Chapter Fourteen #2
Lisbeth could feel his restraint in every muscle she touched. She’d known he would be magnificent when she beheld him naked but nothing could have prepared her for the truth of him at the ready.
Earlier she had panicked before she’d had a chance to rationalize her thoughts.
Panicked at the sheer size of him. Thoughts of Nathaniel had come flooding back unbidden.
There had been no tenderness in her husband.
No care for tender flesh and virginal sensibilities.
He had used her like a common doxy and then left her to sob in fear and confusion while he snored his head off in the next room.
Oliver was kissing her eyelids. Her eyelids!
What had she expected him to do? Do as Nathaniel had?
Throw her on the bed, rip the clothes from her body, and roughly slap and bruise her until she cried?
No, he was definitely not Nathaniel, and she was glad of it.
Looking at him now as he smiled at her, his eyes at half-mast as he leaned down to take her lips again, there was little resemblance between Oliver and her husband.
Nathaniel had worn his height like a sword, forever ready to strike those smaller than himself.
She had seen power in Oliver too, but his was of the protective kind.
Nathaniel’s eyes had been dark, cold, uncaring, whereas Oliver’s were light, warm, and full of humor.
She worried about the things she didn’t see in his eyes, the things he was holding back from her.
He’d said he would not hurt her, and she believed him.
He might drive her crazy, but he would not hurt her willingly.
He made her feel things that scared her. This desire was new to her, this wanton fire that spread through her body with every touch of his lips, every caress of his masterful hands, every hungry look he gave her. She wanted him.
Love me! She could feel the words forming in her throat.
Love me! It pulsed from her with every beat of her heart.
Love me, please, her soul implored.
Yet she said nothing, too much the coward to say the words her whole being wanted to scream.
He knelt and removed her shoes, throwing them negligently over his shoulder before massaging her foot.
Smoothing his hands up her leg to the end of her stocking, he undid her garters and skimmed his fingers over the smooth skin of her upper thighs.
He rolled down her stockings while kissing his way down first one leg and then the other.
All the time she watched him. He seemed to be very dedicated to his task, intimately stopping to kiss the inside of her knee or the arch of her foot.
She had never felt anything like it, and she never wanted it to end.
At the same time, she was excited by the prospect of what else he would do to her.
She had no idea what he was thinking. She hoped he wasn’t thinking at all. She so desperately wanted to feel tenderness. She wanted to feel the joy of copulation, not the fear of fornication that she had felt for so long.
“Stand up, my beauty,” he said.
She did as he asked. He smiled as he looked up at her, kneeling in front of her, still wearing his pants.
“Just a little tug and…” Her chemise fell to the floor to pool at her feet.
Oliver’s mouth went dry. He sat back on his heels and absorbed the naked beauty of her.
She was Venus, Athena, and Aphrodite in one.
It was cliché, he knew, but his brain wasn’t functioning with any great clarity right now.
He was running on pure desire. Seeing her like this, naked and reclining seductively against the bedpost, he felt even less worthy of her.
He hoped this would not be his only chance to be with her, to show her how it could be, how it was supposed to be.
She gave him a slow, lazy smile. Encouragement or dare?
Was she daring him to stay? If only she knew how needless that look was.
He was hers, had been since he first laid bloodshot eyes on her all those weeks ago, even if it was only now that he was realizing it.
Even if it was for this night only that he surrendered to her—body and soul.
He was still on his knees, so he kissed the inside of one of her thighs, making his way back up her body while she clutched the bedpost and made the most beautiful of sounds.
When he put his mouth to the juncture of her thighs, the place where heaven resides, she simply uttered, “Oh!” Then, “Oooh my God!”
It was music to his ears and he wanted to hear the whole symphony.
He was sure the perfect melody was inside her just waiting for him to play the right notes.
He held her to him and began to play. It wasn’t long before the crescendo began and she writhed above him like an out-of-control violin.
Her hands were the conductor instructing him where to place his tongue and how much pressure she desired.
Her final note hovered in the air like a ghost and then disappeared as she collapsed back against the mattress, breathing heavily and clutching at her chest, her eyes wide with wonder as he looked up at her.
“I see you enjoyed that?” He couldn’t help but feel a measure of arrogance.
“Pardon?”
It seemed she was not quite back from her ascent just yet. “Never mind.” He began to kiss her hip, intending to kiss his way up to her mouth and everywhere in-between.
It was on his travels up her beautiful, mesmerizing, and completely enchanting body that he noticed them.
They were so faint he wasn’t sure he was really seeing them at first. They were small silvery lines across her lower abdomen.
He knew what they were, how one got them.
He looked up. His question must surely have been clear.
She was staring down at him with a grief that quickly filled her eyes. He saw her blink the tears away.
“He died,” she said softly.
“How?” he asked without thinking.
“I didn’t kill him, if that’s what you are thinking!” She put her arms around her belly trying to hide the scars as if cradling the memory of her child. Her face turned away from him.
“Of course not! You must have been devastated.”
“Does it really matter?”
Well, no, he supposed. It did make him wonder how she had survived everything that had happened to her and not gone to Bedlam long ago.
“No, it doesn’t matter,” he said.
“Influenza. It was influenza,” she said moving away from him, her voice hitching with emotion. “It wasn’t my fault.”
“I’m sorry.”
“Nathaniel blamed me, of course. I had produced a sickly child. If he had just let me…” She hid her face in her hands.
“Lisbeth?”
She looked at him, hard. “He took my baby away from me, Oliver!”
The look of defeat on her face filled him with such anger. He curled his fingers into fists at his sides to control the urge to punch the bedpost beside him.
“My baby was dying and he… he would not let me see him. He said I was a bad mother. He said I didn’t deserve to kiss my son goodbye.
” The total devastation of her experience was etched in her eyes, in the tone of her voice.
It was all there for him to see, the pain, the suffering, and the guilt of not being able to be there for her child.
“I begged to let me see him. I sat outside the nursery and beat my fists on the door until they were bloody,” she explained, while silent tears slipped down her cheeks and her hands made fists.
“I listened at the door as his cries grew weaker. I sat there, imagining I was holding his… his little hand in mine. I promised him I would never leave him. I would let no door prevent me from loving him with all my heart. After he passed away, I stopped caring, about anything or anyone—including myself. I shouldn’t have, but I did.
I think it made Nathaniel despise me more. ”
Oliver swallowed the rest of his questions and kissed her belly. Laying his head against her stomach, he hugged her lower body. No one should have to endure the death of a child. Between them they shared too much death and grief.
Lisbeth was stunned and moved by his actions. She bent over him and kissed his head. Ran her fingers through his hair. He was kneeling at her feet. He was kissing her stretch marks—all she had left of the little boy she had loved so much and held in her arms for so little time.
He didn’t seem appalled, as she had thought he would be by yet another terrible, shameful truth from her past. He kissed her belly button. He looked up at her from his place on the floor.
“What was his name?”
“Daniel.”
“I don’t care what Blackhurst thought of you,” he said. “It only matters how much you loved Daniel while he was here. I am sure he knew how much you loved him, despite everything. How much you still care about him even now. Just like I care… about you.”
Tears threatened again but she somehow kept them at bay.
She did not deserve a man like Oliver. He made her feel good when all she’d felt for years was sad or mad or both.
Lately she had just stuck to mad. How had this all happened?
She was naked with a man who was not demanding she fight him off.
Or pushing himself into her in the darkness uninvited.
He was waiting, even now, for her to give him permission to love her.
She didn’t know quite what to do. She felt so incredibly humbled.
How had she ever thought him stupid and witless?
Physically, she wanted him like she had never wanted a man before. Emotionally, she needed him like one needed safe harbor against a storm. With him she had felt her confidence return. She could battle any storms if he was beside her.
Lisbeth took his hand and urged him up onto his feet.
She kissed him, wanting him with every beat of her heart.
A heart she had thought would never beat with love again.
Love? No, it couldn’t be. It was just her emotions getting confused—easily done in such a circumstance.
Oh, but he was wonderful, and her heart swelled with affection when she looked at him.
Oliver smiled up at her. “We all have scars, Lisbeth. I’m sure you have seen that I have a few scars of my own.” She had noticed, but on him they did not seem as shameful as hers. It was to be expected, she supposed, for a man who had fought in many a battle to have some war wounds.
“See this one here?” he pointed to a rather nasty looking scar on his right side. “Saber.” He then showed her a round puckered scar on his shoulder. “Lead shot. Had a fever for three days.”
“I want to know all about your time in the military,” Lisbeth blurted out, reaching out to caress dent of his shoulder wound.
He looked up, surprised. “Now?”
She laughed. “Not this very minute…”
He kissed the inside of one of her elbows, distracting her completely.
“Good, because I need to make love to you, Lisbeth. Right now, in fact. There are certain parts of the male anatomy that are very impatient.”
“Really?” She smiled.
He pulled her into his embrace. “Really.” He kissed her long and hard. Less hesitant now, less controlled. He picked her up and laid her on the bed, climbing on after her. She opened her arms to him, and he gave her his cheeky half-smile before settling himself between her thighs.
Oliver framed her face and looked deep into her eyes. “Have you any idea how beautiful you are?” She blushed and shook her head. These were not the type of words she heard in relation to herself. She would not have believed them from anyone else but Oliver.
He rested his forehead against hers and she felt him nudging at her opening. She tensed for a moment but then he kissed her and drew her legs up around his waist. “Trust me.”
Lisbeth closed her eyes.
“No, don’t shut me out. I need to see that you want this too. Do you want me, Lisbeth?”
She wriggled underneath him, unable to say the words aloud, trying to show him how much she wanted him to press deep within her.
When she finally opened her eyes and looked into his, she saw the concern there.
Knew it was all for her. Tonight she had promised herself so much, and now she could see it was time to make true on those promises.
Tonight he was hers and she was his. She would entrust him with her body and her heart. Just for tonight.
“Yes. I want you. Please, Oliver, make love to me.” She clutched at him wanting him closer.
He plunged deep, filling her, and an overwhelming sense of relief washed over her.
There was no pain, just the fullness of him inside, as he moved within her, slowly, languidly, building their pleasure.
Lisbeth knew then, with a clarity she had never known before, she did love him.
She had tried to deny the truth, but the evidence of her feelings drummed through every part of her.
It filled up the empty spaces within her, creating something wholly new and wonderful.
Sensation slid over every nerve and fiber.
Her skin tingled from her scalp to her toes, centering on that place between her legs that was currently occupied by a man who, at times, made her question her sanity.
Sanity be damned! Her body was floating in a bliss that could not be denied.
Heat curled within her, her body moving without conscious thought.
Climbing and coaxing, yearning and needing what only he could give her.
Sounds escaped her that she had never heard before.
Oliver responded to her moans with grunts and growls of his own.
Like before, when he had kissed her between her legs, the pleasure inside her made her writhe and buck beneath him.
The pressure, the feeling, the loss of all reality grew until she nearly screamed in frustration.
Then it hit her. The most amazing, wonderful vibrations took over her body.
She gave in to pleasure, every nerve in her body twitching with it.
The fulfillment of every promise he had made to her.
He shouted her name as he pulled out of her just in time.
The shock of his withdrawal made her gasp. Lisbeth knew how hard the retreat must have been for him; she had felt bereft but also grateful. Oliver distracted her with his lips, and she soon forgot everything but him.
They kissed each other tenderly. And though no words were spoken they both knew that nothing would ever be the same again.