Chapter 21 #2
The carriage door closed. The coachman clicked to the horses, and they moved off into the Mayfair dark.
William did not speak at first. Anne did not either. The lamps in the carriage were turned low. Through the window, the gaslit streets slid past a square, a shuttered shop, a boy running with a torch, a church with its clock striking the half-hour.
He was sitting across from her. He had arranged himself there quite deliberately, she noted. A small distance. A discipline.
“William,” she said.
“Yes.”
“Come and sit beside me. Please.”
“If I come and sit beside you, Anne, I shall not be held accountable for my conduct between here and Grosvenor Square.” He folded his hands on his lap.
“I am aware of the constraints.”
He looked at her for a moment. Then he crossed the small space between them and settled beside her.
Anne leaned her head against his shoulder, and his arm came around her. They rode through the London night like that, in silence.
She could feel his heartbeat under her cheek. It had not slowed down since their dance, and neither had hers. The ride suddenly felt impossibly long, even though it was only a few blocks short.
The house was quiet when they entered. William dismissed the footman, who vanished as though he had never been there at all. He took her hand and led her up the stairs, and she followed with a willingness that would have scandalized her former self.
This time, his room had been prepared. A fire was lit—a proper fire, not the laid-and-unlit thing of last time—and it threw long, moving shadows across the rug before the hearth. A fur rug. She had not noticed it before. Now she did.
He closed the door behind them, the small click of the key echoing loudly in the room.
“William,” she said.
“Yes.”
“Earlier, you said—”
“I remember what I said. I am powerless against my need for you, yet you want me to take control. Are you going to be a good girl and let me have my way with you?”
He came to her from behind, which she had not expected.
He did not cradle her face this time. He set his hands on her waist and turned her slowly, deliberately, so that she stood facing the fire and not him.
His breath was warm against the nape of her neck before his mouth grazed her skin.
She felt him pause there, simply breathing her in, as though he had been holding that breath since their encounter behind the hedge.
“I very much enjoy the view of you from behind, almost as much as the front.”
His hands stroked her shoulders and worked downward. The gown this time, he knew. The buttons at the back, which had had to be fastened by a maid, came undone beneath his fingers with a patience that belied the unsteady rise and fall of his firm chest against her back.
One, then the next, and then the next.
At each one, he kissed the skin newly revealed. Her shoulder blades. The dip between. The small dimples at the base of her spine, for which he had to kneel, and at which she heard her own breath whoosh out of her.
The silk slid off her with a sigh. He caught it with the agility of a fencer and laid it on the nearby chair with an almost reverent care, as though aware it had been her armor for the evening. Her stays followed. Her shift. Then he was standing behind her again, and she was bare.
The fire felt so warm against her front, and he was very warm against her back. She did not know which warmth was making her tremble.
“Look at the fire,” he purred against her ear. “Not at me.”
“Why?”
“Because I wish to look at you, and I do not want you watching me do it.”
She obeyed without a word.
She found that obeying was its own pleasure. It was the pleasure of being permitted to stop managing, to stop arranging, to simply stand and be seen.
His hands slid around her. One settled low on her belly, splayed, holding her against him. The other rose to her breast, and she made that sound again, the low one. She felt him exhale against her shoulder as though the sound undid some final thing inside him.
“Down now, Anne,” he murmured. “With me.”
“Anything you wish,” she whimpered.
He carefully lowered her onto the fur rug.
She went on hands and knees because he guided her there, his hand on her hip. She felt the heat of the fire on her front and the weight of him settling behind her. She leaned into it and suddenly understood what he intended to do.
“Anne.” His voice was rough now. The carefulness was gone. “Tell me.”
“Yes.”
“Tell me,” he growled, lightly spanking her backside. “Properly.”
“Yes, William,” she gasped, feeling wetness pool between her legs. Yes.”
He slowly slid into her from behind, to allow her time to adjust. She pressed her forehead into the fur. It smelled of woodsmoke and him, all peat, pine, and soap.
His hand settled on the small of her back, steadying her, and then on her hip. After a moment, in which she thought she might simply dissolve into the firelight, his fingers curled around the dark fall of her hair. He wound it around his fist, not pulling but only holding.
It was as though she were a thing he did not quite dare let go of.
“Do you like that?”
She could not answer, only moaned. That was enough.
He moved. She moved with him, leaning into his every thrust as he hit the deepest parts of her. The fire popped once, loudly, but she did not startle.
Anne was beyond startling. She was beyond most things. She heard her own voice saying his name, and then saying it again. She heard his breath break above her, and she felt the hand in her hair tighten.
This is what he meant by taking control.