Chapter 16 #2
It was not precisely true. She had other cares: her brother and sister, her art and her animals and her friends. And he, too, cared—about Bea and Mrs. Perkins, his estates and the tenants who lived there.
But in that moment, it felt true. There was no other world but this: the night sky in the small windows, the glint of moon off the sea. The fantastic impossible pleasure of Matilda here with him, her dusky voice in his ears telling him yes and yours and you need not be alone.
She was not Grace. And he was not the same selfish naive man he had been.
He knew her: her tender heart, that throat-aching courage.
He had been blind. He had been so stubbornly convinced that love—that happiness—was too great a risk.
He had tried before—had tried, and gone wrong, and hurt the people he loved.
But this was Matilda—sweeping into his life and transforming everything he’d thought he could expect.
Could he do as she said?
He thought perhaps he could, if he tried. He could take all these last years—the impenetrable shell of self-protection, all the things he had refused to let himself wish for—crumple them up like newspaper and set them alight.
And when the fire burned out, he would still be standing right here, face-to-face with Matilda Halifax.
He brushed her hair back from her face, and then he bent his head and kissed her brow, her temple, the curve of her cheek. “I want you to stay,” he murmured, “all night.”
It was the most he could say, just then. He hoped she understood.
She turned her face up to his, their lips not quite touching. “Yes.”
“Remember.” His mouth moved against hers, their breath mingling. “Say stop.”
“I remember,” she said and came up on her toes to kiss him.
Everything was different. Matilda could taste it in his kiss, feel it in the long firm sweep of Christian’s elegant fingers up her sides.
Stay, he’d said.
And he had not said, I love you. He had not said, Forever.
But there was something slow and patient and steady in the way he touched her now.
As if he had all night. As if he could savor each brush of his lips on her skin, each luminous discovery of sigh and gasp, because there would be a thousand more nights—ten thousand more nights—like this one.
He kissed the freckle-dotted place beneath her ear. He took her earlobe between his teeth and bit down, a quick light spark, kindling warmth between her thighs.
She swept her hands up the expanse of his back and tangled her fingers in his hair. “Will you undress? I want to touch you.”
He kissed along the edge of her chemise and then eased up the hem, his hands finding the bare skin of her thighs, cupping the curves of her backside. He groaned a little into her skin, his beard tickling the tops of her breasts.
“That was not an answer.” Her voice had grown a little dazed, desire-drunk, as he kissed and stroked. His hands were big and warm and solid on her hips, on the cleft of her buttocks.
“You first,” he said. “God, I have dreamed of seeing you again.”
Pleasure rushed in with his words, the tingling delight of knowing herself wanted. Of knowing that her need and hunger were matched by his.
He dropped her hem and brought his hands to the ribbon that held her chemise closed. His pale eyes were focused on his task, and his mouth—
Matilda’s heart gave a short, sharp bound.
Beneath the neatly trimmed black beard and the scar that marked his cheek, Christian was smiling.
He slipped the ribbon loose from its bow and began to tug on one end, sliding it slowly free of the pleated ruffles at the front of the thin cotton shift. “You cannot possibly imagine,” he said, “how often I’ve pictured you here.”
While he pulled the ribbon loose with one hand, his other hand slid slowly from the neckline of her chemise downward, his palm warm even through the fabric.
He traced the curve of her breast, found her nipple with his thumb and forefinger and toyed with it.
A low sound escaped him as she shuddered, her nipple tightening beneath her shift.
“I want to unwrap you,” he said as the ribbon slipped free, “like a gift.” He lowered his mouth to her breast and sucked her nipple through the fabric, letting her feel his teeth.
“I want you naked in front of me again. And tonight, Matilda, I’m going to take my time.
I’m going to taste every inch of you. I’m going to make you come with my mouth and my fingers and my cock until you’re boneless and pleading for mercy. ”
She heard herself make a soft sound in her throat. She was halfway to pleading already. Her skin felt wildly sensitive, the cotton fabric rough where it touched her, cold where his mouth had moistened it.
He drew the neckline of her chemise wide and then let it slip down her body. She was naked beneath it, and he took in the sight of her slowly.
She shivered beneath his gaze. Not from cold.
“I have pictured this a thousand times. A thousand different ways.” He caught her waist and nudged her back to the bed. Her bare backside hit the counterpane, and she sat down hard. “But God, it’s so much better to see you. So much better than I imagined.”
He brought his hands down to her knees and nudged her legs apart, coming to stand between them.
He was still dressed, and she did not know why it aroused her to feel the brush of his trousers on her sensitive inner thighs, but it did.
Desire licked its way along her skin, tightening the muscles of her lower belly, and she squirmed a little, her thighs closing on Christian’s as he stood at the edge of the bed.
His smile was dark now, a wicked, piratical smile. “So greedy,” he said, running his hands up from her knees to her lower belly, then slipping into the curls that covered her mound. She gasped, and her hips twitched in his grasp.
“I love watching you like this,” he murmured. His fingers did something unspeakable between her thighs. “You look so pretty when you want to come.”
“Christian,” she gasped, “if you want me to beg—”
He drew the heel of his hand across her sex, and she lost track of her sentence. She lost track of everything except his touch, the ache it soothed and the demand it engendered.
When he spoke, his voice had deepened. “You’ll know when I want you to beg.”
Her breath came in gasps, her hips bucking up as she tried to press herself into his palm.
But instead of easing her, he pulled back. “Lie down on the bed. Put your hands together above your head.”
She only stared at him, feeling needy and baffled. All she could fix her mind upon was the throb between her thighs, the strange demanding emptiness. And then, as she watched, he reached into his trouser pocket and produced the blue ribbon that he’d unthreaded from her chemise.
Oh. Oh.
Matilda hastened to obey his instructions.
When she had arranged herself as he’d ordered, she looked up. He was staring at her, his expression a strange mix of hunger and tenderness.
“I could not have imagined you,” he said. And before she could register his words, he was above her, taking her wrists in his fingers and looping the ribbon around them, tying her hands to one heavily carved bedpost.
The ribbon was cool and smooth, perhaps as wide as her thumb. She felt it grow taut, and she tested it, tugging gently against the bond. She could move her arms, pull her wrists apart just enough that she felt the pinch of restraint without discomfort. Her breathing quickened.
“It’s a bow,” he murmured, and drew his forefinger gently across the ribbon, then slid it underneath, ensuring the binding wasn’t too tight. “I can have it undone in an instant. You need only tell me to stop at any point.”
She tugged again on her wrists. The ribbon held her back, and sensations multiplied inside her.
The soft crisp bed linens beneath her back.
Christian’s starched white shirtsleeve against her cheek.
His knee pressed into the bed beside her, the rougher fabric of his trousers brushing the outside of her thigh.
She did not feel helpless or frightened beneath his muscular body. She felt vulnerable and yet powerful, needy and wanting and also connected to this man who held her body and her heart.
And somehow, impossibly, she felt safe.
“I remember,” she said. “I will tell you.”
“Good,” he said, and then he kissed his way down her neck. He paused at every freckle, licking and sucking. “God, I want to leave marks all over you.”
He bit her collarbone, and she heard herself make a sound, a whisper that was not quite his name. His hands caressed her ribs, then cupped her breasts, and both of them moaned together. He bent his head and took one nipple in his mouth, rolling and pinching the other between his fingers.
Oh God, she felt almost out of control, desire wild and sparkling in her veins.
The ribbon at her wrists grounded her as she tossed her head and yanked against the binding, arching up into his mouth.
Yes, yes, she thought wildly—this was what she wanted.
Something holding her fast, something tethering her to the Earth as her body tried to spin itself apart.
But she needed more. She needed—she didn’t know. She yanked against the bond, wanting to put her hand between her legs and satisfy her need—wanting even more to have Christian there, his heavy weight settling at her center, his cock filling her as she came.
He seemed to sense her desperation, because his hands went to her waist, holding her still. He swirled his tongue around her nipple, then sucked again. Teeth this time.
Matilda felt her legs fall open and then squeeze back together. She could not soothe the ache there, and it was all she could do not to scream. “Christian,” she gasped. “Please—”
He continued his torturously slow path down her body, his knuckles kneading her hips. She felt his beard brush the inside of her thighs. Her hips jerked, her body seeking his mouth, seeking relief from this agony of need.