Chapter 15
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
S ebastian scowled down into Luke’s face, wondering how a simple ride in the park might have come to this. When he had left the library, in which he had taken refuge should Eleanor find an excuse to invade his study, he had seen the flowers everywhere, and known he would need to escape.
The flowers had been pretty, recently cut from the garden, which had survived, by some miracle, the endless supply of gardeners tending to it. He had known immediately that Eleanor had placed them there, either as a means to apologize or infuriate him.
Either way, he had known he would need to avoid her before he lost his mind and did something he could never take back, like drag her to bed and have his way with her.
She, he knew, would delight in it. And he would too, until he came to terms with what that would mean for the future of their marriage, and thus the rest of his life. And so he had ordered his horse to be saddled and ridden into town, determined to return at least in part to his old life.
Only then he had come face to face with Luke, someone else he had been determined to avoid.
“Why are you here?” he asked again.
“For the same reason as you, no doubt. To promenade and take in the town, just as we used to do,” Luke laughed. “Walk with me. Save the scowl for another day. It has no place here.”
It became more of an effort to maintain the expression, but he did so. “I beg to differ.”
“Then, by all means, continue to glower at the world,” Luke said cheerfully. “No doubt it deserves it.” He turned, stiffening, then doffing his hat, and gave a deep bow. “Your Grace! I had not known you were right behind me. How excellent to see you here, too.”
His stomach sinking, Sebastian turned on his horse to see Eleanor standing stock still, staring at him with such dismay in her expression that he almost wished he could take the words back. He did not know what was happening to him. Why, in God’s name, did he care what she thought? His goal had always been to push her away; he ought to be rejoicing now that he had taken one step closer.
“Good day, sir,” she said finally, looking back at Luke. She gave a tentative little smile that made Sebastian want to rage inside. “How pleasant to see you here.” The lady beside Eleanor nudged her soundly in the ribs. “Ah. Allow me to introduce you to my friend, Miss Olivia Ashby.”
The simpering girl beside Eleanor dipped into a curtsy, but Sebastian barely spared her a glance. He was too busy looking at his wife. Her flushed cheeks, the sparkle in her eye, and—yes, damn him, he saw it—the hope that lingered there too.
Perhaps she had not intended this visit. The surprise on her face when she had approached him said that much, but she certainly did not think this was the disaster he did.
After all, she was not the one going out of her way to avoid him.
“Olivia,” Eleanor said. “This is my husband’s friend, the Earl of Greycliff.”
“How do you do,” Miss Ashby chirped, and to Sebastian’s dismay, Luke held out his arm to her as though he anticipated the four of them walking together. Yet given they were in such a public place, and given he had an audience, Sebastian could hardly snub them all. Not if he wished to keep his inheritance intact, and convince all the executors that he was indeed playing into his father’s hand.
“I had not expected to see you here,” Eleanor murmured as she fell into step beside him.
“I often come here,” he said shortly.
“Oh? Then perhaps we can come together sometimes. If I had known you enjoyed riding and promenading, I would have suggested it.”
The prospect of promenading with a wife who looked so fresh and pretty in the summer sun was not an altogether unappealing one, though he should not have been thinking it. He ought to be despising her for finding him, not thinking about the softness of the skin at the hollow of her neck, or the way her lips had tasted against his.
All these were things it would have been better for him not to know.
She rested her hand on his arm, looking up at him as she did so, as though she thought he might fling her off.
At home, he might have done. At home, where he was free to treat her as he liked, free to have her if he so chose, he would have been both far more likely to push her away, and far more tempted to let her remain close.
“I had not expected to see you with Lord Greycliff,” she said, looking at where his former friend strolled arm in arm with her friend. “You told me once you were not friends.”
“We are not. He found me here much the same as you did.”
“But why?” she persisted. “If he is so eager to be your friend, why do you deny him?”
“He lost that right a long time ago.”
“So then he seeks forgiveness?” She let out a long sigh, and Sebastian cursed her for understanding the situation so quickly and easily. “And you are reluctant to give it. Did he do something very bad?”
“Not in the slightest. I merely find it more convenient to have as few ties to my companions as possible.”
A frown touched her brow, drawing a line down the center, and he had the ridiculous urge to smooth it away somehow. To reassure her, though that had never been his purpose. “Is that truly what you think? That it is better to be lonely?”
“I said nothing about loneliness.”
“Perhaps not, but does that mean you are never lonely?” She peered up at him, her eyes almost blue in the sunlight. He thought briefly, explosively, that she was the most beautiful woman he had ever laid eyes on, and he burned a little with the need to touch her, to make her his in the only way he knew he could not.
She may be his in the eyes of the law, but she would never be. And that was the way he wanted it, even if sometimes his fingers itched with the need to feel her skin against him, and his lips burned with the memory of her kiss.
She was a ghost to him, yet so achingly alive. Sometimes, in moments like these, he wondered if he could ever survive this marriage.
“I am too busy to be lonely,” he muttered instead, attempting to distract himself. “I have my work, my estate, and my engagements in town. When one has as many things as I do to occupy himself, he has no need for idle friendship. Luke’s friendship would not reflect well on either of us, and I have no desire for it.”
Eleanor’s hand tightened on his arm. “Will you let no one in?” she whispered, and although they were on a large pathway in Hyde Park, surrounded by trees, the Serpentine in the distance, and many other promenading families all around, he felt briefly as though she had transported them to a private parlor where there was no one but the still air around them to hear her words.
He stopped, and so did she. The cruel rejoinder was on his tongue, a heartbeat away from crushing the delicate hope in her eyes. He needed to crush that hope, but even as he thought the words, he knew he could not bring himself to do so.
A long time ago, he had made the decision to keep everyone in his life at bay, and it had worked spectacularly—until now. Better he keep his distance and not get hurt. The moment he allowed someone to pass his defenses, he knew they would take advantage of his weakness and use it against him.
After all, it had happened before. Everyone he had ever cared about had left him.
He pressed his lips together, irritated at himself, at every laughing god in the sky who had watched him propose to this woman without doing anything to intervene and spare him.
Even without letting her into his life, perhaps she would destroy him anyway.
He leaned in closer. “Do you think you have the power to change me, Eleanor? A man’s habits are not easy ones to break.”
“I am not looking to break you, Sebastian,” she murmured back. “Nor am I looking to change you. I just want to know you.”
Shaken, he leaned back again. Luke and Miss Ashby had strolled further ahead. No one was close enough to overhear them, but he felt exposed, flayed open under the punishing glare of the sun. Only, it wasn’t the sun seeing through him, but Eleanor.
“You will never,” he told her, as harshly as he could, and dropped her arm. They walked the rest of the way in silence.
As she traveled back to the manor, Eleanor rubbed her fingers together where she had held his jacket. Although he had told her she would never know him, she had not missed the flash of indecision across his face, so raw it looked almost like pain. Perhaps his mouth said one thing, and perhaps that was what he thought he should say—cruelty appeared to be the thing he relied upon the most—but she got the impression that was far from the thing his heart desired.
And so, uncowed by his rejection of her, she prepared for the evening in relative solitude, allowing him to think that perhaps he would not find her again that day. Then, as night approached, she bid Abigail to dress her in her most revealing nightgown.
Sebastian would not get away with this so easily. She would not allow it.
Perhaps he thought his explanation in Hyde Park would be enough to satisfy her, but he would find himself mistaken. He found it convenient to have as few ties to his fellow man as possible? Even if he believed it was the truth, she did not think so. Everything about him spoke of a man who suffered deeply from loneliness. A man whose loneliness had grown to be a part of him, as integral to his being as an arm or a leg. Of course he did not notice its presence; he would only notice its absence.
She would ensure that he noticed it. One way or the other.
And if her presence in his bedchamber inspired other things, then so be it. Her entire body hummed with desire at the thought, and as she stepped inside his bedchamber—through the main door, as the adjoining one had remained locked since that first night—she felt the slick heat between her thighs.
It did not take long for Sebastian to join her. At first, as he entered and shrugged off his coat, he did not notice her in the shadows. He looked weary here, she noticed. He dragged a hand down his face with a sigh and strolled to the window, where a low moon illuminated the formal gardens and the wilderness beyond. Somewhere in the distance lay London, but they lay far enough outside it that the city was only a smudge on the horizon, invisible in the dark.
She watched, fascinated, as Sebastian tugged his cravat off and tossed it aside. He then lit a candle, shielding the flame from the air and touching it to the wick. Light bloomed, casting his reflection against the window panes. Unable to wait any longer, Eleanor stepped out from where she had been standing, and Sebastian’s head snapped around.
“You seem tired,” she began, and took one step closer. “I thought I might be able to assist you with that.”
His gaze flicked to the adjoining door, then back to her. “I thought I—”
“You did lock it. I entered through the main door.” She reached for the hem of her nightgown, and in one smooth motion, tugged it over her head and away. This had not, strictly, been part of Olivia’s instructions, but the events in the carriage left her under no illusions about the strength of his desire for her. Whatever his reasons for not wanting her as a wife, he certainly wanted her as a woman.
He sucked in a breath as her nightgown dropped to the floor in a silken heap beside her ankles. The cool air bit at her bare breasts and the tender, aching flesh between her legs. She had never been exposed like this before, but the light that flared in his eyes—desperate hunger—made her feel warm all over.
“ Eleanor .” His voice cracked on her name.
“If you want me to leave, you will have to force me out of the door.”
“I gave you instructions in the carriage.”
“And I have obeyed them.” She sucked in a long, deep breath. “But I wish for you to touch me again. I wish for—” Everything . She wished for everything, even though she did not know precisely what that meant.
“I know.” He blinked, and it was as though his entire being focused in on her, his attention as sharp and cutting as a knife, just as deadly, just as sure. She craved the feel of it against her skin. Her nipples peaked, and her breasts felt heavy. This desire was an all-consuming thing inside her, a need that transcended mere lust.
“Sebastian,” she whispered. “Please.”
Perhaps he had already made up his mind, or perhaps her plea was what did it for him. Regardless, he took two strides toward her, lifted her, and carried her across to his large poster bed. Eleanor stared at the darkened hangings above her, then up at Sebastian’s face, equally dark, but this time with hunger.
“You should not have entered my bedchamber tonight,” he muttered, his voice low and dangerous. “That was a mistake.”
She shivered in delicious anticipation. “Show me what a mistake it was.”
He let out a small groan before reaching up to cup her breasts, tweaking her nipple just hard enough that she gasped through the flash of pain that traveled through her, hot and wet and pleasurable .
“Before you arrived, I had plans of my own,” he said, giving her breasts a light slap, one at a time. She held her breath, waiting for more. There would be more—she knew it, a womanly instinct reassured her that he would not step away now.
“ Oh ?”
“Now you are going to fulfill them for me.” He shrugged out of his waistcoat, then ripped his shirt off from over his head. The light played across the muscles of his chest and back, and she followed the trail of hair that pointed to his waistband. The carriage had been too dark to see much at all, but here, with the light of the candle, she would finally see it all . He would be as bare to her as she was to him.
Lastly, he addressed himself to his breeches, tugging them down his legs so his member stood free, thick, and proud as it jutted from his body. For a moment, trepidation filled her. Although she had not known precisely what to expect, she knew a little of what transpired between a man and a woman. After all, she had been around the ladies of the ton often enough, even if they frequently forgot she was there.
So she knew, therefore, that his length should go inside her . She would, somehow, have to accommodate his girth.
Still, she swallowed and attempted not to let him see any of her thoughts. That would not help matters; no matter what he pretended, she knew he would not do anything to truly hurt her. There had been enough of kindness in him—betrayed reluctantly—for her to know that she was safe with him.
He bent closer and kissed her, one hand roughly around the back of her head, tangled in the hair she had left down. She kissed him back with as much enthusiasm as she could muster. More, if possible.
She wanted him. How she wanted him.
His hand slid down her body, across her stomach, to the damp hair below, and the slick flesh that lay between her thighs. He groaned at the feel of it.
“So responsive,” he murmured as she twitched, pleasure alive inside her. “What folly to have married such a sensual being.”
“ Folly ?” she gasped.
“I could not stop myself from wanting to pleasure you even if necessity demanded it.” He touched her again. “But that’s not what you want, is it, sweet? I know how you respond to me. Pleasure that is given freely does not taste as sweet as that which is earned.”
She gasped a little at the push of his fingers inside her. Yet even as she craved his touch, she knew he was right. She wanted to do something for him—unlike the last time, during which she had not been allowed to touch him once.
If she merely took, the feel of his hands against hers would not feel as good.
“One day,” he murmured, “I will worship you as you deserve to be worshiped. But for today, we will indulge in something a little different, and you will have your chance to please me.”
“Thank you, sir,” she said on a gasp. “What would you have me do?”
“What indeed .” The words sounded dark to her ears, and when she glanced up at him, it appeared as though he was in pain. “But do not fear. I will not take what is left of your innocence.”
She frowned, trying to think past the working of his hands between her legs. It was as though he could not stop, as though the idea of giving her pleasure drugged him as utterly as the pleasure she wanted to give him would her. “So we are not going to…?”
“ No .” He withdrew his hand from her. “Do not ask again.”
The command weighed on her. Ordinarily, in these circumstances, she found she did not mind commands. In fact, it gave her a perverse joy to obey them, to prove herself to him, to do everything he wished for his pleasure. But this felt like a command too far when it related to their marriage.
Before she could protest the point, he slid his hand back to her, slipping a finger inside with very little resistance. The stab of pleasure briefly lost her grip on her thoughts. What did anything else matter when he was doing such wonderful things to her?
“Let me,” she whispered, reaching for him. “Let me touch you.”
He caught her wrist, then brought her fingers to his lips. The gesture disarmed her, and she looked at him with wide eyes. He had so rarely been affectionate, so rarely been tender like this, that it utterly threw her off-guard.
“Very well.” He spoke against her lips, then traced his hand back up her body to her breasts, cupping them in his hand. His eyes grew very dark. “On your knees.”
“My knees.”
“Did I or did I not give you an instruction?”
The command in his voice sent another shiver through her, one that rivaled even the pleasure he wrought upon her, and she slid off the bed and onto the carpet, sitting before him and looking up. He spread his legs and reached down to cup her chin.
“If you do not like what I am about to do to you, then tap my leg twice.” He took her hand and demonstrated. “I will stop.”
“And if I don’t?”
“Then I will be at liberty to reward you.”
Reward . Oh, she had an idea of what that might entail, and the thought squirmed inside her, eager to be freed.
“I’ll be good,” she promised.
The ghost of a smile crossed his mouth. “I hope so. For both our sakes.” He took hold of his manhood with one hand, and threaded his other through her hair. “Easy now,” he said, urging her face closer. “Just relax. It may feel strange at first.”
“I can do it.”
“Good girl,” he murmured, and brushed the head of his length against her lips. Acting on instinct, she opened her mouth, and he held still as she flicked her tongue across the hot skin, and the salty bead of moisture at its tip. Then, testing her limits, she sank deeper into him. Sebastian went utterly still, save for one shattered breath.
Yes , this was what she had always wanted. To make him feel like this .
A sense of control even as she yielded to his commands.
At first, it took a moment for her to adjust to the feel of something so large and domineering in her mouth. She had to loosen her jaw, find ways of holding her teeth out of the way so they did not scrape down his length. She flicked her tongue across him and was rewarded with his groan. His hips thrust a little into her mouth, and she choked, her throat closing at the sudden intrusion.
The pressure on her hair loosened, and she had a moment to gather herself before she took him in her mouth again. She adjusted to the sensation, breathing through her nose. When she moved, he kept still, allowing her to choose her pace.
As she accustomed herself to the feel, she found she relished the sensation. There were so many things she could do. And by his muttered praises, he liked the tears that streamed down her cheeks, and when she coughed and choked on his length, it earned her praises like ‘good girl’ and ‘that’s it, sweet’, and she found she craved that almost as much as she yearned for his pleasure.
That, at least, she knew she delivered in spades. His hand kept tightening around her head, keeping her still as he withdrew from her a little, before returning himself to his previous position. There could be no denying that he enjoyed this, and she had been the one to bring that about. He had offered her a challenge and she had risen to it. Now, he found himself lost in the feel of her, and she had done that.
There could be no greater compliment.
He pulled free from her lips abruptly, so fast she thought she had done something wrong, and bent to take hold of her arms, heaving her up and throwing her down onto the bed.
“ It’s no use ,” he muttered, sounding more as though he was talking to himself than her. “I must have you. I cannot deny myself again. When I climax and paint you with my seed, I want to hear your gasp with pleasure. Say my name when I’m inside you. I cannot leave that to the imagination. Not when I have spent so long dreaming of it.” He bent and suckled on her nipple, even as his other hand found her wet center. “You feel exquisite,” he groaned.
Mindless, feeling as though she was half mad with pleasure, she reached for his length, wrapping her fingers around him and moving. His entire body jerked and shuddered, and he let out a gasp, which only seemed to spur him on. Now she knew a little of what she was looking for, she understood from his panting breath that he was close to his climax.
She longed to be the one to give it to him, and he did nothing to knock her hands away.
“Don’t hold back,” he said. “Tell me you love it when I touch you. Show me what you want. I want to see you writhe in my arms, sweetness.”
There was no world in which she could do anything else. She opened her mouth, and nothing but moans and gasping left her lips.
“My good girl,” he muttered. “You have a natural affinity for this. For pleasure. For—” He cut himself off, and said her name again, pushing closer to her. She felt him jerk, heard the groan that broke from him, and felt the warmth of his seed across her stomach and chest. The primal nature of his marking made her heart pound.
She was his .
Yet even though he had just spilled himself on her, he did not stop. No. Instead, he spread her legs still wider, staring at the apex of her thighs with such hunger, it made something in her chest pinch and ache.
“Oh yes,” he whispered, moving his other hand to her folds as he pressed another finger inside to join the first. “You have been very good. Do you want me to bring you to your climax, my sweet?” The eagerness in his voice could not be denied. He very much wanted to give her pleasure.
“Yes, please ,” she gasped. “Yes, sir. Thank you.”
“You have made life particularly difficult ever since you arrived here as my wife,” he said, stroking her again, then sliding one finger inside her. Her back arched from the bed. “And you refuse to allow me to go back to my old ways. How am I to ignore you in times such as these?” He kissed the inside of her knee, an oddly tender gesture that made her heart contract. “How am I to want to when you put yourself so easily in my power?”
“Sebastian,” she pleaded, already close.
“I never had any desire for a companion, much less a wife. I wanted for nothing. And still, I want for nothing. You should understand that.”
She did not, could not, but she had no air left with which to speak.
“I am content as I am. You cannot change me, sweet.” He pressed his thumb against her pleasure point. “I will not bow to your expectations of me. You would do better not to try.” He worked her, watching her with an almost pained expression on his face. “This cannot happen again. Promise me that, Eleanor. Promise me you will not try to break me again.”
She had not been attempting anything of the sort, but the raw agony in his eyes told her that he believed she was—if not attempting it, then close to succeeding. She wished she knew what lay inside his mind and heart, why he told her to leave while beckoning the sweet oblivion of pleasure closer with every heartbeat.
He was a man built of nothing but conundrum, and she was determined to discover what lay behind his contrary, contradicting statements.
Pleasure burst over her like a firework in the dark, an explosion of color and light so vast and consuming, she lost herself for several long moments. When she came back into herself, Sebastian was kissing her thighs, soft, sweet kisses that nearly took her breath away.
She blinked at him, her chest suddenly so full she thought she might cry. “That was wonderful,” she breathed, her words constricted.
He looked up at her, the harshness of his face softened by the light and the gentleness of his expression. “Stay there,” he said, then rose. She lay where she was as he walked to a bowl of water no doubt placed there by his valet, and brought back a damp cloth. He then cleaned her, wiping her breasts with more of that tenderness she had never thought she would experience from him.
Now, more than ever, she felt certain she had made the right decision in coming here, even if it did mean invading his personal space.
“Sebastian,” she whispered, catching his wrist as he went to move away. A great languor had settled over her body, but she knew she needed to say this. “Why do you push everyone in your life away? Do not tell me you are content. No man can be content with isolation.”
The softness in his face vanished; his jaw flexed. “Do not presume to know me so well, Eleanor. You might be my wife, and you might have visited my bed on this single occasion, but that does not give you a right to my thoughts, and it never shall.”
“I—”
“It is time for you to leave. Surely now you have received all you came for.” He gave her a smile, the cruel edges of it slicing her open. Yet despite the harshness of his words, she saw a flash of pain in his eyes. In intending to hurt her, he had hurt himself. He was pushing her away just as he wanted to push everyone else—because he was not yet ready to let her in. Whatever had happened between them hadn’t been enough. She’d thought perhaps it might have been, that his plea for her not to break him hinted at a removal of the iron walls he’d placed around his heart, but that was not so.
And she saw the pain it caused him as clearly as if she had plunged a dagger into his chest. Whatever he might pretend to himself and her, he was not indifferent.
She would not allow him to continue in this way.
“I will leave you now,” she said, gathering her nightgown and holding it against her body. “Thank you for the gift of pleasure you gave me. I shall not soon forget it.”
His eyes looked very dark in his face as he watched her, but he said nothing as she left the bedchamber and returned to her own.
Sebastian stared at the door long after Eleanor had slipped through it. His mind raced, though it kept fixing on the expression on her face when she said that he could not be happy. His resentment caught in his throat.
Of course his life made him content. No man could be happy all the time—that was a fool’s errand! And her presumption in thinking that she could compel him to be happy.
Her. A chit of a girl. His wife whom he had married under duress. Yes, he was weak in the flesh, and it had been too long since he’d had a woman. And yes, now when she smiled, he felt the expression in his chest as though she had lit a candle there. He had the oddest urge to make sure it happened more often, which could only be a reflection of more weakness. Once he got the space from her he very much needed, he would go back to normal.
He would not break. Not give in. Not allow her the liberties she so obviously wanted. It was better this way. Better. Safer .
Even if, when he was cleaning up the mess he had made of her, he had imagined her spending the night in his bed, warm and safe in his arms.
His .
Stupid, weak, ludicrous thought. He despised it. Despised her.
Never again. He would not give another person the means to hurt him again, no matter how tempting she made the prospect appear.