WidowsWickedWish

by Lynne Barron

  “Be careful what you wish for.” Jack followed her movements, stalking her around the table.

  “Be careful lest you believe your wish has come true,” she corrected with a self-deprecating laugh. “That was my mistake, believing you desired me.”

  Jack froze, his hands curling around a chair back.

  “You made me believe it.” Olivia grasped the spindles of the other chair, her eyes fastened on the man across the smooth expanse of wood that separated them. “But it was all a lie.”

  “No. Olivia, no.” Jack seemed to sway on his feet, his eyes wide, and his hands gripping the chair.

  “It wasn’t desire at all. Every time you touched me, kissed me, thrust your cock into me, it was with cold calculation, not fiery passion. Every time you made love—” Olivia slashed her hand through the air, negating the words. “Every time you rogered me, swived me, fucked me it was with the intention to plant your seed in my womb!”

  With a roar Jack lifted the chair and sent it soaring across the room to crash into the wall before splintering into so much kindling.

  Olivia’s eyes darted from the mangled wood to her husband who stood staring down at her, his hands clenching at his sides. His chest rose and fell beneath his waist coat, air wheezing past his parted lips.

  “Is that what you think?” he shouted. “That I don’t want you? That I don’t desire you?”

  “It’s what I know,” she replied, her voice shaking but not breaking in the face of his anger.

  “You don’t know shit.” Jack darted around the table.

  Olivia turned away, thinking only to flee to the safety of her bedchamber.

  Strong arms wrapped around her waist from behind, halting her escape and pinning her to his broad chest.

  “Let me go,” she said, wiggling about in his arms, prying at his hands clasped on her belly.

  “Never,” he growled in her ear before pulling the lobe between his lips. His tongue swirled around and he pulled the sensitive flesh into his mouth, his teeth biting down just hard enough to send a shot of painful pleasure through her.

  “Release me this instant,” she ordered, fighting to hold back the moan that hovered on her lips.

  Jack ignored her words, one hand coming up to cradle her breast, the other dropping to the apex of her legs. He drove his fingers over her mound, pushing them between her thighs, stroking over her folds through the layers of her clothing.

  “Not want you?” he growled, releasing her earlobe to press his lips to her neck. “Does it feel as if I don’t want you?”

  He thrust against her bottom, his cock riding the crease.

  “You…that…it proves nothing,” she gasped, battling the urge to wilt against him, to submit to the pretense once more.

  “It proves I want you,” he replied, his mouth racing along the column of her neck to her shoulder. “Christ, Olivia, how could you think otherwise?”

  “I will not get pregnant,” she cried. “I will never bear you a child, a son. No matter how much you might wish otherwise, no matter how many times you plow your giant cock into me.”

  “I want you. Not a child, not a son to carry on my name. You.” He dragged his wet mouth over her shoulder. His hand on her breast flexed, squeezing her, lifting the weight in his palm. His fingers dove deeper between her legs, separating her folds, pressing against her clit. “I want to bury myself so deep in your body you lose all thought beyond the anticipation of the next hard thrust of my cock. I want your fingers biting into my back, your cries echoing around us as you come apart in my arms. I want to eat your cunny, watch you suck my cock. I want you beneath me on your back, before me on your hands and knees, above me straddling me, riding me. I want to make love to you. I want to fuck you. I want you in every way.”

  A shaft of pure lust shot straight to Olivia’s core. And still she fought him, fought her traitorous body.

  “No, you can’t want me,” she mewled, bucking against him, trying to break free of his embrace, of the dark fantasy he wove with his words.

  “Damn it, Livy.” With his hand caressing her breast and his fingers dragging over her mound, he shifted, turning them both. “I want you and I’ll prove it to you.”

  “I don’t want you.” The words left her on a breathless moan, her very last weapon against the desire evoked by his words, by his hot hands on her body.

  “Liar.” Jack released her breast and withdrew his fingers from between her legs. Before she could truly miss his touch, he placed one hand on her back and bent her over the table.

  “No,” she whispered, her hands coming up to rest on the surface, to push against his hard hand.

  “Oh, yes, wife,” he replied, his voice harsh as he forced her down until her cheek rested on the cool wood. He dragged her skirt and petticoats up, tossing them over her back, before yanking at her drawers, ripping them down her legs to pool at her ankles.

  “Not want me?” he whispered above her, pushing her legs apart and stepping between them.

  His hands landed hard on her bottom, squeezing and shaping, pulling her cheeks apart, exposing her.

  “Not want me?” he repeated, some new emotion in his throaty voice. “If I thought that was true, if I believed I’d lost you…”

  His words drifted away even as his thumbs dipped into the crevice of her bottom, skimming along the tender flesh to hover just over the forbidden portal.

  He tapped against the puckered hole and Olivia trembled, her senses alert to the thrill of the taboo touch.

  “I could take you here. Drive deep into your ass with no possibility of a child. Would you believe me then?”

  “Jack,” she breathed, her hips lifting, pushing her bottom against his marauding thumbs.

  “Someday,” he promised. “Right now I want your tight cunny around my cock.”

  His hands skimmed down her thighs, spreading her wider.

  Then two long fingers were circling her quim, dipping into her body.

  Dark laughter whispered from above. “Not want me? You’re wet for me.”

  He thrust his fingers into her, hard enough to force a moan from her lips, the sound mingling with his rasping laughter.

  “You want me.”

  Olivia shook her head, her cheek rubbing against the wood beneath her.

  Jack withdrew his fingers, thrust them into her again, harder, deeper, until his knuckles tapped against her folds.

  “Tell me you want me,” he panted above her.

  His fingers left her and she turned to peer at him over her shoulder. His gaze was hot on her naked bottom while he tore at the buttons of his trousers.

  Olivia felt the head of his shaft prodding her and dropped her cheek back to the tabletop, anticipation humming along her limbs.

  “Tell me you want me.” He grasped her hips firmly, pushed into her cunny, barely breaching her before retreating to circle around her channel.

  Olivia gave up protesting, both with her words and her body. She arched her back, lifting her hips, chasing the head of his cock, desperate to have him fill her. “Yes.”

  “Say it,” he ordered, bringing the tip back to torment her, to probe but not penetrate. “Say you want me.”

  “I want you!”

  With one strong thrust Jack drove into her, his cock filling her, stretching her.

  “Damn…Livy…love,” he gasped, his hands flexing on her hips, his fingers digging into her flesh. “Not want you?”

  Then he was moving, withdrawing only to thrust into her hard and deep again. Over and over, he slammed into her body, the slap of flesh on flesh mingling with his rasping groans and her desperate moans.

  “I. Want. You.” He paced his words to each thrust as if he might somehow force her to believe them even as he forced her to submit to his possession. “I. Have. Always. Wanted. You.”

  Jack released her hips, leaned over her to press his open mouth to her nape, and forged his hand beneath her. His palm dragged over her curls, his fingers finding her clitoris.

&nb
sp; “Not want you?” He pressed the small nub, circled and rubbed, matching the frantic stab of his cock until Olivia was writhing beneath him. She stretched her arms out before her, curled her fingers around the edge of the table and lifted her hips, meeting each driving thrust, taking him deeper into her body.

  “Jack,” she moaned, chasing an orgasm that lurked just beyond her reach. “Oh God, Jack.”

  “Yes,” he grunted, his breath warm on her neck. “Come for me, love. Give me your passion. I need it, Livy, please don’t deny me.”

  His voice, rough yet tender, demanding yet supplicating, sent Olivia right over the edge into an abyss of pleasure so dark, so deep, she only dimly heard Jack’s shout of exultation, vaguely felt him drive into her one last time before finding his own release.

  She thought she might have fainted, only came back to herself as her husband collapsed onto her, his elbows planted beside her head taking most of his weight. He hung his head down, his lips pressed to her temple, his breath whispering across her cheek.

  “Not want you?”

  Olivia felt him shaking above her, his chest shuddering against her back, and smiled.

  “Jesus, Livy, the ideas you take into your head.”

  Chapter Thirty-One

  Jack rolled over and opened his eyes to find the Earl of Palmerton on his knees beside him, his cherubic face still flushed with sleep, his gray eyes twinkling in the morning sunlight.

  “You’re my pet father,” Charlie announced with a wide smile.

  “Hmm.” Olivia snuggled against Jack’s shoulder, one long leg looping over his waist and her hand coming up to curl around his neck.

  “Mama’s sleeping,” Charlie said, one pudgy hand patting his mother’s cheek.

  “Let’s allow her to continue sleeping, shall we?” Jack asked, careful to keep his voice low lest he wake his wife.

  “Mama likes to cuddle with Bonny Prince Charlie in the morning,” Fanny called out as she strolled into the room still dressed in her night clothes, two dark braids resting on her shoulders. “Then she likes me to call her to breakfast. You’d know this if you slept in her bedchamber more often.”

  In point of fact, Jack did know their morning routine. He’d listened to it every morning for four weeks, his heart clenching in his chest to be excluded from their cozy little family. Even Justine had been invited to join the ritual, breaking her fast in the nursery most days, leaving him to eat in the dining room with only his morning paper for company.

  “Mr. Jack’s my pet father,” Charlie told his sister as she rounded the bed to peer down at her mother.

  “Stepfather,” Fanny corrected.

  “Pet father,” Charlie insisted, his lower lip trembling.

  “Shh.” Jack placed one finger over his lips.

  “Mama has calls to make,” Fanny said. “She always has calls to make. When I’m grown I won’t call upon anyone. I’ll sit in my castle and let them all call upon me.”

  “A wise decision,” Jack replied, starting to slide from beneath Olivia’s winding limbs only to come up short when he remembered he was naked beneath the bed covers. He tugged the sheet that lay twisted around his waist higher, darting a quick glance to assure that all the necessary parts were covered.

  “You haven’t any night clothes on.” Fanny’s voice held equal parts shock and curiosity.

  “Come along Fanny and Charlie.”

  Jack looked up from his stepdaughter’s frowning face to see Justine standing in the open doorway dressed for the day in a yellow gown. In her hands she held a straw bonnet decorated with white silk flowers and long trailing ribbons.

  “Good morning, daisy,” he greeted her, watching as her green eyes widened at the endearment.

  “You ought to sleep in Olivia’s room every night,” Justine said. “You aren’t as grumpy as a bear this morning.”

  “I’ll keep your advice in mind,” he replied, unable to stop the smile that pulled at his lips.

  “But try not to forget your night clothes,” Fanny cautioned.

  “Come along, wee lordling.” Justine helped Charlie from the bed and turned him toward the door. “Nurse Sophia has been looking for you.”

  “I was with Mama and my pet father,” Charlie said.

  “Stepfather,” Fanny corrected, her gaze still riveted to the bed, bouncing between Jack and Olivia. “Why are you sleeping in my mother’s bed? You’ve a perfectly good bed in your own chamber.”

  “Sometimes husbands and wives sleep together,” Justine called back over her shoulder. “That’s how babies are made. Or didn’t you know that, lady smarty-petticoats?”

  Olivia tensed beside him, her leg sliding from his waist and her hand drifting over his neck and shoulder before dropping to the bed between them.

  “I know how babies are made,” Fanny answered, turning to follow Justine from the room. “I’ll be seven next week and I’m—”

  “Precocious,” Justine interrupted. “So you keep saying. Ad nauseum.”

  “What? What did you say about vomiting?”

  Whatever reply his daughter made to Lady Frances’ outraged question was lost as the door slammed behind the trio.

  Olivia rolled away from him, giving him her back, and Jack curled around her, his lips coasting over her nape.

  “I thought I’d made myself quite clear last night,” he whispered against her warm skin. “And this morning just before dawn. I don’t give a fig about making babies, Olivia.”

  “Yes, but…”

  Jack waited to see if she would continue before wrapping his arms around her and pulling her snug against him. “Between us we’ve got three children and frankly that’s more than enough.”

  “They are none of them your own,” she replied, her voice muffled in the pillow she clutched.

  “They are all my own,” he countered. “My own little family.”

  “It’s kind of you to say so,” she replied. “Sweet, really. But haven’t there been too many lies and half-truths between us.”

  Jack gently turned her on her back before plucking the pillow from her grasp and throwing it to the foot of the bed. “Listen to me, Lady Bentley, and listen well, because I am only going to say this one more time. Though if you ask very nicely I might show you time and again.”

  Jack waited until she met his gaze, her eyes smoky gray and somehow fierce in the morning light.

  “I want you.”

  “Right now?” she asked.

  “Well, yes, right now,” he answered with a laugh. “But I didn’t mean I want to make love to you. I want you. In my life. As my wife. As my family. You and your frightfully intelligent daughter and too-damn-cute son. And the rest of your surprisingly improper family. Your bed-hopping brother, your irreverent sister, even your haughty, bawdy cousin, bless her tricks. I’ll even welcome your mother if it means I get to keep you.”

  “Keep me?” she repeated, her forehead wrinkling as she frowned. “I’m your wife. Where would I go?”

  “Wherever it is you’ve been since I made a colossal muck of our marriage,” he replied, leaning over her to press a kiss to her lips. “I’m more sorry than I can tell you for all of it.”

  “You’ve nothing to apologize for,” she said, meeting his kiss with one of her own.

  “I should have realized when you told me of Charlie’s birth that you hadn’t escaped the ordeal without injury.”

  “I might have told you I was barren when we were together at Idyllwild,” she argued, her hands coming up to sweep over his whiskered jaw. “You could have gone on your merry way before it was too late.”

  “It was too late twelve years ago when I returned from the Grand Tour to find you had grown into a beautiful woman.” Jack dragged his lips across her cheek and down over the delicate curve of her jaw. “Hell, it was too late even before that, from the moment I looked down into your freckled face when you were six years old.”

  “I never had freckles,” she argued, her arms looping around his neck.

  �
��You had eleven of them dusting your nose and cheeks.”

  “You counted my freckles?”

  “I was fascinated, enchanted, ensnared in your web.”

  “Oh, I like that,” she purred. “Imagine me ensnaring a man like you.”

  “A man like me?” he trailed his open mouth down the arch of her throat, his cock hardening against her hip.

  “Deliciously manly and beautiful and randy as a goat.”

  “Beautiful?” he repeated skeptically as he tugged the sheet down her body, following its descent with his hand. “You’ve no need to flatter me. I’ll let you have your wicked way with me even without pretty words.”

  “You are beautiful to me,” she vowed, arching her back when his hand closed around her breast.

  “Ah, Livy,” he breathed into the juncture of her shoulder.

  The snap of the door latch had Jack whipping the sheet up and over her breasts and looking over his shoulder.

  “Oh, pardon me, Mr. Bentley.” Celeste hovered in the doorway, a swathe of purple fabric draped over her arms. “I’m sorry. I saw the children eating in the nursery and I thought her ladyship was awake. Of course she is awake…I only meant…”

  “It’s all right, Celeste.” Olivia squirmed to sitting, a blush settling on her cheeks.

  “I suppose that’s my cue,” Jack mumbled.

  “Might you go next door for Mr. Bentley’s robe?” Olivia asked the maid as she laid the dress over a chair back.

  “Of course, my lady.”

  “You don’t have to run off,” Olivia said when her maid had disappeared into the hall.

  “It’s just as well,” he answered, running a hand through his hair and squinting at the clock on the mantel. “We’ve an appointment in two hours.”

  “We have?”

  “Don’t dawdle, Lady Bentley. Dress for an adventure and join me below stairs.”

  “Yes, sir, Mr. Bentley,” she replied with a grin just as Celeste returned.

  “Here you are, Mr. Bentley.” The maid held out his robe, her face turned away from the bed.

  “Thank you.” Jack shrugged into the garment, wrestling it closed before clambering from the bed and placing his hand over his loins to hide the evidence of his arousal.