Chapter Thirty

Chapter Thirty

Angelika preferred Will’s cottage to Blackthorne Manor.

It had everything she could want: a comb to fix her hair, a little soap and water for her hands and legs, a clean shirt from Will’s doll-sized closet, and a tiny nip of his homemade blackthorn gin. It ran down into her stomach like medicine and cured her of the pain in her wrenched shoulders. The bed in here was a mere fraction of the mattress acreage she normally enjoyed, but it meant that they had to cuddle close together, knee bones clinking. One shared pillow would always be enough for her.

But it wasn’t the aftermath of her fright in the orchard that they were dealing with right now.

“My love, that ordeal was too much for you.” Angelika ran her hand through Will’s hair. “You’re scaring me a little.” He felt as heavy as a corpse in his bed—and she would know.

“I did tell you,” he replied on a long sigh. “I only have so much energy in my body.” He moved his fingers in slow, lazy circles on her arm. “I hope Adam considers taking the cottage. I can have it fixed up in no time.”

Angelika pursed her lips. “He wouldn’t even venture in past the threshold. And let’s face facts: it’s far too small for him. I think he secretly liked it, all the same. He had a little smile as he disappeared into the dark.” Angelika had already made a mental list of things she could do to make Adam’s home comfortable, and the little luxuries she could procure for Clara and Edwin. “We could make it so nice for him. And Clara. And Sarah, and Jacob. My own little village, right up here. Conqueror Lane.”

“Now that you have glimpsed the good you can do in this world, I believe you will be unstoppable.”

A grumble of thunder was heard.

She put her forehead against his. “Were you awake when you heard me scream?”

Will nodded. “I was already at the window. I had the strangest feeling. We are connected, remember?” He considered this statement. “Maybe Adam feels that same connection to you, too.”

Hearing his voice in the dark, saying things like We are connected, gave her another image. She became even more aware of her bare legs and no underwear. “There’s something wrong with this picture.”

“What?”

“I generally sleep naked.”

“What just happened was a terrifying ordeal for you. The last thing you would want is that.” His arms found enough strength to cuddle her closer.

“Mary was the one who truly saved me,” she said into his chest. “She has trained me for this my whole life.”

Tension ran through Will. “What do you mean?”

“She said I would one day be in a moment with a man I didn’t know, where I would have to act instantly. She said I should trust my instincts, no matter if it turned out to be a misunderstanding. His feelings would not count. She always made me repeat after her: no hesitation, no politeness, run.”

“And you did.” He kissed her temple, and exhaled a quiet “Thank God.”

“I never asked Mary why she had that advice for me. What has she lived through?” Frightening images began to plague her mind. Angelika put her hand up the back of Will’s shirt, and his smooth skin grounded her in the present moment.

She was safe, with the person who loved her the most.

He said, “When I see Mary again, I am going to thank her most sincerely. She helped raise a woman who trusts herself. I am so proud of you.”

“Mary’s advice also applies when I find myself with the right man. The one I choose, and would have into my body, if he wanted me that way.” She tipped her face up and saw his eyes watching her. “No hesitation, no politeness. Trust my instincts. Run to him.”

“It was my name you screamed, not Christopher’s, and I’m sure you noticed how deeply that cut him. You still choose me tonight, despite the doubts that hang in the balance? Are you positive?”

“Yes.” She rubbed her hand on his side. “And your feelings count very much, and I know you have found out something about yourself today that will change everything. I understand this may be our only night together like this.”

What would daylight bring? Might he wake, and remember his past, and leave forever?

He lay thinking in the darkness, his fingertips swirling on her arm in endless loops. “But I am not that person. Not yet, anyway.” The touch was giving her goose bumps. “You know that Father Porter will come for me. This is only the beginning, and it may be something you cannot talk or pay us out of.”

“But I talk and pay so well.” Her reply was cute, but she knew he was right. A dead man could not just walk up to his own grave with no repercussions. “We’re going to have to tell Victor.”

“That’s what worries me most,” Will said to the ceiling. “I know you’ll love me no matter what”—he squeezed her—“but Victor’s reaction is unpredictable. If he finds out he has been sheltering a clergyman, he may toss me out on principle.”

“He loves you as a brother.” She paused. “But he hates contradicting himself and making exceptions. But you are correct. I will always love you, exactly as you are. What do you want tonight?”

Her new life philosophy was to try to notice the lovely moments she was living in, knowing how quickly it all could end. His body was aroused, his hands were on her, and the hem on her borrowed shirt was riding up.

“I want to use my hands on you.” He began to unbutton the shirt she wore. He struggled with the task, but she lay patiently. “I am losing sensation in my fingertips, and I think soon I won’t feel anything at all. And to think I might never—” The sound he made in his throat was choked and emotional. He folded away the fabric, and passed his palm down her spine. “I want to feel you, while I still can.”

“Is my hair soft?” she asked. “Am I sweet-smelling, and pretty?”

He huffed a laugh. “Adam tells the truth.”

She tipped her face up to kiss his throat. “Am I completely naked in your bed?”

“I’m not sure.”

“You’d have to use your hands to find out.” She felt him go still. “Forget what we have ahead of us. Forget the morning. We have tonight, and we still have your fingertips, don’t we?” Her own hands were beginning to stroke him: the satin of his shoulders, the line of stitches at his neck. His hair felt like owl feathers. “Can you feel me tonight?”

“I feel you,” he said with a tremor in his tone, sliding his finger along her collarbone. “Do you feel me?”

“Since the moment we met.”

“Say my name,” he said in the dark, and he began using his hands in earnest. “I want to see how it fits.”

It took the brave, bold Angelika Frankenstein a few moments to muster the courage.

“Arlo.”

The spell was not broken. His hands continued to move, cataloguing her shape and smoothness under his bedsheets. The way he touched her was like a reverent savoring, like he was committing every rib and curve as memories he would hold sacred.

“I’m not sure,” he said, and put his mouth on hers in a kiss. “I’m not sure it suits me.”

This was the kiss that had hung between them in the air for every taut moment, retort, admiring glance, and endless night. Being trusted had imbued Angelika with power and pride; being loved like this did the same. There was no doubt for her. There was no one else. In a world full of options, where she could dip into her purse for anything and enchant any unwed military man, this was her only choice.

She would bring him back to life. “You say I’m more than beauty.”

“You’re energy,” he said, reading her mind, understanding her in a way no one ever had. “And you’re all I will ever need, for the rest of my life. I promise you.”

Kissing was a wonderful way of sharing this close, connected sense of destiny that was enfolding them now, but touching was just as nice. “Oh,” Angelika said when he swirled a palm across her nipple. “Arlo. Will. There’s a lot of things I want to try.”

“Really?” he said in the dark, pressing his lips onto her, dragging his tongue, finding her tight twisted part below her heart. “Really? Tell me.” He tugged, and teased, and nipped words out of her.

She told him everything.

“Behind, I crave it from behind, bend me over things and step in between my feet and just—” She flexed forward, and now her thighs were curled against his arousal. He wasn’t finished, and she gave him more. “Outside, I’ve always wanted to be licked between my legs under the stars—” She only caught her breath for as long as it took for him to kiss across to her other nipple. “I want to stay naked. In your bed, just like this, every night.”

“What about Larkspur?”

“I know big houses make you jumpy and depressed. I’ll live here with you, ah—” Now he was stroking her thighs. Now he was asking her to part them. “I’ll be happy here in this little white house as long as you keep sliding your fingers up higher, until you find me right—”

As she gasped and groaned, he said, “Oh, dear. Now I’m never getting you out of my bed.”

He began a maddening, off-kilter pattern that she couldn’t get enough of, but also could not build on her pleasure. It was his way of asking her to relax into it, to enjoy for touch’s own sake.

“Now, if you could do this under the dinner table while I eat my dessert, I would be inspired to treat you in return.” Her hand found him, and twisted him, and pulled up until his hips followed.

Now down, pressing down, until he melted into the bed.

“This life you have planned for us sounds rather exhausting,” he said with amusement, even as his breathing was increasing. “Even though you’d have me in bed constantly, I might be too tired to function.”

“Functioning is not going to be high on our list of priorities.” She felt ready. Was he? Did he want this? “What do you want me to call you?”

“Will. Arlo. I really don’t know.” Pause. “You could call me sir, when you’re on your knees. That might be a new dynamic we explore, once we’ve worked out our hundred favorite types of regular lovemaking.” He was starting to not cope with her rhythmic pull-press-pull. “What I’ll really enjoy with you is the nuances, the mindset, outsmarting that quick brain of yours, making your body bloom only for me . . .”

He shivered, but did not go over.

“Start immediately,” she suggested, but he had gone still in the dark. “My love?” Her heartbeat was tapping insistently in her chest. She needed a release, and she needed to know him in these new ways. “Please, if you want to, put yourself into me.”

“I never have before.”

“How do you know?”

“Because I found a letter from myself.” He did not let her passion wane, but rolled her onto her side, and lifted her knee up onto his. As he began to explore her, gently, competently, using his fingers to test her softness in deep new places, he said, “I lied to you.”

“I don’t care.”

“I found a letter in Father Porter’s office, and it said I was a good young man who had never put two fingers into a woman’s wet body like this. Or three.”

She choked a laugh, even as her eyes closed in pleasure. “What else did it say?”

“I’m a virginal, abstinent man,” Will said, rolling her onto her stomach and kneeling behind her. His hands pulled her hips up, and now he was positioned. The broad head she had personally selected was notching into place, and he was asking her, “Are you ready? Do you still want this?”

“Please,” she said facedown into their pillow. “I don’t want to be a virginal, abstinent woman. Give it to me.” He did, and oh, she felt every slow inch of this moment. There was no pain, no agonizing ripping of her body to shreds. Natural science; that was what this was.

No, even more: it was a trance.

They knew what to do. Angles, and speed, and resistance, and a touch of gravity; nothing required any thought. Will was both careful and powerful in his movements, drawing out, pushing back, causing her to gasp, groan, and tingle. He began to pull her back firmer and firmer onto him.

Just like pure gold, Angelika’s orgasm was unmistakable when she saw it start to glimmer on the near horizon. Will saw it, too, and folded his body down, caging her in with his arms. He bit down softly on her neck, then put a hand down to touch and help her. It was a claiming; a gentle, hard, rocking, thorough fucking, and just like the gold ring dazzled her eyes, her body tightened up, the enormity of the sensation feeling like panic and then—

Ecstasy, utter, decadent, blooming ecstasy, drawing cords through her limbs to pull and loosen, jerking and easing. He was in the exact same moment. They shivered and pressed and held still, his brow on her shoulder as he rocked in slowing spasms. The human body was capable of miracles, soaked in sweat and salt.

“I love you,” he told her. “I have, from the moment I first saw you.”

“I loved you before you took a breath.”

Laughing giddily at this absurd competition, they slumped and rolled into each other’s arms. “Are you all right?” He tipped her chin up with his thumb. “Was I too rough?” There was blood, but not much. “Mary would be furious to see this sheet.”

“She did warn you. I felt you being careful in every moment. I am fine. Better than fine. Why do novels always make virgins out to be fragile little things? I feel . . . powerful. Don’t you?”

“That’s good you feel that way,” he said. “Because I’m not done with you.”

Will, Arlo, her love, whoever he was, diligently began work on his goal of one hundred.

She had no idea where he got his unlimited energy from.