Chapter 11

Chapter Eleven

B ack in her bedchamber. Alone. As she ever had been at Norton Hall, and this time convinced as she had been before that her husband had entirely forgotten about her. She could hear him in the room next to hers through the connected door. Soft footsteps and sliding drawers, the creak of the bed and the slam of a door. She pressed her fist into her belly to calm it, to silence the flutterings, and she rested her forehead against the cool glass of her window. She needed him to ravish her so she could get on with living, with writing, with the contentment she'd always found in solitude.

Yes, solitude. That, her true desire. And she could continue with it once she'd purged this man from her blood, placed him precisely in a jar labeled friend . That, the best jar for him. The world was telling her that. Her mother taking up residence at the townhouse, Liam's disappearance last night, this morning, and this afternoon—all of it served as a solid reminder she was not a wanted woman. No matter what Liam said, how he tried to convince her, she had not been born for it.

She would take what pleasure she could from him—when he finally remembered she existed—and remind herself all the while of how temporary it would be. That way, he could not hurt her when he lost interest, as he surely would do. She had not expected it to happen so soon. Perhaps she should have, though.

"Has the excitement from the brothel worn off?" she asked her window reflection. "Has he not come because he no longer wants to?" Because he no longer wanted her. Easy enough to believe.

"What wants to what?"

She swung around, crossing the loose edges of her dressing gown over the front of her body and holding it closed with both arms wrapped tight about her middle. "Liam! I did not hear you enter."

He leaned against the door frame, wearing nothing but his trousers and untucked shirt, the sleeves rolled up past his elbows. With a lazy grin, he crossed one leg over the other at the ankles. "If you're talking about me, I can give you a list of things I want. A lengthy one. Starting with—"

"No. I was speaking of… a character. In the poem I'm writing." She found the tie for her wrapper and secured it, then returned her attention to the window and her silent, watching reflection.

He was reflected in the glass now, too, pacing toward her. He stopped inches away, when she could feel the heat of his body at her back, see him towering over her in the window's glass. His hair reflected bright against the night sky beyond, and he settled one hand, large and warm, at the curve where her shoulder and neck met. He rubbed it up and down, his gaze hot on her reflection first before dropping to the top of her head, caressing the profile of her face and curve of her breasts below.

Without a touch, he made her breathless.

Worse, he'd stolen her strength, and heaven help her (but she did not think it would), her weak-legged body ached to fall back against him. Why did he touch her so, yet keep such a distance? Those few electric inches between her back and his front might as well be miles. He bent and placed a kiss on her neck, searing her. The kiss closed her eyes, wrenching control from her the moment his lips met her skin. She released control gladly and shivered as he drew a line down her spine, let her head fall to one side to more easily give him access to the part of her he'd already claimed.

"I want to show you something," he whispered in her ear. He snuck a hand around her waist and pulled her tight against him. The hard length of his shaft pressed against her bottom.

"I should very much like to see that ." She rolled against it in case he did not understand her words.

He held her fast, laughed, and pulled her head back against his shoulder to kiss her. "I should very much like to show you. But not right now."

"Do not play with me." She wiggled, trying to escape, found herself tightly caught, a fox in a velvet trap. She reached a hand up to cup the back of his head and force his lips down to hers, taking a brief hard kiss. "Either release me or toss me over your shoulder and throw me onto the bed. Have your way with me and do it now . Or do nothing to me at all." Show her he wanted her or leave. Everything in between a game she did not wish to play.

"Gentle, you little hellcat," he said with a chuckle.

"If you remember correctly, being gentle was the problem to begin with."

Another chuckle as he knelt to retrieve her wrapper. "Indeed. But not yet . Soon." He helped her don the wrapper once more, his fingers lingering on her as she slipped her arms inside the sleeve, as he secured the tie around her waist. " That is not why I came here."

"Ravishing me is not why you came here? What other reason could you have?"

"I have something to show you."

Her gaze flicked to the meeting point of his legs. "And you're sure it's not that?"

"Hellcat. Temptress." He threaded their hands together, finger interlocked with finger, and pulled her toward the door leading to the hallway.

"Not a good enough one apparently," she mumbled before saying with a sigh. "Where are we going?"

"You'll see."

A few candles flickered on their sconces along the walls, and dim light danced with shadows down the hallway. But Liam led her with ease up the stairs and down another hall to a room she recognized even in the dark.

"Why are we in the portrait gallery?"

"Portrait gallery no longer. I've had the paintings moved. And the statues. No more dog arses here. The paintings were not safe to begin with. All the sunlight flooding through the windows. And keeping the curtains closed meant we could not enjoy the sunlight." He hung his head and ran a hand through his hair, down his neck. "I'm rambling. The point is the paintings have been moved, and now we can enjoy this room. You can enjoy it." He walked about the room. Several candles had been left lit, including one in front of a large mirror on the other side of the room. Reflected by the mirror, the small flame exploded light across the long room. He'd planned this.

"I had it refashioned for your use," he said. "We used only furniture from other rooms, I'm afraid. I wanted it ready now, but you can, of course, replace the pieces with something more to your liking."

She half listened to him, drinking in the details of the room—the rugs, the small sofa, the large mirror and the desk placed beneath it, bathed in the candle's glow. She padded across the room and ran her fingertips across it. Large but elegant with curving legs and made of some dark wood, silken and cold to the touch. A large wardrobe rested against the wall to the left of the desk.

"Here." He spoke from directly behind her, and she faced him. He held out his hand, palm up. "There's a key for the wardrobe. For you."

With a feather light touch, she placed her fingertips on his palm, seeking, finding not soft, warm skin but the hard iron of an object. A key.

"Why?" But even as she asked the question she knew. "You cannot mean for me to—"

"Easily be able to hide things? Why not? You are allowed your secrets. The wardrobe is lined with sturdy shelves. You may put on those shelves whatever you wish. Anything you wish to keep safe. Or hidden. Even I do not have a key to it. But I would not mind borrowing one or two of whatever might be hidden there." His eyes burned brighter than the candles.

She could not look away from them. Did not know how to. So many things seemed out of reach, including the one thing that usually came so easily to her—words. "I do not know what to say. I cannot quite comprehend you would do this for me."

"I do not want you to think I am ashamed of you. And I know you have a hard time trusting my words, so I hope this shows you I mean what I say."

She hid her face in her hands. The dark a comfort, the solitude that contained her there, familiar. Rarely in her life had she needed words of gratitude, had she been forced to contain the fervor of such a feeling inside her. When the Merriweather sisters befriended her was the only other time she could remember.

A hand on her shoulder. "Cora, are you well? Have I done something wrong?" A small laugh. "Don't answer that. The odds are high I've muddled things once more."

"No." She dropped her arms and looked over her shoulder. "This is wonderful. Perhaps the loveliest thing anyone has ever done for me."

"That can't be true. It's a room and a desk and—"

She twisted around and cupped his cheek, said softly, "And it is the loveliest thing anyone has done for me."

He leaned into her touch, and his throat bobbed. "Good. I finally did something right." But hesitation wavered at the very edges of his words. "You like it, then?"

"I love it." She cupped his other cheek and rose up on tiptoe. She kissed him, and as soon as their lips touched, he kissed her back, his arms winding around her waist and pulling her close.

Oh, how his kiss shattered that solitude she'd sought out so recently. How it illuminated the darkness. His touch candles burning her body, and sighs of his breathing carrying away her worry.

She did not hate him.

She did not need him.

Life would be simpler if she never kissed him, if she let him know in no uncertain terms she did not want him, wanted more the distant marriage she'd said she wanted months ago.

But need and want… they traveled different roads. Want wandered the valley of his lips and the heated apex of her legs. Need traveled the stormy seas of trust.

Oh, to perdition with boats. She'd never liked travel by sea.

She wrapped her arms around his neck, pressing her body as close to his as two sheets of paper in a pile. His arms tightened around her, muscles flexing, hands sliding lower down her body, curving over her bottom, and—

She gasped, cried out as he lifted her. She wrapped her legs around his waist, and he walked them backward until she felt the cool slide of the desk against her backside. His lips never left hers, even as he held her, moved her, settled her on the smooth, sturdy surface and ran his hands through her hair. He found the base of her plait and grabbed it, tugged her head back until her neck arched for him, and then he kissed down her chin, ran the tip of his tongue down that arched neck. Each touch and taste slammed a door shut on her doubts. And when he bit the neckline of her shift and dragged it down her shoulder, coherent thought scattered altogether.

His hands were on her breasts, newly revealed in the night air, and traced fingertips over every inch of them, tweaking her nipples and nipping with gentle teeth. "Am I cursed to only ever see these beauties in moonlight?"

She dragged her nails up and down his back, urging him closer, but he could come no closer, his muscular thighs biting into the edge of the desk. Her desk. His gift. She tightened her legs around his hips and pulled her body to the very edge of the desk to meet his body, to roll against the thick, hard shaft bulging against his fall.

His fall.

He'd been so careful with her before that she'd taken his lead, touched him only how he'd touched her—with tepid care. Now she could return his wild abandon, and she smoothed her hands around his ribs and down the sides of his legs before sneaking them up under his untucked shirt and onto the burning skin of his abdomen. A blacksmith's anvil, his torso—hot and hard—but covered with a smattering of crisp hair. She trailed her curious, seeking fingers down the ridges of his abdomen and found the buttons of his fall.

"If you are cursed," she said, fumbling with those buttons, "then so am I. Shall I never see the full length of you in the sunlight?"

He groaned as her fingers brushed his erection, and his head fell forward, his face burrowing into her neck, his breath warm and coursing yet more heat and need through her. He dragged his forehead along her bare skin, breathing her name there.

"Cora." He left a claiming kiss on her collarbone. "Cora." Another kiss on her chest just above the dip between her breasts. "Cora." A line licked between her breasts, her name a hot moan.

This what they'd started in the garden. This what she'd wanted from him. This what he'd been promising her since following her to Bluevale. This, her undoing. Or her rebirth.

She shivered, and that seemed to shake the last of his buttons free beneath her clumsy fingers. His shaft sprang free, and she hesitated. He froze, his every muscle coiled and waiting. A first for her. She'd seen pictures and read so many descriptions. She'd debated with the other library ladies the best names for a man's member, including member . Gherkin, aubergine, shaft, cock. None of them mattered because what roared to life most in her mind had nothing to do with those other words. She could think of only one possessive syllable.

Mine.

Was this the way men felt when bedding their virginal wives? Aroused by the idea that no man had seen her as he saw her now? This man, her husband, had tried, but failed with three other women. But Cora the victor.

She wrapped her hand around him, and he bucked against her, hissing with pleasure. Or pain? She reared back to look at his face—eyes closed, jaw tight, eyelids fluttering. She flicked her thumb over the head of his shaft, he bucked again.

"I've never felt anything better," he said. Each word seemed to cost him an effort. Pleasure then.

She ran her fingers up and down it, explored the rest of him, stroking down his muscled, inner thigh for a moment before finding his shaft once more. Each movement made him wild, and soon he jerked against her over and over again, cursing her, blessing her, begging her, his arms chains so tight she could never leave, and then he cried her name, his hand a fist in her hair and surged against her, his entire body shuddering, his shaft pulsing, where their bodies pressed together becoming wet and warm. He cursed as he came, holding her tighter and tighter until he went limp, his body curving around her, his ragged panting slowing into deep breaths.

How odd to feel his body react to her touch, to swell with need and rest with release. In the books she read and poems she wrote, men had the power; they moved the world to take what they wanted and made women feel things they had been told they shouldn't. Made them want to feel those things. Oh, this sweet man said he was the same—abductor of women and seductor of wives, taking what he wanted with abandon.

Why then did she feel as if one touch of her fingertips could bring him to his knees, as if he offered her everything, all he was? What to do with such delightful power?

She chuckled and curled into him, stroking her fingers up and down his heaving chest, making herself small in his embrace though she felt a goddess, wild and—

"Hell," he hissed, lifting from her. "Hell, I apologize, Cora." Shadows hid his expression, but his voice rang with tones that put her on edge. "God, I'm…" He stepped out from between her legs and scooped her into his arms like a babe. In seconds, they were in the hallway, heading toward their rooms. Each step he took another curse that would scandalize his former parishioners. She chuckled again, holding tight to his neck and trying to guess his mood. Apologetic, clearly. Discomposed. But why?

"Liam?"

His jaw twitched.

"What has you deviled?"

Another twitch, then he spoke, barely moving his lips. He kicked open her bedroom door and placed her on the bed.

She propped herself up on her elbows, blinking, seeking him in the shadows. "You're upset again, you volatile creature. Come back."

He moved toward the door instead. "You deserve the best, Cora, and I keep humiliating myself in front of you."

"What should you be humiliated by?"

"I couldn't—" He bit off the word, tried again. "I couldn't control myself and came in your hand like the absolute inexperienced buffoon I am."

"Liam, that's not—"

"I will get this right. You deserve perfection." He sailed through the door connecting their rooms, and it shut behind him with a click that echoed through her body.

"Next time." She fell to the mattress. "I thought now was next time." She growled and yelled loud enough for him to hear beyond the wall. "I like that, you nodcock!"

She flipped over and stuffed her face into her pillow with a little scream. Not that it made her feel any better. He'd made her feel alive tonight, he'd made her feel wanted, desired. How could she not write brilliant poems sitting at that desk from now on? She must merely run her hand down the grain, remember how she'd made him come with just a touch. Yes, the desk clearly boded well for her success.

And he thought he'd ruined it? Thought she deserved better? Because he'd lost control?

What utter rot.

Her body hummed with desire still, unfulfilled and impatient and—oh! She flopped to her belly and groaned into the blanket. Despite everything—the room, his words, his chasing her—he'd walked away! Again! Fixated on some unknowable, likely impossible perfection .

Yet… if he walked away from her now, it was not because he didn't want her. It was because he wanted her so badly, he'd lost control.

She tried not to smile. Couldn't help it. She wanted to make him lose control again.

But first, she must do something nice for him—convince him to release his fears and succumb to the passion that roared between them, no matter how imperfect it might be. They could work on perfecting it together.