Chapter 19 #2
“I want to feel everything, as if I am a completely new person when we’re together. You are exquisite, like tasting chocolate for the first time.”
“You exaggerate—”
“Do you know what that means for a man like me? Do you have any idea how long I’ve waited for this?” he growled out.
“Oh, William.”
“I do not wish to rush any of this.”
“I know, my darling,” she said.
With that, she realized how safe she felt in his arms.
As she said his name, she watched him hear it. He did not look up from the buttons, but his hands gentled, if such a thing were possible.
The gown slipped from one shoulder. He bent and kissed it, making her breath catch. Her hand came up and cradled the back of his head, her fingers tangling in his hair. It was thicker than she had expected, slightly damp at the nape.
She made that small sound again, the low one. The one she had not known herself capable of. She felt him register it. She felt, with something like wonder, the small shift in him that followed, as though the sound had rearranged him.
Suddenly, she wanted to be nearer to him. She wanted the waistcoat gone. Her hands found the buttons on it. She was surprised to find them steady enough. Her hands had shaken at far smaller milestones in her life than this, and they did not shake now.
She had purpose as she undid the buttons in order, without hurry, and pushed the waistcoat from his shoulders. He let it fall to the rug behind him without looking.
His cravat was her next target. The knot was more intricate than she had bargained for, and she frowned at it. A small, concentrated frown. She saw him nearly laugh, then saw him decide against it, then saw the reason for the decision, which was that he did not have breath to spare.
The knowledge that she was the cause went through her like a swallow of something warm.
His cravat finally joined the waistcoat on the floor.
“You have done this before,” he noted, mirth lacing his voice.
“Undressed a man?”
“Looked as though you were undoing a particularly stubborn parcel.”
She laughed. She could not help it.
She pressed her lips to his collarbone, where his shirt had fallen open, and laughed. She felt the laugh go into him and become something else.
“Oh, William,” she breathed. “Hush.”
“Yes, Duchess.”
They made their slow way to the bed. He did not lift her. She was glad of it. She did not wish to be lifted, made weightless, or delivered. She came to the bed on her own, sat on the edge of it, and held out her hand to him.
William came. He always would, she thought. She was beginning to understand that he arrived quietly when called upon.
Everything between them came in pieces. The weight of her hair once he had freed it from its pins.
She had forgotten how much of it there was, and he did not seem to have expected so much either.
It spread in dark waves across the pillow.
He paused, looking at it as though he had uncovered something precious.
The back of his hand against her jaw. The care with which he set his lips to the hollow beneath her ear and stayed there, breathing for a moment, before he moved.
Her voice saying his name once, quietly, against his shoulder.
Not as a word, exactly, but as a small confirmation.
The way one might speak to oneself under one’s breath.
There was a tenderness to it she had not anticipated. She had anticipated heat. The heat was there. Oh God, it was there. It was more than she had permitted herself to imagine in the long, solitary hours when she had permitted herself, against her better judgment, to imagine such things.
But beneath the heat, running through it like a darker thread through a brighter one, was something quieter. It undid her in a way the heat alone would not have.
At one point, she realized that her eyes were wet, that he had noticed, and that he had said nothing, only rested his forehead against hers for a long moment and breathed with her until the wetness was not a thing that required to be remarked upon.
“I am going to touch you now,” he murmured, his hands trailing toward her center as he stroked her inner thighs. “I cannot wait any longer. Is this acceptable?”
“Acceptable,” she laughed, despite the hot need that pulsed inside her. She lifted her hips to meet him. “Please, I need you.”
At that, he growled and pushed one finger inside her. He slid it in and out, using her wetness to massage the swollen bud that drove her wild. After she adjusted, he thrust two fingers into her until she felt as though she might melt into the bed.
“More, my sweet?” he growled.
“Yes!” she cried, unsure how she could take more.
He continued working her with his fingers while massaging her bud with his palm. He raised his free hand and palmed her breasts hungrily, teasing her nipples and licking them. Eventually, he withdrew his fingers and grabbed her behind, squeezing it tight.
“I think my good girl is ready,” he purred against her mouth.
“Please,” she whimpered as she parted her legs and pulled him close, feeling his hard length between her thighs. “Will I be all right?” she asked nervously, remembering once more what this all entailed.
“I will always make sure you are all right, Anne,” he vowed. “Let me take care of you.”
He pushed into her, and despite his size, she quickly adjusted to him. It hurt at first, but as he slowly and lovingly slid in and out of her, she found herself wanting more. He picked up the pace, sensing her ease, and she noticed the sweat on his brow, the tightness in his jaw.
“Are you all right?” She wrapped her arms around his shoulders, pulling him in for a kiss.
“I am trying not to finish so soon, but God, you are exquisite. It is as if you were made just for me,” he barked as he began thrusting harder. “You. Are. Everything.”
“Oh, William!” she cried out, wrapping her legs tightly around him, which was his undoing.
Afterward, they collapsed onto the mattress, both panting.
Anne rested her head on his chest. William threw his arm around her, not careful any longer.
The carefulness had been a thing for the threshold, for the buttons, for the crossing of the room.
It was not required now. His heartbeat was slow beneath her ear. She listened to it.
I shall know this sound for the rest of my life. I shall know it in the dark. I shall know it from two rooms away.
The lamp on the mantelpiece burned low and then lower.
“William,” she said, eventually.
“Yes, Anne.”
She had meant to say something longer, something smart. A whole sentence had been assembling itself on her tongue before he had cupped her face in his hands at the door. But when she opened her mouth, she found that the sentence had reduced itself to the only part of it that mattered.
“I am not going anywhere.”
She felt him close his eyes. She did not need to look up to know it. She felt the small victory of a man closing his eyes against something he had not expected to be given.
“I know,” he murmured. “I have a property we can stay at in Scotland. We can visit your aunt, even.”
She smiled against his chest, where he could not see it, and let the smile be her own for a moment before she gave it, by small degrees, over to slumber.