover! Who is he? Good gracious, you’ve taken a lover!”
“Beatrice!” Olivia rose to her feet, her head swiveling about.
“No one can hear us,” Beatrice assured her as she rounded the small table that sat between them on the balcony overlooking the gardens. She pulled her sister to her feet and into her arms. “Who is he? Tell me everything.”
Olivia allowed herself to be whisked across the balcony in an exuberant reel, their slippered feet tapping against the stones, their day dresses swirling around them. They danced from one end of the open expanse to the other before returning to the table and the remnants of the breakfast they’d shared.
Beatrice fell into her chair, her eyes watering and a wide grin gracing her beautiful face.
Olivia gingerly lowered herself into her own chair, her muscles and tender flesh protesting. She’d enjoyed Jack’s attentions twice last night and again in the quiet just before dawn. In truth, she’d walked the mile to Beatrice and Simon’s house in hopes of walking the stiffness from her thighs and to save her poor swollen cunny from the torture of bouncing about in a poorly sprung carriage.
“He’s insatiable,” she muttered beneath her breath.
“Insatiable?” Beatrice repeated, her eyes wide.
Olivia bent her head.
“How insatiable?” Beatrice asked. “Every night insatiable? Every night and every morning? Morning, noon and night?”
Olivia nodded, peering up at her sister through her lashes.
“Morning, noon and night?” Bea breathed in wonder.
“Twice,” Olivia replied, unable to keep a smile from her lips.
“Twice what? Twice each night? Twice every morning?”
Again Olivia nodded.
Beatrice blinked at her. “And noon?”
“Only once,” Olivia replied. “Usually.”
“How on earth do you manage it?” Bea asked.
“Sometimes it is a bit much,” Olivia admitted. “But he…well, he just can’t seem to get enough of me. And I cannot refuse him. He is…the things he does to me…the things we do together. I never knew two people could share…it’s simply delicious.”
Beatrice waved one hand in the air as if swatting the words away. “Do not remind me. Simon seems to think I am made of the most fragile glass these days. I’m lucky if he gives me a quick kiss most nights. But that’s not what I meant.”
Olivia tilted her head in question.
“How do you manage all this trysting, how is it no one knows?”
“Oh, well, we…that is…Jack comes for tea most days and simply lingers throughout the afternoon after I’ve put the children down to nap.”
“Lingers all day and throughout the night?”
“No, of course not.” Olivia laughed at the absurd, though pleasant, notion. “He goes home after, well, after—”
“After once. Usually,” Bea interjected with a giggle.
“Yes, well. He will find me at the end of the night at whatever entertainment I’m attending.”
“Do you plan ahead? Tell him where you’ll be and when?”
“No,” Olivia replied after a pause in which she wondered how exactly Jack had managed to find her at the theater, at Lady Winston’s ball, at Bertie’s musicale. “I don’t know how he knows, but somehow he does. I suppose if one knows which events are planned of a night it’s not difficult to guess where I’ll be.”
“So he finds you and what? Pulls you into empty rooms, dark alcoves?”
“Not yet, more’s the pity. I had thought he would, but thus far he has restrained himself to long, winding carriage rides and soft fluffy beds. Oh, and walls. Jack seems to have a real thing about walls.”
“Walls certainly hold appeal,” Beatrice replied with a secretive little smile, before her eyes widened and she sucked in a startled breath. “Jack? As in Jack Bentley? The boy you once loved?”
“He’s hardly a boy any longer,” Olivia answered.
“But it is him? Jack Bentley?”
“Yes.”
The sister’s smiled across the table at one another.
“So he bundles you into his carriage, has his wicked way with you and sneaks you up to his chamber?”
“Mostly,” Olivia agreed. “Last night I sneaked him up to mine. Through the servants’ entrance. He was nearly caught by Celeste leaving this morning.”
“Celeste won’t spread tales,” Beatrice assured her.
“No, but she had a difficult time meeting my eyes this morning when she helped me to dress,” Olivia replied. “Every time she did, she erupted into giggles.”
“She’s likely happy for you,” Beatrice said. “She was with you through the worst of your years with Palmerton.”
“Yes.”
“My goodness,” Beatrice breathed after a pause in which Olivia attempted to push the memories from her mind. “You’ve taken a lover. And not just any lover.”
“What do you mean?” Olivia asked in confusion.
“You’ve taken the man you’ve always loved as your lover,” Beatrice explained.
“I don’t love Jack!” Olivia exclaimed in surprise as she leapt to her feet. “Good Lord Bea, what on earth would make you think that?”
“Well, you loved him when you were a girl…” her sister began.
“Kitty love,” Olivia protested, her heart racing.
“Puppy love,” Beatrice corrected.
Olivia waved her hand in agitation. “I never had a puppy. It was always cats for me. And Jack was like a sleek black cat, a graceful panther.”
“And you loved him,” Beatrice said.
“I was a child,” Olivia argued. “He fell in love with Elizabeth and married her and I put away any fanciful notions of love. I put them right from my mind.”
“And your heart?” Bea asked softly. “Did you put them from your heart?”
Olivia paced away from the table, from her sister’s perceptive gaze. She stood staring out over the gardens that Beatrice had turned into a verdant, wild jungle, a smaller version of the gardens at Idyllwild.
“I intended to love Palmerton,” she said to the garden.
“I know you did.” Beatrice came up beside her, her hands holding the burgeoning swell of her belly. “But some people make loving them impossible.”
“He never wanted me to love him,” Olivia replied, her gaze still on the garden where a fountain bubbled cheerfully. “He never thought to love me, to know me. I was a gently bred lady, the daughter of the Earl of Hastings, the Diamond of the Season, the pick of the crop. The ideal bride, one who
would grace his arm when the occasion demanded, welcome him to her bed when an heir was required, run his household and host lavish balls to impress his peers and sit quietly across the breakfast table while he read the Times and muttered over his coffee.”
“I’m glad he’s dead.”
Olivia spun to face her sister, shock vibrating along her spine. And with it, a whisper of agreement that she valiantly battled down.
“I am,” Beatrice insisted. “He was a horrible excuse for a man, flaunting his mistresses in your face, belittling your opinions, treating you as little more than his broodmare, stealing from you.”
“He hardly stole from me,” Olivia protested.
“He blew through your dowry like it was water, he stole your future, your innocence, your spirit, your belief in yourself. He was nothing but a lowly cur, debauching and thieving his way through life.”
“My goodness,” Olivia breathed in awe. “You’ve a way with words, Bea.”
“And he stank,” Beatrice finished with a nod.
Olivia burst out laughing.
“He did,” Beatrice asserted with an answering giggle. “His breath was like the foulest sewage. And his general body odor, good Lord, one could smell him coming from the next room. How his mistresses tolerated that odiferous cloud that followed him about, I’ll never know.”
“Jack smells divine,” Olivia replied with smile. “Spicy and exotic, bergamot and thyme and something else I can’t quite place.”
“He likely bathes regularly.”
“Oh, he does,” Olivia assured her. “He quite enjoys bathing, in fact.”
“Twice?” Beatrice asked, straight-faced.
“Hush, you hussy.” Olivia swatted her sister playfully on the arm.
“Will the clean, divinely scented, insatiable man remain in London for the remainder of the Season?” Beatrice asked as they wandered back toward the table.
“At least until he finds a wife,” Olivia answered, ignoring the lump that formed in her throat.
“A wife?” Beatrice repeated. “He is searching for a wife? While he dallies with you? Why won’t he marry you? He’d be lucky to have you for a wife. You are…”
