Chapter 13

CHAPTER13

That night, it was only Mr. Markham and myself for dinner. We sat with the table between us—an expanse of wood that felt painfully large, with silver tureens and carafes and tiered trays making it impossible to see one another, and hovering servants that made it awkward to converse. When it was time to adjourn to the parlor, I felt a heavy sense of relief. I wanted him alone, with nothing between us.

When he walked into the parlor, turning to shut the door quietly behind him, I came forward from the fireplace where I’d been standing.

“Ivy,” he said, and the way he said my name was beautiful. It was music in an opera hall, rain on a lake, the first glorious birdsongs of early spring.

“Julian,” I whispered.

Something thawed in his face, some darkness parted, and his eyes shone. “I like hearing that word from your lips.”

“I like saying it. Very much.” I came closer. “Why did you stay?”

“For you.”

A nervous sort of joy flipped in my stomach.

Now it was he who took a step closer. “I stayed for you, Ivy. I stayed because I wanted you all to myself. The others were right, I’m hoarding you, but I can’t help it. I want your time and your conversation and your company. And your—” here his voice caught.

“ . . . And my body,” I finished for him.

“Yes. And that.”

“I am glad you didn’t go,” I whispered. But I couldn’t bear it any longer. “What happened between you and Molly O’Flaherty?”

“History,” he answered after a moment. “Ancient history.”

“But . . . ”

Understanding kindled in his eyes. “You heard us. The night we played charades.”

I nodded, my throat stupidly tight.

“I didn’t fuck her,” he said. “If that’s what you thought.”

“I heard kissing.” My voice quavered, and I inwardly cursed my weakness. I wanted to be sophisticated and aloof about this. I wanted him to see how strong I could be. But I cared too much. Hurt too much.

I wanted him all to myself.

“She kissed me,” he admitted. “And I kissed her back. I wanted you so badly, but I was also determined not to take advantage of you. She knew it. I think in her own way she was trying to help.”

“She’s still in love with you.”

He laughed. “Molly doesn’t love people. She may desire them, she may enjoy their company, but she would never stoop to the level of such an undignified emotion.”

“But you two were together once.”

“Once,” he said. “But no more. I pushed her away that night you heard us. I don’t indulge in inferior consolation. If I couldn’t have you, then I wouldn’t have anyone.” He turned away from me for a moment, half his face in shadow. “And I needed to be faithful to you. I had to be.”

The conviction in his voice was almost chilling in its intensity. It was the conviction of a sinner desperate to repent. I didn’t understand it, but at the moment, I didn’t care. I was too relieved.

“So you and Molly didn’t . . . ”

He faced me again. “No, wildcat. I couldn’t. When I want someone the way I wanted—want—you, I don’t fuck other people.”

I shouldn’t ask, but I couldn’t help it. “Was it the same with Violet?”

He sunk into a chair. I got the sense that he was gathering his thoughts, preparing his words, and when he spoke, it was carefully. “I didn’t sleep with anyone while I courted Violet. Not even her. God help me, I had this idea that if I didn’t have her until we were married, that it would show her how different I was from the other men who wanted her, who kept chasing her even after she was engaged to me.”

“Did it work?”

“In the end? No. There was no happy ending for us, and there wouldn’t have been even if she had lived.” He stood and started pacing, running a hand through his hair. “There are things about me—things that frightened her, things that I could never even show my first wife—and you know what’s strange? I can show them to you. I feel like I can share the darkest parts of me, and you, little wildcat, would love it.” He stopped in front of me, taking my wrist in his hand and bringing it to his mouth, kissing the delicate skin there. “You have the same darkness, I think. And that’s what I need.”

“And that wasn’t Violet?”

His eyes darkened again. “No. That wasn’t Violet.” He let go of my wrist. “Imagine an animal, captured from its native habitat and then placed in a zoo. Imagine that animal grew sleek and lazy, spoiled and passive, still bearing the stripes or spots of a wild beast, but inside so tamed that indolence had permeated every lineament of its soul.”

“Tamed is not a word I would have thought to describe Violet.”

“Of course not—she gave every appearance to the contrary. But in the end, she was no different than any other well-bred girl who dabbles in lust. She wanted things soft and easy, the way most men were willing to give it to her.”

“And what do you do that’s so disturbing to these well-bred girls?”

“Would you like me to show you?”

“Yes,” I said, all my doubts replaced with unconditional longing for the man in front of me. “Yes, again and again.”

Mr. Markham took my hands in his own and looked at me. The firelight flickered off his square jaw and chiseled cheekbones, his eyes greener than ever. “You remember what I said in the library that night. I don’t want to ruin you.”

My face flushed hot, and I yanked my hands out of his. “You don’t get to decide if I’m ruined, Julian Markham. I’ve spent the last seven years looking after myself. I’m as free as you are, and I get to decide whether something ruins my future or not.”

“Ivy—”

“I have no future,” I said. “I will never marry well, not with my family history and not with my lack of money. My only future is here, at Markham Hall. Unless you don’t want me.”

His eyes flashed. “Don’t utter those words again.”

“Then what is at stake, Mr. Markham? Truly?”

He seized my waist and pulled me close against him. “My soul. Yours.”

Something about the desperate note in his voice made my blood flare, and I tilted my chin up, remembering the night we met, of the rasp in his words as he had taken my wrist in his hand. “My soul was yours to take from the moment I met you, Julian.”

With a low growl, he swept me into his arms and carried me out of the parlor, his eyes glittering in the dark of the stairwell as he carried me to his bedchamber. My pulse was racing, lust and adrenaline and disbelief and—yes, if I admitted to myself, the smallest trace of fear—but when the flickering firelight of Mr. Markham’s room threw his face into dim relief, I had never seen him look calmer. He set me down on the thick rug before the hearth, staring at me as he shrugged off his dinner jacket and unknotted his cravat.

The intensity of his gaze unnerved me, and I took a step backward toward the door, not because I didn’t want this, didn’t want him, but because I knew beyond a doubt that everything in my life was about to change, completely and totally.

“Don’t be skittish,” he said, holding out a hand.

If I took it, then I was giving him my consent. I was giving myself consent. All of the conclusions I’d come to about our relationship, about our future, about what I wanted—tonight would cement them. This moment was my last chance to withdraw, to plumb any uncertainties I had left. Was I truly ready to give my body to this man in such an irrevocable manner?

I placed my hand in his, and he pulled me close, his lips brushing against my ear. “Do you trust me?”

Any well-brought-up woman would say no. But I wasn’t well-brought-up, hadn’t been anything remotely like that since my parents died. “Yes,” I whispered.

“Good.”

His hands slid down over my shoulders to my waist, and he dropped a kiss on my lips. I tilted my face toward him, wanting more, but he moved around behind me, and I felt his fingers dance down my neck, down to the hollow between my shoulder blades where the buttons to my dress began. One by one, the buttons tugged and loosened, freeing me incrementally.

The dress slid down my body, the silk whispering against my petticoats and my corset. “A woman’s first time should be entirely about her,” he said in a low voice. “I promise to do my best, but you test every limit of my self-control.”

Oh, how I hoped that was true. I knew I should expect gentleness, but that wasn’t ever what I had responded to from Julian. Seeing him at the edge of his restraint, his eyes half-lidded as he barely resisted his own darkest urges, knowing it was me who made him that way—it made me just as wild. I craved that, that simultaneous feeling of power and lack of power.

“Don’t be too gentle,” I murmured.

“With you, wildcat, I don’t think there’s any real risk of that.”

My petticoats fell away, and he laid them carefully over a chair. Then came my corset, my breasts feeling heavy and full without its support.

When I was entirely naked, he stood before me, his eyes taking in every dip and curve of my body. I felt his eyes like his fingers, as if he were marking with his gaze all of the places he wanted to kiss. And I saw clearly the outline of his desire, his erection large and hard in his breeches. His eyes kept lingering on my breasts, on the place between my legs.

“You were made for fucking,” he said roughly.

I looked at his green eyes, the way his body exuded power and wealth and lust and raw animal need.

“I was made for you,” I answered.

In less than a second, his mouth was on mine, lips insistent and demanding. My lips parted and our tongues met, his hand behind my neck as we kissed. Even weeks after our first kiss, the connection still made my pulse pound and my body respond in ways that made any memory of propriety laughable.

Mr. Markham bent his lips to my neck, licking and nipping and sucking, and then—without warning—he swept an arm behind my knees and I was being carried to his bed. He kept kissing me as he walked, deeply and urgently, as if he couldn’t help himself, as if he were desperate to taste as many kisses as he could.

“Close your eyes,” he said as he laid me down. “I want you to think only about yourself.”

But that was impossible. As his mouth closed over my nipple, drawing it into a stiff point, all I could think about was him—his face as he worshipped my breasts, the shadows in his eyes as he held himself back from the depths of his own desire. The sight of his erection, throbbing for me and me alone.

He moved to the other breast, and I moaned out loud. He lifted his head. “If you keep making noises like that, I won’t be able to stop myself from taking you right now.”

That was exactly what I wanted, and I meant to say so, but then his fingers brushed against my center and my words were lost. He petted, he played, and he teased, until my hips were pushing up against his hand, begging and begging.

He moved his mouth down, kissing a circle around my navel, until he reached my mound, which he blanketed with soft kisses. The first time his tongue swept across my clitoris, I thought I would weep. His tongue caressed me again, slowly at first, then in quick flutters, punctuated by kisses further down, where he’d lick inside of me. And then gently, so gently that I didn’t realize it was happening, his finger slipped inside of me. As he continued sucking on my clit, his finger crooked in just the right way, pressing against a place that made me buck my hips and pant. And then there were two fingers pressing, and his mouth hot and sucking, tongue dancing, and the knowledge that in a matter of moments he would be buried inside me.

I came.

Waves of pleasure rolled through me, and he kept his mouth on me the whole time, not pulling away until my body had entirely stilled. He straightened up and ran his fingers down my torso, parting my legs with his hands so that I was all spread out for him. His jaw was working and his face was flushed, and I knew it was taking everything he had not to rush. He unbuttoned his shirt and pulled it off, throwing it to the floor without looking where it landed, and then he unbuttoned his trousers, freeing his thickness, which jutted out proudly from his narrow hips.

Through all the times he’d touched me, and I him, I had never seen him naked. And the sight was impossibly perfect: his tall body banded with slender muscles, his stomach flat, his legs powerful and long. And his cock—though I had seen it before, felt it before, I was still mesmerized by it. By its thickness and length, by the wide crest of its crown. My body warmed once more at the thought of it touching me and penetrating me, but my mind also registered a dim nervousness.

“You’re so big,” I whispered.

He didn’t answer my unspoken question. “Do you trust me?” he asked again.

I nodded, biting my lip. He crawled over me, his cock brushing against my stomach as he leaned down to take my lips. My taste still lingered on him, and I marveled at that—I was tasting myself and him at the same time. He stretched his body over mine, and I felt the unmistakable heat and hardness of him brush against my pussy.

My breath hitched. I’d only been this close to him once before, in the hallway a few nights ago, when he’d almost lost the war against himself and taken me up against the wall. The firelight flickered along his body, casting soft tessellations of light over his wide shoulders and powerful arms, and I looked down to see how his body looked over mine, poised to make it his own. The sight made me shudder. It was so sinful, so wrong. Never had I felt more at his mercy, and never had I felt more aroused.

He moved again, and again I felt his cock against me, but it was no longer light and teasing, but pressing. As I watched, my breath stitching uneven patterns, he took himself in his hand and rubbed his crown against my pussy. “Please,” I said. “Please.”

“Please what, wildcat?” His voice wasn’t teasing, it was demanding. He wanted to hear me say how much I wanted this, wanted him, and I didn’t deny him.

“Please . . . I want you inside of me.”

“You want me to fuck you?”

I didn’t hesitate. “Yes.” And then he inched himself inside, ever so slightly, no more than he had been two nights before.

“Look me in the eyes,” he ordered. I tilted my head up, immediately caught up in his gaze. There was lust there, but there was something else too, and my heart thrilled at the sight of it. I had never allowed myself to think that Mr. Markham would feel anything for me but sexual desire, but right now, at this moment, I thought I saw something more. Something softer and deeper.

I smiled up at him, and he bent down and took my mouth in a brutal kiss, as if my smile was something to be adored and punished at the same time. He pulled up. “Watch me,” he demanded. “Watch this.”

And then he pushed himself all the way inside, pushing past that initial point of resistance, and I gasped at the sharp and unexpected pain.

His hand found mine. “Do you need to stop?”

I shook my head. There was so much pressure, so much fullness, but also so much pleasure laced through it all, and I didn’t want him to stop.

He went slowly, and even though I was so aroused, so wet, there was still some discomfort as he slid in and out. He groaned, his hands knotted in the coverlet by my head, as if he were straining to go so slowly. “You are so fucking tight,” he said. There was something like a threat in his voice, the threat that he wouldn’t be able to hold on to this uncharacteristic tenderness much longer.

He ducked his head down to suck on my breasts, his movements still careful and slow. And then he reached down and stroked my bud, softly, lightly. The sudden rush of sensation, of sheer pleasure, made me shudder, and Julian groaned again as he felt me quiver underneath him.

“Tell me,” he said huskily. “Tell me what it feels like.”

“I feel so . . . full,” I whispered. There was no other word for it. He filled me and stretched me, and every time he moved, delight and pain spiked through me. “But at the same time, I want more. More of this. More of you.”

He angled his hips upward, and he brushed against a spot inside of me that made me whimper. “You have all of me, Miss Leavold.” He started moving faster now, his cock hitting that place over and over, and his thumb still making expert circles over my clitoris. The pain subsided, and all that was left was pleasure, pleasure so deep, so intense, that it barely compared to anything I’d felt before at his touch. This was terrifying and transformative, deep and wild, and I realized I was moving under him, becoming more and more desperate with each stroke.

“Oh,” I breathed. “Oh, please . . . ”

He looked down at me, hair spilling across the pillow, my back arching and my legs opening, and I saw the darkness unfurling in his eyes. “I want to feel you come around my cock,” he said. “I want to feel you clenching around me.”

My body responded to his command, tensing tighter and tighter, and when I looked down at us—at him moving in and out of me, at our legs tangled together, at how exposed I was—I came once more, an orgasm more powerful than any I’d ever felt, shuddering and tugging down to my very core.

“That’s it,” he said. And then: “Forgive me.”

With his knees, he nudged my legs farther apart and drove into me. I cried out—half in rapture, half in pain—the waves of my orgasm leaving me impossibly sensitive, and he met my eyes. There was no tenderness there, no checking in to see how I was faring, there was only lust and raw desire. Only shadows.

“I wanted you from the moment I saw you,” he growled as he thrust into me viciously, repeatedly. “I wanted you like this, your virgin cunt mine and mine alone. I wanted to feel you come around me. I wanted to come deep inside you, to mark you as mine.”

How could he not know? “I am yours, Julian.”

As he crushed his lips to mine, I felt his whole body stiffen. He groaned into my mouth as he filled me with his heat, pulsing and throbbing, and the sound of his breath as he came was the most beautiful thing I had ever heard.

We lay there, his body heavy on mine, his face buried in my neck. I ran my fingers through his thick hair, feeling a happiness that I had never felt before. I had often felt the wild contentment of swimming and climbing, and the gratification of a good book and a quiet room. But this feeling—it was fragile and floating, unmoored from all practicality, all the things that I knew to be true about men and men with money. Unmoored from my fierce desire for independence and liberty. I loved Mr. Markham, and now he was here, in my arms, and I could easily let myself believe that was enough.