Chapter 22 #3
“It’s not fair,” Willa whispered. His hands came up to clasp Verbena’s, crossing his arms to do so, folding himself in a second embrace. “We have only just found each other. We had no time.”
“We have tonight,” Verbena said. She kept her eyes closed, listening to the hitch inside Willa’s body as he gasped for air. She held him tighter and willed her words to find their mark. “If I ask you to stay, will you do so out of devotion? Or would you stay only because you truly wish to?”
“Honestly, I cannot parse the two,” Willa said. Verbena wished she could see his face as he spoke. “All I know is my soul yearns for yours, even if it is only for tonight.”
Verbena turned him in her arms and, after searching his pretty eyes for any hesitation, pressed her mouth to his with a boldness that surprised them both.
Willa made a noise against her lips, a high whine of need.
His body sagged against hers so that she took nearly all his weight. She took it gladly. And wanted more.
She deepened the kiss, tasting the plush softness of Willa’s mouth, his tongue, the salt of tears.
Verbena allowed her selfishness, which would be forever put aside after this night, to come to the fore.
Her fingers lifted to the tousled hair at the back of Willa’s head and clutched, holding him fast to her.
Her arm tightened about his waist in a crushing grip.
Even if he had the strength to move, he would not have been able to. He was hers, if only until daybreak.
He was hers and no one else’s.
The thought startled Verbena enough that she pulled away. Willa, taking great gulps of air between his kiss-bruised lips, stared at her beseechingly.
“Why have you stopped?” he asked.
“I—I’m pawing at you like the worst rake.
” She took Willa by the shoulders and pushed so that there was a few inches’ distance between them.
It seemed a gulf, an ocean, but she could not think when they were nearer.
“You are a man, at least some of the time,” she continued.
“You should be the one to…direct us tonight.”
Willa stared at her like she’d spoken ancient Greek. No, he probably knew ancient Greek; Swedish, then. “By rights, I should be the one following your lead. It’s not as if I’ve ever—not with anyone else,” he said.
“Well, neither have I,” Verbena said hotly.
“I didn’t presume so.”
“Good!”
“Lovely.”
Verbena caught her lip between her teeth and looked down at their feet. “So we have no idea what we’re doing.” She shook her head. “What a pair.”
“You seem to have some idea,” ventured Willa.
“I don’t mind, you know. Why shouldn’t a lady be the one who kisses instead of waiting to be kissed?
Does it make me lesser to be the canvas for her affections?
I cannot believe so; I do not feel lesser in your arms.” He leaned in only the barest inch, which was all it took for Verbena to embrace him tightly about the hips once more.
“You don’t?” Verbena asked. It was a grave question, and this close to Willa’s expressive face, she could clearly see the sincerity in his eyes as he smiled.
“Not a bit,” he said. “I feel adored.”
Verbena resolved to adore him as best she could for however long she was allowed, and damn whatever roles they were expected to inhabit. She kissed him again, hard enough to make him squeak in surprise, before cupping his face in her hands.
“Come to bed with me,” she said.
Willa nodded, eyes near shut in bliss, his shawl slipping from his shoulders to land in a puddle on the floor.
Verbena tried to undress him, but she was stymied by the unfamiliar fastenings of his trousers.
They weren’t at all like the breeches she’d briefly worn for the masquerade, and her frustration could not be hidden.
Willa’s callused palms caught hers, drawing her attention to his fond, amused expression.
“Shall I?” he asked. “I know my way around both sorts of clothing.”
Verbena lifted her jaw. She would not be embarrassed by her lack of knowledge; they had already established that there was no shame in it. “You shall,” she said, injecting some imperiousness into her words.
Willa shivered against her, his eyes fluttering closed for a moment. “You are very talented at giving instruction,” he said.
Verbena winced, not wanting to remind her beloved of a schoolmaster. “I should couch my requests more gently, I know.”
“Please don’t. Not on my account.” Willa lifted their joined hands and crushed his smooth cheek to her knuckles. His eyes were deep, black pools, reflecting the candlelight’s flicker. “Direct me as you would, Verbena. I would be a tool for your pleasure.”
A thrill shot through Verbena’s middle. It was a lovely thing, to have permission. She stared at Willa in wonder, then allowed her lips to curve into a catlike smirk.
“Disrobe completely, then. I don’t want to see a stitch of clothing on you,” she said.
Willa complied with alacrity, shoving off his trousers and chemisette.
There was not much else, his state of undress being what it was, so it all happened in an eyeblink.
Verbena let her gaze travel over him: the soft lines of his body, the smattering of freckles and beauty spots, the tender expanse of his thighs, at the apex of which his sex waited, wreathed in dark curls.
She did not allow her eyes to linger there, though it was a near thing, forcing herself to look instead at Willa’s softly parted lips.
“Am I formed to your liking?” he asked. Clearly the question caused him no great anxiety.
He knew how pleasing he was to Verbena—he must, the way he tipped his head coyly to the side to bare his pale throat, the way his hips tilted ever so slightly toward her gaze.
His hands, far from covering himself in shame, instead trailed up his own ribs, a teasing touch that Verbena wanted for herself.
She took him in another bruising kiss, feeling his hands clasp her tight around the waist. Pulling back, she nipped at his plush lower lip. “On the bed,” she said, not answering his bratty question.
Back when she’d thought her future meant the usual sort of marriage to the usual sort of gentleman, Verbena had had no interest in bedroom exercises.
The thought of a man did nothing to excite her, and even her earlier imaginings about Flora, when she’d thought Flora a singular person, were tentative and unsure.
Yet having her hands on a beautiful creature who was neither—who brought with him no expectations as to Verbena’s desires—sparked something inside her that had never before ignited.
She fairly tossed Willa to the bed with a clever spin, though Willa obviously went willingly.
Verbena crawled atop him, shedding the layers of her dressing gown, her nightgown; every blasted gown she’d ever worn, it was all torn away.
Her bare skin—places of her body that had never felt touch, nor given it—lit up with the sensation of meeting Willa’s.
Her strong thighs astride his hips, arms tangled, their breasts pressed together.
They breathed hard, hearts hammering, the air between them humid.
Verbena stared down at where their bodies met in a way that felt celestial. Surely this could be no earthly act, to join like this? As far as Verbena could fathom, they hadn’t even done anything yet, so how could this touch feel so blissful?
She lifted her gaze to Willa’s face, intending to ask if he felt similarly, but her words were crushed in her throat.
A look was all she needed to know her beloved’s feelings on the matter; his eyes were huge and damp, his mouth open as if to produce the first notes of a hymn.
He felt, she was sure, the same pleasure.
And the same pain. Her heart broke to think it.
For after tonight, he would be hers no longer, and their days would stretch out in opposite, lonely directions.
Verbena would never have this again with him; she would never even see him.
Not in actuality, not as he was now—open to her, and so completely Willa.
This was all there was. Her hand tangled in his hair, every iota of her desiring only to keep hold of him.
The realization must have struck Willa at the same moment, or else he read the truth of it in Verbena’s face, for his eyes shone with thick tears.
“Pretend it is not the end,” he said. “I cannot bear the weight of it.”
She kissed him, pressing him into the featherbed, pinning him down with her hands on his slim shoulders. Damn all poetry, she thought. Damn all words. What good were they now? There was no word for Willa in all of English.
When she finally released him, his lips were ruby red, high spots of color on his cheeks that rivaled the color of Verbena’s hair.
He looked devastated, and devastatingly beautiful.
If they made love like this, with her riding atop, she did not think she could countenance seeing his every emotion flit across his face.
Verbena wrestled him onto his side instead, placing herself in the curved symbol of his body, her back to his sweat-dappled chest. She reached behind herself to clamp a hand to his hip. He was ready for her; she could feel it. She urged him forward, wanting no air between them.
“W-wait,” Willa said. “Not— Please not like—” He squirmed in a feeble attempt to get his hips away. “Not inside.”
Verbena, despite it all, still had her wits about her.
She caught Willa’s meaning, his panic at the possible consequences should she demand that particular act.
There was no reason to bring a potential child into this quagmire; it was painful enough already.
But he would do it if she asked. She knew it like she knew the directions on a compass.
It was a heady thing, having that sort of power over another soul, and Verbena was loath to abuse it.
“Like this, then.” She reached her free hand between her own legs, fingertips brushing the sage-leaf skin of his sex. He gasped sharply against her ear as she brought it forth.
“Your thighs,” he whispered. It sounded prayerful.
Verbena tried not to think too much about that, lest she be distracted forever. She needed something to ease his way.
She grabbed his hand instead and guided it to her own sex. “Touch me. Get yourself wet with it.”
“Here?” His careful fingers brushed at the dampness already forming within her.
She bit down on a stifled groan. “Sweetly, now.”
And he was. He was perfectly, achingly sweet.
His fingertips gathered her slick and painted it along the satiny insides of her legs, where he was clasped tight.
He fucked her thighs and kept one patient hand cupped over her sex, so that each thrust gave her something to savor.
She arched her back and reached for him, one hand a brand on his snapping hip, the other tangled in the hair atop his head.
He drew closer, molding himself to her back. His thrusts changed to a lewd rubbing like the grind of a grist mill. Verbena was incandescent, hot all over and sweating in the close air of the room. He was working so hard, all for her pleasure.
The thought sent her spiraling to her end.
He spent only after her shaking subsided. The essence pulsed in the hot vise of her legs, searing heat against her skin.
“Oh,” she said, panting. “Oh, you beautiful thing.”
“The mess—” Willa said, breathless in her ear, already apologetic though he still pulsed against her.
“Will keep,” Verbena said firmly. It was sticky as honey, but she did not hate it.
She took his limp hands in hers and held them tight to her own chest. Some na?ve part of her wanted to think she might feel him always, though she knew it was not to be.
This, along with every other pleasure, would be washed away come morning. Before her wedding.
She felt Willa’s forehead press hot and slick against her nape. His breathing was still uneven, though she could not tell if it was from their exertions or encroaching sorrow.
If only there could be a cottage with a thatched roof. If only a fat tabby existed on a mantel somewhere. If only they could enjoy slow and easy breakfasts seated across a table from each other…
No. They had only tonight. Perhaps, she reasoned, if they didn’t stop, the night would never end.
She rolled over, turning Willa on his back as she went. He stared up at her from his spot on the mattress, his mouth parted, his whole body lax and willing.
“Let me satisfy you again,” he begged.
She ducked her head and took one of his dusky nipples between her teeth. He hissed at her tug.
“Several more times, at least,” she promised, kissing it.