Chapter 23

Chapter Twenty-Three

“ I cannot believe I am about to do this.”

Amelia spoke to herself in the privacy of her bedroom. It had been another day within Heartwick where she was treated to avoidance by her husband. He had not come down for breakfast or dinner at any time, and she herself had fled to Charlotte’s again this morning.

The two of them had discussed her situation once more, and her friend was still of the mind that Amelia should discuss this with the Duke. It had taken every ounce of courage she possessed to set her mind to telling Richard of her feelings, but as she stood outside his door, Amelia was not sure if she could go through with it.

This is a fool’s errand, Amelia. You are already aware of the Duke’s decision. He is not going to suddenly change his mind because you plaster him with words of affection .

Still, it was what Amelia wanted. She wished so much for Richard to hear her words and reveal that the departure had been a terrible miscommunication between them. Fantasies of him wrapping his arms around her as he kissed her senseless bloomed behind the lids she squeezed shut.

It was daft. He was as unlikely to do as such as she was to find another match in Magnus or Isaac. Amelia had spent enough time with the male animal that she was confident a suitable partner for her did not exist. She had been content enough to live as an untouched wife, even as she still longed for more, but it was impossible.

After everything that had occurred between them, it appeared that Amelia was still correct on that front. She sighed, hanging her head as she laid the flat of her palm on the wood before her.

Do this. You must. You will live a life of regret if you do not at the least tell the man of your true feelings .

Amelia straightened her spine, shaking herself as she looked directly forward at the door, and rapped her knuckles against it in a soft knock.

The floorboards creaked within Richard’s chambers, and Amelia’s stomach threatened to upend its content onto her feet. Then, the door opened, and her husband stood before her with a questioning brow raising above his left eye.

“Amelia? Is there something ill at ease? Do you require my assistance?”

She shook her head, flicking her eyes from where her fingers knotted together to Richard’s icy blue eyes.

“No. Apologies. I only wished…I only wished to speak with you if I might. Would you permit me to come in?”

The Duke ducked his chin in toward himself, his brows pinching together. “I am about to rest, Amelia. Can this not wait until the morning?”

“I am afraid it cannot. You will make your departure shortly after breakfast tomorrow, and if I cannot say these words now, I fear they will remain locked within me forever.”

Something flickered behind Richard’s eyes, and Amelia felt her pulse jump in her neck. Breathing, even standing, was a task nearly too great for her, and Amelia silently begged for the Duke to allow her in.

“Umm,” Richard looked down between them with a sigh, then back up at her, “for a moment.”

He stepped aside, gesturing into the room with a sweep of his hand.

“Thank you, Richard.”

Amelia’s stare combed over the space. It was different for the Duke being in it. She had used the room herself, but the walls were not those same walls, and it existed with a fragrance that was no longer of her perfumes or fine linens. It was touched with leather and cologne, a deeper and richer scent than her own.

After a moment, she turned around, her back now toward the fireplace as Richard continued to stand in front of the door.

“What is it that you sought me out for, Amelia?”

It was a simple enough question, and she parted her lips to give an honest answer. But no sound came from her. Amelia could only think of all the things around her—the smells, the way the buttery yellow of the intricately striped wallpaper looked duller, somehow stale, and the traveling bag that was seated near the wardrobe.

Amelia could see into the chest slightly as one of its doors was cracked open. Richard’s clothes did not hang inside as they had. It was an empty expanse of darkness contained behind slim panels of highly detailed carved wood.

He was leaving. It was very obvious to Amelia that Richard would not be with the walls of Heartwick when she looked at his wardrobe. How long, she wondered, would it take for the smell of his shaving crème and toilet water to fade? When would she stop thinking of them and missing the way the strong fragrance invaded her nose?

“You are packed, I see. Your journey to Blackford will be a swift one, it appears.”

Richard nodded. “I am ready. It should take less than a few minutes to place my things into the carriage and set off.”

How quickly the Duke was able to extract himself from life at Heartwick. So very different than the indelible stain he had already left on her heart.

“You…I am sure that you have business to attend to when you are there. Blackford likely needs reassessment to account for your absence.”

“Likely, yes. I have left the care of the estate with the steward and housekeeper. I expect that I shall find it well looked after, but there will be the matter of supplies to see to. I plan to host a number of smaller arrangements with my peers there so that we might discuss where the best future investment lies.”

Richard was speaking about investments and financials. He had already planned for his work, and he’d given himself just three days before he left Heartwick. He, evidently, was not distracted by their current status. The Duke had honed his focus once more, and Amelia knew that the time they’d shared was distantly far from his mind.

I cannot do this. I…I will not divulge the secrets of my heart when it is so clear that Richard would prefer to return to other matters entirely.

Amelia smiled tightly, a lingering thought in her mind. I will not see him after this. Memories of his touch will be all that remains, and I…I will take one more if it is allowed.

“I apologize for interrupting your evening.” Amelia shook from head to foot. “I will admit to having a selfish request in mind.”

Richard cocked a brow. “Oh?”

“You will travel to Blackford on the morrow, and I will be left once more to tend to the manor myself. I accept it wholeheartedly and continue to profess my love of our staff and this beautiful home. However…”

The words drifted. How was Amelia to ask for such a thing? It was completely without foundation in her mind, and her desire was scratched at its back by the waves of sorrow and regret that tormented her more and more with each passing moment.

Richard stepped forward, his eyes finding hers intently as he came within inches of her. “Speak, Amelia. This is the last of your opportunities to be given.”

The encouragement, though brusque, was heard, hitting her eardrums and traveling down her nerves with the force of a pistol’s hammer.

“I will not stand in the way of your duties or your desire to leave, Richard. Still, I must confess that recollections of our intimate moments together haunt me so. I…I wish to give myself a final memory to hold onto—a point in space that I may refer to whenever I am feeling called to do something like this again.”

She stepped forward, lying her hand on the firm muscle of Richard’s chest.

“Just once more. Allow me this final experience, and then set out on your journey tomorrow morning, knowing you have given me what I have asked for.”

A welling ache blistered through her chest. Amelia did everything she could to buckle down against the swelling emotions rising through her like a flood. Indeed, Richard must understand that this was a beg from her, a desperate request to feel him against her one more time before he left.

His brows rose over widened eyes, the look of surprise melting into one of begrudging understanding. Still, Richard held himself firm, and there was no relaxation of his posture as Amelia held her hand over his heart.

“This is not wise, Amelia.” Richard sucked in a breath, his eyes rolling closed. “Muddying the waters is far from what I wish to do to you.”

“Please, do not turn me away after I have finally found it within myself to ask for what I desire.”

She pressed herself against him, relishing in the way his breath coasted over her skin as Richard turned his face down toward her. It was foolish. She knew as much. But Amelia could not deny the way she pleaded for his touch. Even if it were to be this last time, there was little in this world she would not sacrifice for another moment of happiness with him.

“Amelia, I…” But Richard’s words drifted into the ether, and Amelia could feel the swell of attention within his trousers.

“I will not ask more of you. I assure you,” Amelia whispered, lifting herself up onto her toes to dust her lips across his. “Just this moment, and that is all.”

Without another word, Richard wrapped his arms around her and pulled Amelia close. His lips found hers, immediately tangling with them as he held her firmly against him. Amelia did not know what it said about them that neither she nor Richard could withstand the pull to the other.

She simply had to be with him, just as similarly as Amelia had to eat and breathe.

At once, Richard lavished Amelia with kisses, and his maddening touches continued along her arms and back, the very tips of his fingers searing into her soul. She’d yet to experience a desire, a ravenous pull, for a single other person before. Every moment with Richard—with her husband—made her entire body hum with the aching need to careen over that invisible cliff. It was a low thrum behind her at most times, a comfortable arousal stirred by just laying eyes on him. But alone with Richard, as they were now, particularly after having been so bared to him, Amelia craved his touch.

“Please, Richard. I am desperate for the release. My mind splinters at your touch.” Amelia guided him along until they reached his bed. She rolled them over, positioning him so that he knelt between her parted thighs.. “You root me in the moment, Richard. I am here and nowhere else.”

Richard buried his face in the crook of her neck, his breath rippling across her skin as he nipped at her. “I give you this, Amelia. This being all that I can.”

A delicious purr of sorts rumbled out of Richard’s chest. Amelia mewled low—a wanton and needy sound—as he drifted his lips across the hollow of her throat, kissing down to her collarbones and sending vibrations ringing through her very essence. Amelia reached for the coverlet on the bed, pulling it over her shoulders and out of their way.

Sitting up for just a moment, she tossed it to the floor of Richard’s bedroom—what might become hers after his departure once more—and then Richard swiftly returned to her, his delirious kisses on her feverish flesh drawing out a pained whimper.

Richard kissed her shoulders, trailing the caresses nearer to the swells of her breasts over the ruffle quilling of her gown. His hands smoothed down her arms until he reached the curves of her waist and slowly drew up her billowy skirts before slipping it over her hips and bearing her to him.

Cool air rushed around Amelia’s flesh, and it felt wondrous for how overheated she had become. In the back of her head, Amelia was vaguely aware of the reality that lay just beyond this space. Still, the adoration and appreciation traveling through her nerves shoved the problematic thoughts abruptly to the wayside.

“I should never feel anything as soft and marvelous as your skin, Amelia.” His full, soft lips returned to her, lazily inching over her chest and sternum as he freed her of the restriction her top created.

Amelia smiled, and the slow, unhurried exploration of her body was enough to have her foxed from the Duke’s touch alone. Richard freed Amelia of her remaining clothing and then stripped himself. Her core clenched down, a blissful beat of want pulsing through her veins as she admired Richard’s impressive set of muscles, a stark V-shape leading to his proud phallus.

He was wickedly built, the rigidly strung cords of her muscles tense across his chest as he towered over her. Faint curls dusted the skin of his chest, leading down in a disjoined line toward his hips. While Amelia knew that Richard was the first man she had seen naked, it was nonetheless an incredible sight to behold.

“Roll over.” Richard’s voice was a gruff slash through the air. “ Please .”

Her heart raced a sporadic drumbeat behind her ribs. Amelia could scarcely contain the shock but flipped over onto her stomach regardless. She shoved herself up onto her hands and knees, wicked images of the courtesan women she’d heard of filling her thoughts. Richard’s hand came to the nape of her neck, squeezing lightly before he crawled his fingertips down her spine. Amelia arched against the contact, her hips lifting, and despite how she knew it left her open to appraisal.

“You sparkle, Amelia.”

Warmth bloomed, darkening the flesh of her cheeks as an odd beat reached from her ears to her very center, which pulsed sinfully. Her nerves frayed like a rope cut raggedly, an overabundance of sensation crowding out her thoughts until all that remained was the desperate need for him.

“Please, Richard. Please . Touch me.”

Without a word or sound, his lips graced the skin of Amelia’s lower back, working their way down to her intimate, unexplored curves. She recalled the way he’d feasted on her as if she were a meal, and the flaring arousal soared higher through her blood. The tiny pricks of sensation as his stubble brushed over her skin created goosebumps. They went skittering across her flesh as Richard ghosted his lips over her.

“Richard,” she whined.

A fire roared through Amelia’s blood at the teasing, delicate touches. They were too much and not enough, his hands gripping her as he toyed with her. Amelia loved the slight rasp of Richard’s facial hair. As the feeling mixed with the steady pulse between her thighs, she felt bound to him in an intoxicating arrangement. But she knew it could only last this night.

“Your fragrance is that of dessert, Amelia.” Richard slid his nose across her skin, inching his mouth closer to her exposed slit.

Richard’s skilled tongue explored the weeping folds, evidence of Amelia’s excitement and approval for all that he did. He smoothed it along the soft ridges, from the very top of her intimacy all the way to the small of her back. Amelia moaned in a guttural plea, pressing backward against the slippery sensation that rang in sinful glee in her mind. She wanted more, so much more.

“Richard,” she called as her husband appeared to read her thoughts, dancing back down between her legs and lapping up at her arousal as if she were the finest of wines.

Each sensation was magnified by the gentle, slow touches that set Amelia’s soul ablaze. She was aware of each and every one in excruciating detail. Her core pulsed in rhythmic cries for more as Richard devoured her. There was not a single inch of her most intimate flesh that was left untasted, unmarred by the searing pleasure of Richard’s tongue that would score her skin like a brand.

At once, Richard’s hands returned to her hips and the fullness of her rear, his thumbs smoothing over the outer folds of her delicate, now swollen channel. Richard spread Amelia wide, opening her up all the more for his greedy consumption, and a rush of wetness flooded her unbidden and with no shortage of surprise. Mortification claimed her for it all, but something more lay beneath it.

She adored every aspect of this delicious torture. All the parts of Amelia were at home in her existence under Richard’s touch—his to take and touch and consume. So untouched, so left to the solitude of her repetitive evenings, Amelia would miss the exquisite joy of being so adored as she was now, so claimed.

Richard found the tight bud of nerves at her tip, sucking it into his mouth with deliberate and forceful pulls of his lips. His teeth teased her, and when she was at least nearly crashing over that edge into the oblivion of release, her husband dragged his tongue across every sensitive section of her form in a maddening sequence. Circles danced around the front, then probing assaults into her entrance, and then still more that flew further into her secret reaches, exploring delectably naughty depths.

Looking over her shoulder, Amelia watched Richard sit back on his heels, his lips coated with her a glimmering sheen that pulled at her arousal.

“Bite that tongue of yours, Amelia. Your cries cannot be heard through the estate.”

A deep, desperate moan fled from her lips as she silently reeled. All she could do was nod her head, her heart and body swirling off into the stars in two different directions. Richard’s grin was pure lust—sinful and roguish. Amelia’s form melted into a puddle as her need swelled to new heights. This was the last, and what a glorious end they would make it.

Richard sheathed himself into Amelia in a single dominant, resolute thrust. He bottomed out inside her channel, and she was flung over the cliff of sensation in a moment, the heavens above appearing behind her closed lids. Richard’s rocking hips continued their brutal assault, claiming Amelia slowly but with a fervor that none could match.

He reached the depths of her passage with each indescribable strike forward, winding his hips in repetitive arcs so that the head of his erection stimulated Amelia’s voracious nerves to the point of blindness.

Not a handful of moments passed before Richard’s grip on her hips doubled down, and Amelia felt the thickness of his sword reach profound levels as he rushed into her harder, filling Amelia up to the point of bursting. She was a mess of overwhelming sensations, emotions too terrible and unyielding for her mind to process. Her walls clamped down around him as he reached so wonderfully deep that Amelia lost all track of where the Duke ended and she began.

Stilling for just only a single moment, Richard leaned forward, working himself into her as far as he could. It made Amelia yelp softly, her resolve to keep herself quiet incredibly challenged.

“I will fill you up, Amelia,” Richard growled low, a possessive and raw sound that entwined with his vicious thrusts to stretch me. “At this moment alone, I command everything that you are as I give you everything within me.”

Their pleasure flared as Richard’s words took hold of me, a lock and key that bound me in place for every impactful moment of his claim, and Amelia dropped down to her shoulders, angling her hips all the higher so that Richard might truly leave his mark on her even within her.

“ Please ,” she begged, the tears stinging in the corners of her eyes.

“Yes. Yes, Amelia.”

Richard thrust—hard. There were the profound motions of two more firm strokes, and at once, the Duke—the man that Amelia had fallen in love with against all odds—absolutely destroyed her with the severity of the climax. Her body came, tumbling into the ether in a shattering wave that demanded ownership of her very soul. Richard was not far behind. Roaring out into the room as if he were a beast, Richard’s shaft pulsed against her walls, a throb of his heartbeat that carved into her ribcage like letters into the trunk of a tree.

Incredible warmth overflowed within Amelia as he emptied himself into her clutching womb. They rushed to that edge together, the ecstatic motions of their bodies drawing out every fractured moment of breathtaking release.

And Amelia’s tears poured all the hard, staining the bed against her cheek as she quietly broke apart, never to be whole again.

The rhythmic pulses slowly halted, their exquisite rush seeping away like the ground drying after a spring rain. Amelia was physically warmed through from the marrow of her bones to the outer shell of her skin. Slippery between her thighs, she was forced to suck in gulps of air to ease herself down after the exertion.

But behind it all was a hollow cave that stretched deeper into her than it ever had. Amelia had been so desperate for a connection with Richard—a last goodbye before they parted ways forever—but she was filled with immediate regret.

Another moment of joy only served to make the following sorrow ache all the more.

Still, they came down together, maneuvering onto their sides in the large bed as Richard kept himself warm inside her, almost as if the Duke had also sought out this final moment with her. Exhaustion settled over Amelia like a heavy blanket, and her eyes flickered shut even as she fought to remain conscious.

These were the ending moments that Amelia would have with her husband as such, and she could not bear the thought of sleeping through them. Her body was the ultimate master of her, however, and despite how she may have wished to remain awake or how she screamed in her mind to keep her eyes open, they closed. And she slept.