Chapter 12
Chapter Twelve
“Ihave never meant anything more.”
And that… that snapped something in him.
Oscar growled, lifting her into his arms to maneuver her over to his desk. He did not care what littered the furniture; he only cared to have her lying on the surface.
With his free hand, he swept the contents of his desk to the floor.
His desire raged through him, and he growled as he pushed Isabella over the polished wood.
She gave a small squeak, and he attempted to slow down the momentum of their movements, but she was already reaching back for him, grasping for his hands.
He pinned her by her hips, palming down her back, over her dress, to have her bend forward.
“I have watched you too often,” he murmured, looking down at her now. His length strained against his breeches, but he paid it no mind. He wanted her pleasure, her taste. “But to have you like this… I do not know how I have withstood my need for you.”
“I do not know either,” she breathed. Her head fell forward, her forearms braced on the desk.
Oscar dropped to his knees behind her, and Isabella’s responding exhale made him smirk into the back of her thigh when he tugged up her dress. He bunched it at her waist, baring her backside. She possessed generous curves in her hips, while her waist and thighs remained rather slender.
Her whole body sang to him, beckoned him closer, and Oscar braced himself before he finally gave in.
His face pressed against the back of her thigh as he planted a deliberate kiss there. He trailed them upward, alternating between each thigh, until he reached the apex. Her innermost parts were there for the taking, but he still paused.
“May I taste you?” he asked under his breath, needing to hear the yes.
“Heavens, please,” Isabella moaned, already pressing back, surprising him.
She clearly had some knowledge of his intentions, and that only made the fire in him roar hotter. Finally, Oscar pressed his mouth to the folds between her legs. Her taste was instant, already aroused and slicked from their kissing and his teasing.
The fact that he aroused her made the primal urge in him rise.
His mouth fastened around her folds, suckling at the outer parts of her first. Isabella jolted, a hard exhale leaving her lips at the first contact. He gripped her hips harder, pushing her further onto the desk.
“Oscar.” That first, breathy moan of his name had him wanting to sink into her, but he let his tongue do so instead of his length.
He wanted her to experience pleasure before him. Oscar closed his eyes, spreading his wife the way he had only let himself think about on the brink of sleep.
His thumbs parted her folds to allow him further access, and he slipped his tongue into her, breaching those heady, pleasurable parts.
Isabella reached for her skirts, holding them aloft to give him more access, and the way she brought her hands before her left Oscar buried in the bared openness of her.
“Heavens, you taste sweeter than I could have ever imagined,” he muttered against her skin.
He turned his head to nip at her inner thigh, feeling the jerk she gave. He smiled at that before diving back between her legs.
It satisfied him to know that no other man had ever done this, no other man had even perhaps kissed his wife. She was Oscar’s—utterly, devotedly, and he chased that satisfaction deeper into her. He sucked on her taste as if she were the finest delicacy, the most delicious nectar.
He was ruined for the taste of anything else in his life; he knew that for certain.
His tongue flicked inside her, and he felt Isabella tense, her hips already rocking back. But she stilled, as if unsure whether she could. Whether more pleasure was something she could seek out against him, so Oscar guided her hips back into the rocking.
“Take what you want from me,” he assured her softly. “I am yours to take from.”
“Oscar,” she moaned, already sounding so undone.
He wanted the crash of her release. He strained in his breeches even harder as Isabella spilled more arousal into his mouth. She was a wellspring that only kept giving him what he wanted.
He kissed her folds, licked around them, licked into her, and he delighted in the shudders of her body against him. His hands roamed, splaying over her lower spine, sliding over her hips, her thighs, touching everywhere he had access to.
He kept her spread, feeling how her legs trembled as her pleasure mounted.
Buried in her so absolutely, Oscar tasted and tasted, indulging himself thoroughly in his wife. This was everything he had wanted for the longest time, and it was the most rewarding thing to have her coating his tongue.
Isabella was beautiful. Refined, proper, yet there she was, spread for him like a scandalous, daring lady. All for him. Oscar let that need overtake him as he licked her harder, keeping his rhythm up as he thrust his tongue in and out of her.
Her moans spilled freely into his study, rivaling those of the thunder outside. Her thighs kept on quivering, and he smoothed his palms up them as if to say I am here, you can fall apart.
“Heavens, Oscar—Oscar, I am—I feel…” Her voice broke off, and he hastened his efforts for her.
“Let yourself relax,” he told her. “That is your release. Let it happen, if you so wish.”
Isabella whined, her wanton noises heady for him.
“Let go for me,” he told her, and dived right back into her folds.
He ate her as if she were his last, damned meal on this earth, and he hungered for her.
He was starving, and she was feeding him for the first time.
He could become addicted to this, he thought.
The feel of her in his mouth, how soft she was down here, how unburdened and without any masks or pretense or worry or insecurity.
Her hips rocked into him harder and harder, braced against the desk, and she moved so frantically that the wood creaked beneath her. Oscar slipped a hand between her thighs, seeking the nub of pleasure that would truly have her orgasm cresting.
Isabella cried out, her voice cracking. “Please! Please, please—”
He sucked harder, licked her deeper, until her body finally tensed up, and he was rewarded with a wave of release. Her taste washed into his mouth, and he swallowed all of her, licking her through the aftershock of her orgasm.
When he was done, Oscar pulled away from her slowly, gently fixing her skirts. Isabella was already sliding down the desk, a breathless laugh leaving her lips. He turned her in his arms, guiding her over to the sofa behind him.
In an unusual, tender moment, he lay back, pulling Isabella with him. He would never dare to send her away, not now, not ever. Not anymore.
His arms went around her. Tensing, he waited for her to pull away, to mumble an excuse and hurry away as they had each done to one another.
Instead, she only relaxed into his hold, a happy, satisfied hum rising from her.
“Thank you,” she whispered.
Oscar let out a disbelieving chuckle. “You never need to thank me for something like that.”
Silence descended over them, comfortable and content.
After another moment, Isabella sleepily murmured, “The thunderstorm has stopped, I think. Perhaps I scared it off with my noises.”
“Your noises are enough to bless any force of nature personified, Isabella,” he assured her. “They are intoxicating, and I already wish to hear more of them.”
“Perhaps you will.”
He could hear how she aimed for a teasing remark, but her voice was already thick with sleep. He glanced down at where her head rested heavily on his chest, her lashes already fluttering as she closed her eyes.
Soon her breathing evened out, and Oscar simply held her. He had never let himself lie next to another. To do so with his wife—with Isabella—felt monumental enough that it swelled in his chest.
When her soft, sleeping noises filled his study, he knew he could never dream of rousing her to suggest that she retire to her chambers.
Instead, he lay there, feeling her weight against him, and he stared out the window where the clouds remained dark, but she had been right. There was no more thunder to be heard.
His own eyelids drooped heavily from the work he had thrown himself into the past few days to distract himself from her, but he fought the urge to fall asleep.
Heaven forbid he did tumble into slumber, only to frighten her again with his nightmares. It was never guaranteed that he would be free of them, so he did not dare risk it.
Sleep weighed heavily, exhaustion draining him, but he fought it vigilantly.
When his wife slept so soundly in his arms, he would endure any fatigue to ensure she was not roused.
He thought of his makeshift chamber in the northern turret, wondering if he ought to retreat there tonight, just in case.
But the notion of being too parted from Isabella, even straying from something as thin as a connecting door, felt quite unbearable. He had crossed a bridge tonight between them, and he did not want to go back.
Isabella was right a while ago when she had confronted him about living in the shadows.
Yet Isabella’s light was leaking out of her, infecting his life, and Oscar found himself wondering if perhaps stepping further into the light was such a bad thing. It was most certainly terrifying, but what if he could do it?
What if he could shed his darkness for her?
Glancing down at his slumbering wife once more, something in Oscar softened. He had hardened himself years and years ago, plagued by too many horrors, thinking himself too scarred and unlovable.
Until Isabella.
His thoughts tumbled as time passed. The clock ticked on, making him aware of how late it was. Soon enough, Isabella stirred in her sleep, his name a sleepy mumble on her lips.
“I am here,” he assured her.
“Have you slept, too?”
“Not yet.”
“You ought to.”
“And you ought to get proper sleep,” he countered, trying to get the attention off his lack of letting himself fall asleep. She shifted her head to look up at him, her fingers curling into his shirt. She clung to him as if he were some sort of anchor for her.
It was unbearable, and Oscar’s hand lowered to her hair, stroking the loose strands off her forehead. It was the most tender he had let himself be in a long, long time.
“Let me take you to your chamber,” he murmured. “I will get you comfortable, yes?”
“That sounds good,” she hummed. “Although your chest is most comfortable.”
Oscar let out a quiet laugh as they both reluctantly shifted. He wrapped an arm around her waist, telling himself it was only if she stumbled in her fatigue, but the truth was that he could not bear to let her go, not yet.
They left his study, walking on through the hallway and up the stairs, to Isabella’s chamber.
After a moment, Oscar entered with her. It occurred to him that he had never been in there with her.
He could see she had redecorated this room, too.
The curtains he had kept up for years had been taken down, replaced with gauzy fabric that let in light.
How she slept with so much sunlight on her face in the early dawn hours, he did not know.
Her bedsheets were pale and light, and he smiled at the flower arrangements she had put up around various surfaces. The whole chamber smelled beautiful, just like her.
“Do you like it?” Isabella mumbled.
“I do,” he admitted. “It is very… you.”
“You scarcely know me.”
And perhaps it was because she was tired, pleasure-addled, that he let himself answer softly, “I would like to.”
She smiled. “You can stop walking away from me, Oscar. I truly meant it when I said I am not scared of you.”
He didn’t quite know what to say to that, so instead, he got her to her bed, encouraging her to lie down. Isabella went willingly, a honey-like smile still on her lips as she gazed up at him with so much adoration he could not stand it for a moment.
But he leaned down, first pressing a kiss to her forehead, and then her cheek. After a moment’s hesitation, he pressed a chaste one to her mouth, finding it reciprocated eagerly. With a laugh, he pulled away.
“Rest,” he ordered gently.
“Have breakfast with me tomorrow,” Isabella requested, her voice almost too thick and mumbling to understand.
Still, Oscar tensed in worry. Pleasure was one thing, an exchange of bodies’ vulnerabilities, but speaking and growing emotionally closer was quite another.
“I… I must meet the tenants,” he told her. “I am sorry.”
“Do not be. I now know you have thought about having dinner together.”
Oscar let out a breath of a laugh, backing away from her bed. “Then we shall arrange it.”
He was not certain it was a lie, either. He wanted to. Heavens, he did. Still, he nodded again and then opened the door to his own chamber from within hers.
Morris was already in bed.
Oscar paused. After a second, he grabbed a pillow and left his chamber, whistling for Morris to follow him this time.
Striding down the hallway, fatigued and softer than he had felt in a long time, Oscar went into the northern turret, not sweating nor fearing for his life, but knowing he did it for Isabella’s sake.
He would not disturb her tonight.
But soon, he would tell her about the nightmares.
Soon.