11. Chapter 11

Chapter 11

W ill’s left buttock had gone completely numb. He had a knot in his neck, his throat was bone dry, and his bladder screamed for relief. But it would take an act of God himself to make him shift position in the slightest.

Because somewhere in the past several miles of sun-dappled road, Adelaide Kimball had fallen asleep on his shoulder.

Of course, he had to wrap his arm around her, to keep her from falling. And he couldn’t be faulted if she snuggled against his chest. If his hand drifted to hold her waist. If he smelled the citrus of her hair, admired how her thick tawny lashes cast shadows on her milky cheeks. How in the light, the fabric of her shirtwaist was thin enough that he could make out the valley between her breasts.

He chided himself and dragged his attention back to the road. Phyllis was doing an admirable job pulling the cart, although they were traveling at a far slower pace than they would be in the carriage. Making it to Barrington by Friday would be a challenge, and not for the first time, he questioned if helping Adelaide reach her wedding was the best thing for her. She’d been a vision the night before, learning to ask for her pleasure. When he thought they’d only have one night together, he’d wanted to bring her to that peak, to show her what to ask for from her betrothed.

But now, he faced another night with her, another chance to prove she’d been made for passion. And knowing she intended for the marriage to be chaste, his need became a tangible thing, driving logical thought from his mind. She was chaos without a hint of self-preservation, and would drive him mad if he attempted to manage her. But she shouldn’t be managed; she should be set free. And, God help him, did he want to try.

The nettlesome thought pushed to the forefront once more. Would the apprenticeship alone be enough to fill the empty ache in his chest? His vision for his future contained more than his employment, but also featured a family, a wife who would challenge him and children who adored them both.

Those children suddenly had honey-blond hair and full, dimpled cheeks.

When the donkey appeared to be slowing, Will directed her to the side of the road. He could have stopped the cart in the middle and not interfered with anyone’s travel, as they’d only passed one wagon ago. Roused by the change in motion, Adelaide lifted her head and met his eyes. Hers were hooded, her lips parted. So damned beautiful he nearly fell off the cart entirely.

“I’m sorry,” she said, her voice raspy as she pressed her hand to his chest. “I hope I didn’t drool on you or talk in my sleep.”

His skin heated beneath her touch. “You needed your rest. And your snores aren’t nearly as loud as mine.”

She gasped in mock outrage, then wrinkled her nose. “I was only tired because someone exhausted me last night.”

Her cheeks flushed red as she cringed, and something in Will’s chest cracked open. He took her hand and waited for her to meet his gaze again. “I’m sorry for what I said this morning, especially if it made you believe I regret what happened last night.” He leaned close, drifted the back of his finger over the impossibly soft skin of her cheek. “I don’t regret a moment of it.”

“You don’t?” He hated the uncertainty in her voice, particularly since he put it there.

“No.” I wish our circumstances were different. I wish I had more time with you. I wish I was the man waiting for you in a church in Barrington.

He shook his head to banish the thought far too late, as the idea of being Adelaide’s betrothed had taken up residence in his mind and was gleefully shoving anything unnecessary—memorized Bible verses, the recipe for vegetable soup, his cousin’s birthdates—out of its way. She was more important.

The edge of her lip twitched, as though she were fighting a smile, and the ache in his chest diminished as he swung himself from the bench and put his hands to her waist to help her down. “Let’s get you something to eat, aye?”

After Will and Adelaide (and Phyllis) relieved themselves, he set the donkey free to graze while Adelaide spread out the bedroll and the contents of the luncheon he’d gathered at the inn before their departure. The heat of the previous day had abated enough that resting in their spot beneath a massive walnut tree was pleasant, not an exercise in endurance.

Adelaide stretched her muslin skirts as she sat, covering her ankles as though she hadn’t dug them into his shoulder blades the night before. Thick and heady arousal rushed through him as he watched her prepare a sandwich with brown bread and sliced chicken.

Good lord, the way she made sandwiches was arousing. He was doomed.

He cleared his throat and latched onto the only thread of conversation he could manage while all the blood rushed from his brain to his cock. “Did you really have a governess named Phyllis?”

Her expression softened, and she put down her sandwich, patting a napkin against her lips. “I did. Well, not exactly. Her name was Mrs. Phillips , but as a girl, I couldn’t get it right. She humored me, and it became somewhat of a joke between us. The imaginary nanny my father never met.”

“Was she with you for a long time?”

The affection in her voice was palpable. “She started with us when I was six, after none of my previous nannies could tolerate my beastly behavior.” She rolled her eyes. “When she realized I knew how to behave but simply chose not to, she let me indulge my wilder side, within reason.”

He raised one brow in question, and she smirked. “We went to the menagerie in Central Park, and I tried to roar louder than the lions, but only after I’d properly introduced myself with a curtsey. Then she’d take me for tea and cakes where we’d discuss bugs and history.” Adelaide lowered her voice in a conspiratorial tone. “She was the one who taught me about Elizabeth Cady Stanton and Susan B. Anthony, although it wasn’t intentional. She’d left a copy of the Declaration of Sentiments in her bag, and I discovered it when I was hunting for a sweet.”

“How did your mother and father feel about you reading such revolutionary texts?”

“Pish. Granting women the right to vote is anything but revolutionary . It's simply rational!” The brightness faded a bit from her eyes, as though a cloud had passed over the sun. “My mother and father weren’t concerned with what I was doing, as long as I dressed for dinner and remained silent when they paraded me out for guests.”

Will shifted, stretched his legs out in front of him, anything to dispel the agitation in his bones. “How dreadful.”

“It wasn’t like that for you, I’m sure.” She sipped from the bottle of lemonade before handing it over to him. “At least before your father passed.”

The empathy in her voice landed like a blow to the chest, and his throat tightened. He hesitated before drinking as he recalled his childhood, the family meals with parishioners, learning to cook at his mother’s knee or to play chess with his father. They’d always wanted more children, but his mum said the Lord had blessed them enough with William, and they needed no more. Will was certain she wasn’t sharing the truth, but never questioned her. Perhaps he should have.

“No,” he said, hoping his voice wouldn’t break. “They loved—love me, a great deal.”

She hummed, selected a fat strawberry from the basket, and nibbled on the end. “Your mother must be proud of you for your apprenticeship, and the work you do. Is she?”

Will nodded, sipped the lemonade, waited for the lump in his throat to feel less urgent. When it did, he found words pushing their way out. “She never said it, but I suspect she wished I started university instead of apprenticing, but I didn’t want her to work while she was mourning.”

Her lapis eyes assessed him so thoroughly she felt her gaze in his soul. “You didn’t answer my question, Will.”

“I didn’t.” He sighed. “After I took over the shop two years ago now, I found myself bored. There’s nothing wrong with honest work, but wanting to provide for my mother was the only thing that made me wake up every day. So I started experimenting, trying to recreate what I’d seen in books or in some of the big houses nearby, the cathedrals in Bath and Bristol. That Christmas, I made her a set of andirons.” He chuckled. “They were supposed to be roses but looked more like turnips. She lied and said she loved them anyway.”

Adelaide’s smile lit something inside him, the warmth loosening his tongue further. “I’m good enough that I can sell small pieces or repair some of the finer work in the area, so I saved funds for my mother to live off while I’m apprenticing again.”

“So you can create beautiful things.” She sighed, pressed a hand to her breast. Lord, now he was looking at her breasts again.

“Beautiful and useful.”

She blinked several times, and he wanted to tug her to his chest, wrap himself around her as they rolled in the grass. He wanted to kiss her and ravish her, protect her and do all sorts of wicked, filthy things to her. She bedeviled him, would be his undoing if he let himself be foolish because a beautiful girl listened to him talk about his feelings.

Will stood, brushed the crumbs from his lap. “Can I show you something?”

When she nodded, he extended his hand and tugged her to standing. Together they climbed up the mild slope behind the walnut tree and around a thicket of wild gorse strung through with vines. Yellow and white trumpet-shaped blooms hung stark and fragile against the saturated green foliage, their scent catching his attention and bringing memories to the top of his mind.

He plucked one blossom, smaller than his thumb, from the vine. “Have you ever seen honeysuckle before?”

She shook her head. “I’ve heard of the fragrance, in perfumes and such, but I didn’t know they grow wild.”

“Yes, and they were everywhere in the woods when I was growing up. My father showed me how to get their honey.” Holding the blossom in a delicate grip between his thumb and forefinger, he pressed his other thumbnail into the base of the flower, slicing off the bottom but leaving the stamen intact.

“If you bring the stamen—the long part in the middle, see?” He waited for her to nod before continuing. “If you drag it, slowly, you’ll get—”

The bulbous end of the stamen came free of the blossom, leaving a round orb on the end. He couldn’t help a boyish grin as he transferred the nectar to his fingertip and extended it out to her. “Honey.”

Her lips parted on a soft gasp. “Hence the name.”

“Exactly. Would you like to—”

He hadn’t planned for what came next, for her leaning forward, wrapping those berry-stained lips around his finger. She drew back, the tip of her tongue darting out and sweeping over her lower lip.

Surely he would die now, as his heart seemed to trip over itself as blood rushed from distant lands to his cock. Here lies William Shipley, felled by Adelaide Kimball’s pink tongue .

By the time he’d regained consciousness, Adelaide was reaching into the vines, plucking blossoms and attempting to replicate Will’s actions, although she hadn’t quite gotten the measure of it. Every time she broke the stamen or pulled too hard, she’d huff, her lower lip popping out in a delightful pout. He wanted to pull that lip between his teeth, bite it, then soothe it with his tongue, then move on to her other lips—

“I can’t do it.” Her shoulders slumped, and the urge to wrap her up and feed her by hand until the end of days returned tenfold.

Will huffed (although he suspected she saw through his feigned annoyance) and extracted another dollop of the nectar, then extended his fingertip.

Did he want her to suck on his finger again? To hold his gaze while she swirled her tongue around the tip? He would deny that was his intention until his dying day, but her lips closed over his fingertip once more, and her tongue twirled, once, twice, around the tip. Then she sucked , her cheeks hollowing the barest amount before she released him.

His breath escaped in a hiss. “Adelaide—”

“Last night,” she interrupted, a blush blooming high on her milky cheeks, “when you… when you put your head between my legs… I enjoyed it very much.”

An incredulous laugh burst from his chest. “I could tell.”

She bit her lower lip and freed it. Damn that lip. If she didn’t stop calling his attention to it, he might expire on the spot. “I was thinking about the illustration in my magazine, the one you saw in the stable that first night. Do you remember it?”

Where was that lemonade? His throat was a desert. “I couldn’t forget it.”

“Neither could I.” She heaved a breath, then held his gaze. “I want to do what that woman did to pleasure a man.”

This couldn’t be real. His voice lowered, darkened. “Meaning? Use your words, sweet.”

Her lips curled into a mischievous grin. “I want to suck your cock.”

He’d have to revise his gravestone. Here lies Will Shipley, felled by Adelaide Kimball saying the word “cock.”

He stammered, his mouth working for a moment before he mumbled something between “of course” and “yes” and “good lord, you are every fantasy I’ve ever had come to life.”

But more eloquent, of course.

She started to lower herself, but Will stopped her, caught her elbow, and led her behind another tree. A quick glance over his shoulder confirmed they wouldn’t be visible from the road, and the ground around the roots was grassy and wouldn’t hurt her knees.

She gathered her skirt and sank, holding his gaze as she settled at his feet. By this point, his cock was so hard he was certain he’d come merely from looking at her in this position. But she placed her palms on his thighs, her lips parted. “Show me what to do.”

An intoxicating thrill rushed through him. This strong, beautiful woman trusted him to care for her, to protect her and pleasure her, and she would humble herself before him. The act humbled him far more, made him want to be better, even as he unbuttoned his trousers and pulled out his aching cock. He needed to prove himself worthy of her, even if he could only have a few more hours in her presence.

“Have you done this before?” he managed, and she shook her head. “Open your mouth, sweet love.” Her lips parted, and he hummed his approval. “You explore. Touch me how you enjoyed being touched.”

“How will I know if you like it?” She reached out and stroked the pearl of arousal beaded at the tip of his cock, then swirled it around the head.

He hissed, dropping his head back. “Trust me, you’ll know.”

When her tongue dragged from root to tip, her eyelids dropped closed and she hummed, like he was the most delightful confection she’d ever known. Will pressed his hands against the rough bark of the walnut tree as his knees threatened to buckle under him. The sun caught the gold and bronze lacing her hair, her alabaster cheeks flushed pink, and those lapis eyes held his, appraising his reactions.

He dropped one hand to the nape of her neck, her hair damp from perspiration. “That’s it, so good,” he crooned, and her eyes sparkled as her tongue swept over the weeping crown. “Take it in your mouth now. Slowly, love.”

He clenched his jaw, fighting the urge to roar in pleasure as she took his length between her lips, so hot and sweet . Her hands braced on his trembling thighs as she drew back, then lowered again, taking him deeper this time.

A low groan escaped his chest, and her eyes flew open. Even with her mouth well and truly full, her lips curved into a satisfied smirk, and he wanted to laugh, a completely inappropriate impulse, but the joy he saw in her spread through him, warming him more than the sun baking the road or a shot of whisky on a winter day. It made him want , her smile seducing him and fueling a desire that didn’t feel like wanting food or drink, sleep or sex. Something that terrified and thrilled him at the same time.

His voice emerged as a primal growl. “Look at you, stretched around my cock. You take me so well, darling, so perfectly. Do you like this, love? Do you like devastating me like this?”

Because that was what she was doing, devastating him, tearing bits of his soul apart with each unpracticed bob of her head, with each furrow of her tawny brows as she listened to his moans and sighs, as her fingernails bit into the tensed muscles of his thighs. It was too much, too powerful for him to control, too much—

He bent his hips away from her, and she gasped as he caught her by the elbows, lifting her to standing before he pressed her against the tree trunk and captured her lips with his. “You were too good, my sweet. I was about to come.”

“Wasn’t that the point?”

He gave her arse a playful pinch, and she jumped before giggling. “Yes, but not like that.” The hours, the miles stretching between this peaceful place and their destination, her wedding , felt both infinite and painfully, painfully fixed, their time together slipping through his fingers and making his chest clench in panic. “I want to m—” His breath caught. Make love? Was that what he almost said?

She must have heard it, understood his meaning in that maddening way of hers, and her eyes lit up. “Do you—” She stopped, swallowed, met his gaze boldly. “I want you to fuck me, Will, please.”

There was no need for a gravestone now, as Will was completely annihilated, decimated by her words. “You do?” he managed.

She nodded. “You told me to use my words.”

He leaned in, cupped her perfect, round arse in his hands and squeezed. “Would you like me to eat your cunt first?”

Her eyes flared with heat. “Yes, please.”

“Please?”

Gathering her skirts in one hand, she released the tapes of her drawers and shimmied, letting the white linen drop to her ankles. “My mother raised me to be a lady.”

Will dropped to his knees, a penitent man kneeling before his goddess, and pressed his face to the triangle of honey-gold curls guarding her sex. She cried out, arched against him as she leaned against the tree, letting him lift her leg over his shoulder. The soft flesh of her thighs held him in place as he devoured her, nibbling and sucking. He pressed his tongue into her weeping channel, savoring each moan and buck of her hips as her hand tangled in his hair, directing him where she needed him most.

He would go anywhere, do anything, if it meant worshiping at her feet, at the chalice of her womanhood. His movements took on more purpose as her thighs quivered, and he focused his attention on the swollen bud, flicking it relentlessly with his tongue before sucking, hard. She erupted around him and pressed his mouth against her opening as he savored her release, the sweet honey just for him, only for him .

She was still trembling when he stood, took his painfully hard cock in hand and notched it against her entrance. Well, attempted to. His height meant an awkward bend at the waist and likely a crick in his back, but he—

“Lift me,” she breathed, her voice hoarse after her cries of pleasure. “Against the tree.”

Good lord, could this woman be any more perfect for him? With a nod, he lifted her behind her thighs until her back pressed against the tree, pinned there by his hips. She moaned, her head rolling against the bark as he rubbed his length against her swollen flesh, slicking it in her arousal. “You want my cock, don’t you?” Together they watched the head, angry red and slicked with her dew, as it parted the lips of her sex. “Tell me, love, tell me you want it.”

“I want your cock, Will,” she said, her voice like smoke, full of heat and desire and so damned arousing he couldn’t wait a moment longer.

But he was large, and she wasn’t experienced. Patience, he breathed with each inhale as he pressed against her and her breath caught. “Easy, love,” he crooned into her neck. “Take me in.”

Her head fell against the tree. “Good gracious…” She winced, then shivered. “How can it hurt and feel so good?”

He caught her cheek, forced her gaze to his. “You can take me. You’re so damn wet from coming on my face.”

She hummed low in her throat and shifted her hips so the head of his cock slipped inside her.

“Fuck,” he hissed, forgiving his profanity as her warm heat engulfed him, so hot and tight he nearly dropped her. “God, you feel so good, sweet love.”

The next several moments were exquisite torture as she consumed him in minute increments, the velvet fist of her interior muscles gripping his cock until perspiration dripped down his spine, his control at a breaking point. When he was fully seated at long last, he released a choked roar, determined to restrain himself until she adjusted to the size of him.

“Adelaide…” Her eyelids fluttered, her eyes glazed, and he tensed. “Sweet Adelaide, breathe for me, love.”

“I can’t breathe.” She shifted her hips and they both groaned. “Your ridiculous cock is pushing the air from my lungs.”

He laughed, the motion making them both shudder from the rush of sensation. “Ridiculous?”

She nodded, her expression dazed even as she winked. “Ridiculous. But I like ridiculous things.”

“Good.” He kissed her nose, the swell of her cheek, the furrowed space between her brows. How he had the strength to adore her in a moment like this, when he was in imminent danger of immolation, must be some kind of miracle.

Perhaps Adelaide herself was the miracle.

“I’m going to move,” he said, his forehead pressed to hers, wanting to connect with her even more than he already was. “I need you to tell me if it’s too much.”

“It won’t be.” Her fingernails scraped the nape of his neck. “Please, Will.”

He thought of his work in the forge as he withdrew his hips and pushed forward again, the patience required to tame the elemental and incandescent into something beautiful, the strength used to remain under control. But as the slow, glorious glide of his body joining with her threatened to break him, Will didn’t want to tame anything . The glow, the white-hot molten connection he shared with Adelaide needed to be tended, to be cultivated, not captured or contained.

Her soft pants and cries broke through the buzz in his ears, and he returned to the present, the desperate, heavy heat pouring down his spine, the tension in Adelaide’s thighs, the quivering of her interior walls.

“You’re so good at taking me like this, so beautiful.” He barely recognized his own voice, the stark hunger that dripped from every word. “You’re going to come for me, aren’t you?”

“Yes,” she cried, her fingernails now digging into his shoulders, his neck, the bite of pain heightening the pleasure spiraling out from his cock. “I’m—I’m going to…”

Her voice broke off on a shuddering cry as she snapped, the clench so tight around his erection he had to pull out with a pained groan before he put her at risk. His climax tore through him as he erupted, white streams of his release pulsing against her thigh.

The sounds of the surrounding wilderness advanced through the orgasmic haze. The heat of the sun at his back. The smell of honeysuckle and earth. The calls of birds in the tree above. And the weight of Adelaide, her body going limp against his.

She lifted her head slowly and pushed a perspiration-damp lock of hair from his forehead. “As I said…” she patted him on the chest and grinned, “ridiculous.”