Chapter 13

CHAPTER THIRTEEN

“ H er name is Sophia,” Ezra explained, handing Lydia a glass of wine. “And she is not my lover. She is my mother.”

They were back at his London house, both clean and dry after their passionate tumble in the park. They had lost track of time out in the rain, and by the time they had pulled their soaked and ruined clothes back on and went back home, it had turned dark. The servants had given them both crazed looks as they walked drenched and muddy through the foyer, but none of them dared to say a word.

In the privacy of his quarters, Ezra disrobed Lydia, helped her bathe, made love with her once more, and then wrapped her in one of his blankets before placing her in front of the fire. It had taken everything in him to leave her there; as he worried that she might panic and leave while he quickly bathed. When he returned to his bedroom wearing a pair of fresh briefs he was relieved to find Lydia exactly where he had left her.

He had been rough and desperate with her when he took her in the park, and it was impossible not to worry that it had been too much for her.

Yet she smiled at him warmly as she lounged on the settee, still cocooned in the blanket he’d wrapped her in. She looked happy and sated. It made something flutter in his belly, and he couldn’t stop the smile that formed on his lips. He had shirts. Perhaps it would have been proper to offer her one, but when he went to fetch it for her he could not bring himself to do it. He much preferred the idea of simply unwrapping her.

First, though, they needed to talk.

“Your mother,” Lydia echoed, watching him as he took a seat in the chair across from her.

Her cheeks flooded with color, and she let her gaze fall to the floor.

“Goodness, how mortifying,” she breathed, shaking her head. “I am so sorry.”

“You have no need to be,” Ezra replied calmly. “You were right. I tease and taunt you all the time. What I have not done is share anything with you about my past. But yes, that beautiful, monstrous creature that you saw slapping me across the face was indeed my mother.”

Ezra watched a contemplative look form on Lydia’s face as she slowly took a sip of wine.

“Why did she slap you?” she asked calmly, turning her green eyes to him.

With that single look, Ezra was ready to pull her back into his lap and stop talking. He already wanted her again and the thought was taking over the majority of his thoughts. Instead, he gripped his whiskey glass harder and pushed his thighs deeper into his seat.

“I accused of her something,” he replied, swirling the whiskey in his glass. “She took great offense to it.”

“Your hand,” Lydia said, putting the pieces together.

Ezra nodded.

“You thought it was her?”

“Not her, as in the holder of the blade, but I suspected that she was the one who had coordinated the event.”

Another pause, then Lydia asked, “Will you tell me more about her?”

Ezra weighed her request thoughtfully.

“She is cruel and unworthy of your time,” he said at last. “But let us remain on task. I have answered your question. Now you will answer mine. Why did you disobey my orders and follow me to London?”

“I did not follow you,” Lydia answered quickly, her brows drawing together in earnest. “I was invited by Alice and Barbara, who thought a few days out of Frampton might help me ease some of my…confused thoughts.”

“Confused thoughts?” Ezra asked, leaning forward.

Lydia threw him a look that said you cannot be serious. When he said nothing, her earnest look drew into a defensive one, and she rose into a seated position.

“Yes , confused thoughts,” she insisted, “You and I…what we had done in your office, it was…it did things to me, changed me. When I attempted to speak to you about it you pushed me away like an annoying thing. I was hurt and alone and I needed my friends, so yes, when they suggested I join them in London I accepted. But I did not go for the purpose of following you.”

Guilt, relief, annoyance, and understanding all flooded through him, rendering his mind a jumbled mess. He tried to sort through them all, identify them and put them in their proper place. Never had he felt so many confusing emotions because of one woman.

As he sorted through his thoughts Lydia did not pester him. She did not huff or accuse, but instead simply waited as though she somehow understood what he was experiencing. Recognizing this only made him long to touch her again, and he gripped his hands tightly together in an attempt to focus.

“I made an error,” he said at last, finally raising his eyes back to hers. “When I decided to seek a wife. An arrogant mistake. I did not consider the dangerous position it placed you in if you were married to me. When I was attacked at the ball I was furious at you for not listening to me, but I was even more furious at myself for not preparing for such an incident.

“I have made many enemies, and this is not the first attempt that has been made on my life, but it is the first time I have worried about someone getting hurt because of me. Duncan and the others, we all assumed a shared risk when we became friends. Putting our lives on the line for each other was just what we did.”

A sick, oily feeling coiled in his stomach, and he winced.

“Your life is one I am not willing to risk, so I came to London, where most of my contacts are, to try and find who the assailant was.”

“And it was your mother?” Lydia asked.

Her eyes were shining with sympathy now, and he hated it. His jaw snapped shut as he ground his teeth.

“Apparently not,” he growled, working through the sudden anger that fueled him.

Pity. She was pitying him, and he hated it. Unable to take it, he shot up from his seat.

“Do not look at me like that,” he snarled, heading toward the door. “I do not want your pity.”

Quicker than he realized she ever could, Lydia sprang from the settee, the blanket dropping, and she pressed her naked body against his. She thrust her fingers into his hair and yanked his head down, forcing his eyes to meet hers.

“Do not mistake pity for empathy,” she warned, her tone low and deadly serious. “You are unworthy of such an emotion from me.”

Ezra felt his body react to her stubborn strength, and he felt some of his anger turn into something else. Beneath his briefs, his member stirred, and his hands rose to grip her waist.

“Swear it,” he demanded, looking her dead in the eye.

Lydia looked back at him coolly without a trace of fear.

“I swear it.”

The rest of Ezra’s anger and hurt waned, and his grip on her softened as he stepped back slightly and slowly took inventory of her. His beautiful wife. His.

“Now, tell me,” Lydia urged, nodding back at the settee, “Why did you think it was her?”

Ezra followed her gesture and led her back to the settee. Though part of him did not want to, he picked up the blanket and wrapped it around her again before settling down into the cushions and pulling her into him.

“It would not be the first time my mother has attempted such a thing,” Ezra explained, his fingertips beginning to idly graze over her arms.

Glazing over the first attempt at his father’s funeral, Ezra chose to tell her about the second.

“When I was seventeen or so,” he began to explain, tapping into the distant memory, “after she had taken the house in London and I had become used to my new responsibilities at Frampton, a message was delivered from her stating that it was most urgent that I come to her straight away.

“We had not spoken since she had moved out almost three years earlier, so I stupidly assumed that she was telling the truth. However, when I arrived, she was drunk, out of her mind, and came at me with a piece of broken glass.”

In his arms, Lydia started and sat up, her eyes wide with alarm.

“She tried to stab you?” she asked.

“She did stab me,” he corrected.

Taking her hand, he brought it to his chest and ran her fingers down his sternum until her fingertips pressed against the thin, white, inch-long scar on his abdomen.

“Luckily, the boys and I had been boxing well before that, and my training kicked in. I was able to step back before she pushed it any deeper than the muscle, and then I disarmed her. She started to scream murderer and collapsed in my arms. The servants later told me that she had been drinking for weeks before I got there, apparently raving about me and my father in incoherent bursts of anger. At some point, she started forcing the male servants to join her in bed, and that was when her housekeeper, not my mother, had sent me the urgent message.

“After the physician saw to my wound, I charged him with her recovery and had every form of pain reliever and alcohol removed, I left, and we had not spoken since. I am not even sure she remembers.”

Silence stretched between them as Ezra finished his story. At some point, he had not been able to keep his eyes on her and had found his gaze locked on the flames in the hearth. He could not tolerate her gaze if he saw pity there, even if she called it something else.

“Perhaps it is I that should stab her .”

Lydia said the words so sweetly and simply that Ezra almost failed to register them. When he did, he felt a boyish grin spread across his face, and he looked down at her in wonder. When she only raised her eyebrow back at him, he let out a loud laugh and then kissed her deeply.

“You are supposed to be the good one,” he teased, nibbling at her lips, “remember?”

“Hmmm,” Lydia murmured back, grazing her fingertips against his scar again as those gold and bronze flecks illuminated in her eyes, “Some things are worth stepping into the darkness for.”

Ezra’s smile faded as a deep and primal need surfaced somewhere from the inky depths of his heart. He cleared his throat, suddenly finding it hard to breathe, and felt his blood begin to hammer in his veins. The time for words was over.

Slowly, he slid his hand down her back, pulling loose the blanket he’d wrapped around her. Lydia’s glittering eyes grew heavy as she helped him pull it away until it finally slid to the floor, and she rose up on her knees to straddle his lap. Their eyes on one another, Ezra slid further down the settee until his back rested comfortably against its raised back and let Lydia’s hands on his shoulders tell him when to stop.

There was more, so much more that they needed to talk about. But, for now, Lydia only wanted one thing: to be with him again. Her mons had grown sensitive and moist well before he’d removed the blanket, and as she slid herself against the ridge of Ezra’s confined hardness; she spasmed with need, pleasure, and dismay as she came in contact with the thin fabric of his briefs.

As if knowing what she needed, Ezra braced his hands against the back of the settee and raised his hips. It was the only invitation she needed, and she slid down just enough so that she could set him free. He did so the moment she unbuttoned him, springing through the part in the fabric. Her mouth watered as she saw his red, engorged head pulse above the veined, thick column of his stem, and she began to lower herself.

“Lydia-” Ezra breathed, but his words drew out in a hiss as she flicked her tongue across his tip, licking away at the thick, clear dewdrop that had formed there.

Hunger thrummed in her as she tasted Ezra’s essence, and she lowered her head for more. She took her time, flicking her tongue first across the small slit at the tip, then slowly down to the engorged ridge around his head before licking over each pulsing vein in his sword. As she did so, she kept her eyes on her husband and watched with pleasure as he slowly lost control.

Ezra’s hands had tightened on the settee, and he had thrown his head back against the armrest. His entire body was trembling and tense as if he was having trouble keeping still for her. And if his little movements were not enough to arouse her, the sounds he was making certainly were. His breaths were sharp and shallow, and the deep grunts of pleasure that escaped his gritted teeth called to her like a siren.

Unable to ignore his moans any longer, Lydia abandoned her exploration, rose back onto her knees, and settled her center at the tip of Ezra’s hardened arousal. Ezra began to move as if trying to raise his head to see her, but Lydia leaned forward and pressed her hand to his chin. For a moment Ezra’s eyes grew wild as he angled his head and looked at her with distrust, unsure if he could grant her that level of control.

But she waited, stroking her thumb against his chin calmly as she let him read her thoughts through her eyes. Slowly, the distrust in Ezra’s eyes began to fade, and with one last, unsure look, he let his head ease back onto the armrest. Reveling in the fact that she had earned this small morsel of trust, Lydia leaned forward and brushed a kiss at his throat, collar bone, sternum, and then finally to the small, white scar on his abdomen.

Ezra shivered at the final kiss, his hands digging deeper into the settee, but he did not move to stop her. Rising back up, Lydia positioned herself atop his rigid shaft once again and slowly lowered herself. Soft moans of pleasure spilled from both their lips as she eased her warm, tight, dewy sheath onto his waiting sword one desperate inch at a time. When her petals finally made it to his base, she let out another small, slightly uncomfortable moan while she let herself adjust to his size.

“If you want me to keep still then you are going to have to move,” Ezra breathed through a tightened jaw.

His knuckles were turning white on the settee, and the strain in him was visible by the bulging cords of vein and muscle that traveled down his neck and into his rigid abdomen. Lydia felt another gush of liquid as she took him in. He was so tense, so… restricted.

Had he ever given himself over to a woman like this before? And with that thought, she was moving; an old, primal knowledge taking over her as she began to ride him. Her movements were awkward at first as she attempted to grapple with both her pleasure and his size, but within moments she found her stride.

A heady moan full of relief poured from Ezra’s throat as her hips began to undulate him into her perfectly, and his hands finally let loose of the settee. Her pleasure intensified when he brought them harshly to her backside, and she cried out his name as she felt him take over.

Ezra’s hands, firm and demanding, hooked into her hips, and before she knew what he was doing, she felt herself being lifted up and then slammed with force back down onto his shaft. Stars filled Lydia’s eyes as a new and intense pleasure filled her, and she let her body sink into his guidance once more. As if knowing what she wanted, Ezra forced her hips up until his engorged head was at the very mouth of her entrance and then slammed her down onto him again.

By his fourth powerful stroke, her orgasm was rippling throughout her body, and what little desire she had to be in charge drained away along with her juices. Wrapping her arms around his neck, Lydia pulled at him to look at her. She could not take it anymore, she realized; not seeing his eyes.

A whimper and another tug of her weakening hands caused Ezra to lift his head, and Lydia felt another gush of arousal flow from her as she saw the pure need and raw emotion in his crystal blue eyes. Once more, as if knowing what she needed, Ezra captured the back of her neck with one hand and kept the other on her hip and brought her lips to his as he began to work her atop of him.

Ezra’s kiss was as demanding and hungry as his thrusts; he would take everything she was willing to give. And, in that moment, she was willing to give everything. Just like they had in the park, she felt them transform into something else. Something more than a duke and duchess; something far more basic and driven by primal instinct to come together.

Sane thought, any thought, seemed to abandon them when they were fused in this way and Lydia loved every moment. She adored being able to let go, to feel and sense nothing but the pleasure vibrating through her body like a tuning fork; loved feeling herself turn into nothing but warmth and wetness and quivering flesh.

Ezra’s lips abruptly tore away from her, bruising her lips with his passion as he pulled her by the hair to look into his eyes. His icy blue orbs were glowing with the heat of his passion and desire, and he pressed his forehead tightly to hers as he growled out, “Come with me.”

Though his tone was demanding and fierce, Lydia picked up the slight desperation in his voice; and it was what sent her over the edge a final time. Through the chorus of her own moans and panting breaths, she heard Ezra’s strangled sounds of release as he slammed her hips down into him one final time and locked her there.

A heavier, dizzying pleasure filled Lydia as she felt Ezra’s hips slow as his pumping member still spilled his seed into her; and with a shaky breath, she felt herself collapse. Immediately, both of Ezra’s arms were around her bringing her to his chest at a much slower pace, protecting her from harm. A thickness grew in Lydia’s throat as she felt how tenderly he cradled her head to his chest, and she blinked back two hot tears that suddenly sprang from her eyes as she felt his lips press into her hair.

As she listened to his pounding heartbeat she realized that there were two sides to Ezra: there was the Duke of Demons; his evil side that always got what it wanted, and then there was the man who stood apart from everyone and everything without complaint; who had pain but never complained about it. The man who could face anything, but panicked when she took just the slightest bit of control.

There were layers to her husband, Lydia realized as she drifted asleep to the touch of Ezra’s fingertips raking gently down her back. Layers that, with time, she could peel back, discover, and soothe. But first, they would have to talk more. Much, much more.

“This does not mean our conversation is finished,” Lydia murmured into his chest, prying open one eye.

She caught Ezra looking down at her, his handsome face smooth. Not with numbness, she realized, but pleasure and satisfaction- and a bit of contemplation. His hand paused on her back as he continued to look at her, and in that moment she desperately wanted to know what he was thinking.

“No, it does not,” he agreed at last, his hand resuming its gentle stroking.

Satisfied with his acknowledgment, Lydia closed her eyes again and let her body ease into his. With the soothing rhythm of Ezra’s heartbeat, the gentle stroke of his fingers on her back, and the warmth of his chest, she felt her body sink deeper into relaxation. Then, just as she felt herself go, she felt a small pulse between her legs and smiled. She was falling asleep with Ezra inside of her.