Chapter 18
Ambrose had awoken this morning not to his beautiful wife, tousled and warm on the pillow next to his, but rather to a to-do list written in precise, narrow inky letters, each with a helpful checkbox next to the thing he was expected to perform.
He had sat in bed for some time holding the list in his lap, smiling at it like an idiot and remembering that conversation he’d had with Thaddeus Beck a thousand years ago that morning at the Flaming Fox, the one where he’d insisted all he wanted in life was to be told what to do with himself.
As of the early evening, he had achieved most of the things laid out for him, and returned home to find all the townhouse doors standing open again and the smell of paint and glue wafting out onto the street on the tails of several curling strips of deceased wallpaper in a pile near the porch stairs.
As though summoned by the strength of memory, Thaddeus Beck himself was hovering near the approach, looking uncertain about the chaos as he twisted a hat in his massive hands.
“Beck?” Ambrose called, trotting up to the other man.
“Aster,” he answered, looking relieved. “Is my sister in there?”
“Probably not,” Ambrose answered with a little chuckle. “She tends to flee until the smells dissipate. Do you need her urgently?”
“Not urgently; I just wanted to stop by and say hello. I have not seen her since the wedding.” He frowned, peering into the open door of the house again. “Is she gutting your entire house?”
“Probably,” said Ambrose.
Beck nodded, perhaps wondering why his own apartments hadn’t received the same treatment, and glanced down at the sheet of paper in Ambrose’s hand. “What’s that?”
“Oh,” said Ambrose, chuckling and handing it to the other man, “a list of assignments for the ball we are throwing. She is terrifyingly organized, your sister. Did you know that?”
Beck made a face rather than answering. “She expects me to waltz,” he said, his eyes running over the tasks. “I do not know how to waltz.”
“I would wager your wife does,” Ambrose said, accepting his task list back. “If not, I can always lend you Zeller for a lesson or two.”
Beck gave a dry chuckle. “No, thank you. How is the puppy?”
“Oh, an absolute disaster,” said Ambrose happily. “I’m besotted.”
There was a pause, wherein the house appeared to cough up a cloud of plaster dust and spill it out onto the street with both men observing politely.
Beck took a breath and looked at Ambrose for a moment, his head cocked to the side. “We haven’t seen you at the Fox in quite some time,” he said.
“Oh,” he replied, realizing that was true. “I suppose I’m terribly missed.”
Beck smirked. “Terribly. You seem … different, Aster. More alert.”
“Well, now,” said Ambrose with a grin, “I was always alert enough to win, wasn’t I?”
In the end, he assured Beck that he would pass along all fraternal concerns and well-wishes to Vix and that they would all have dinner together some night soon.
Beck did look less than enthused about that last suggestion, but it only made Ambrose feel all the more determined to ensure the thing happened.
Perhaps his wife’s antagonistic glee was rubbing off on him.
He took dinner at a nearby public house before wandering home, pleased that when he arrived, the wallpaper corpses had been carried off and the doors were firmly shut again.
The glue and paint smells had not fully dispelled, but they were fainter in the evening and the windows were all open, so it was more bearable.
The house, he admitted to himself, was looking a lot more alert as well.
Brighter colors on the walls, wax on the wood floors, rugs spooling out in new patterns and hues. He spotted two new maids he’d never seen before as he took the stairs toward the bedroom, already loosening his cravat in anticipation of flopping into bed for the night.
The place was nigh unrecognizable already. And she’d told him in no uncertain terms that she’d be coming for the parlor eventually. He’d made a fuss about it, of course, purely because he was expected to, but he was looking forward to that as well.
He sprung into the bedroom only to stop short half a step over the threshold.
Vix was seated on the ottoman at the foot of the bed, her hair damp and half combed, her body covered in a translucent pink dressing gown.
There was a steaming copper tub just in front of her and one of her feet was resting on top of it, her toes tapping on the rim.
“Ambrose,” she said lazily, glancing up at him as she pulled the comb free and parted out another section of her hair. “Come and bathe.”
He exhaled, drawing himself up and swinging the door shut behind him with a snap. “Vix,” he said, as calmly as he could muster. “What is this?”
She blinked, batting those glossy black lashes at him. “It is a bath,” she repeated slowly. “Surely you’ve seen one before.”
He gave her an impatient little smile, jerking off his cravat and tossing it onto the chair by the door. “I have, matter of fact,” he said. “That is not a bath. It is a trap.”
“A trap?” she repeated, soft as a sigh, wiggling the comb through another section of her hair which she tossed behind her back. She adjusted, dropping her foot and leaning back against the bedpost, her body embraced tightly by the sheer fabric of her robe. “Ambrose don’t be so dramatic.”
He trailed off, his eyes falling to every detail of her that was visible through the fabric. The steam rising from the tub was more of a modesty screen than whatever gauzy torment she’d had that garment made from, and she very clearly knew it.
“Go on,” she pressed, “or the water will get cold.”
He shot her a look, moving to unbutton his coat and shrug out of it, turning and following suit with his waistcoat. She watched every step of the progress, completing her hair-combing in sections as he untucked his shirt and pulled it over his head.
It should have been gratifying when he heard her suck a breath in, that sharp little inhale that proved she was not as cool and unbothered as she wanted to seem as her dark eyes grazed down over his chest and along the lines of his abdomen. It wasn’t. It was only making him more suspicious.
He stood there, shirtless, kicking his shoes off, and watched his wife through narrowed eyes. “You’ve decided you wish to see the rest of me?”
“I have,” she said, raising a brow.
“And you think you shall without asking for it,” he guessed, taking a step toward her and that damned tub.
She gave him the slightest little slanting smile. “That was not what you told me I had to ask for. In fact, I believe you invited me to join all of the play that proceeds consummation at my pleasure, with no rules or restrictions to speak of.”
“Is that so?” he said, raising his own brows in answer. “Hungry for a repeat of our wedding night, then? You want me to come over there and push my hands between your legs until you’re panting again?”
She faltered. Just a tiny flicker of her expression, the slightest flash of her eyes. Then she lifted her chin. “Perhaps.”
“Maybe I’ll do it differently this time,” he continued, his voice gone darker, his skin hot and tingling. “Maybe I’ll use my tongue.”
He could see her breathing quicken, the rising and falling of her chest speeding up. He could see the flush creeping over those pretty cheeks, even if she did not move. “I would not stop you,” she said, her voice delicate as glass.
“I know you wouldn’t,” he told her, stepping around the tub and leaning down over the ottoman, pinning his arms on either side of her, his nose brushing hers. “You think you can bait me into taking what you haven’t asked for.”
“I didn’t say that,” she replied, just a whisper this time, the glass fracturing in little cracks and shivers.
He pressed his forehead into hers, his lips brushing against her own without quite taking. “You think you will drive me so completely mad with want that I’ll forget all about our little arrangement,” he told her raggedly.
Her hands came up, her fingertips traveling down the path of his stomach, curious and teasing at his waistband until his head swam.
“Would you?” she asked, soft and whisper-thin against his lips. “Would you forget?”
He closed his eyes, reminding himself to breathe as she pressed lower, her fingers exploring the length of him over the fabric of his trousers. “No,” he said through his teeth. “But if you continue pushing me, I will give you the same treatment, Vix.”
She was stroking him now, her breath coming short and fast, her eyes tilted up to meet his as she filled her hand with him. “Same treatment?” she repeated, gasping when he groaned from what she was doing. “Do you like that, Ambrose?”
He leaned further forward, pushing his hips into her hand. “Do you know what this is like?” he rasped, his fingers digging into the ottoman cushion, his restraint straining. “Wanting you so badly and never finding release? Do you have any idea?”
“Yes,” she said. “You could take me now. You could relieve us both.”
He bit his breath off, prying a hand off the cushion and digging it into her damp hair, tilting her head back to look into his eyes. “Ask for it,” he demanded. “Tell me you want it.”
“Want what?” she whispered, squeezing him until a sound escaped his throat. “You? Is that what you want me to say? That I desire you, Ambrose?”
He stared at her, words lost in his throat, blood raging through him, demanding action while he forced himself to focus on her face, to hold himself still.
“That I want this part of you?” she continued, lowering her eyes to the ministrations of her hand. “You know that I do.”
“I need to hear you say it,” he said, a plea at this point, a desperate plea.
She flashed her teeth, almost a grimace, a warring thing within her. “And if I do?” she said, angry now, color flushing in her throat. “If I do?”
He groaned, staring down at the lush curves of her body in that filmy robe. “Say it,” he whispered, “and I will be inside you before you can finish the words.”
She sucked in a shuddering breath of air, crawling backward onto the foot of the bed, the robe pooling and sagging around her. “Your trousers,” she managed shakily. “Take them off.”
He clenched his jaw, his hands going down to the laces, jerking away the constraints with both ache and relief.
He tugged the fabric down, pushing away any last barrier to her visual innocence, to any claim that she did not fully understand what she did to him and what he was going to offer in return.
She stared, her eyes falling immediately to his erection, a hand circling her throat as it flexed around a labored swallow.
She studied him, drinking in the full effect of him, his whole body at times, and just that particular part at others as her hand loosened and traveled down over the front of her dressing gown, passing over the swell of her breasts in the process.
He would not move. He could not, until she spoke.
“Ambrose,” she said at last, weak and thin, “please. Please, I need you. Please.”
It was enough. It was more than enough. He could barely account for crawling onto the bed, for pulling her under him and ripping away that pink fabric, pushing his hands inside as he dropped his mouth onto hers with a ravenous hunger.
He stroked her breasts, her stomach, he used his knee to push her thighs apart and slide his fingers over her entrance, nearly collapsing at how ready she was for him, how utterly perfectly prepared.
He still watched her as he pressed against her, as he eased himself into her for the first time. He held her eyes despite the crumbling relief of every solitary cell in his body.
“Mine,” she said softly, brushing her fingers over his hair. “You are mine.”
He heard himself curse, his hips stuttering as the weight of what she’d said propelled him forward. He cradled her hip, kissing her again, consuming the claim she’d made as he rocked himself into her, as he finally released the hold he’d put on himself in graduating, desperate thrusts.
Sensation took him, falling into the softness of her body, the sweetness of her movements as she rose to meet him, as she gripped him and murmured against his ear.
“This is what I wanted,” she told him over and over. “This is what I needed you to do.”
She slid her thighs along his hips, learning his rhythm, matching it, arching into it and letting herself whimper and moan at the sensation. “Yes,” she whispered. “Yes, I desire you. Do you feel how badly I desire you?”
It tore a moan from his own throat, his mouth seeking hers, his pace going frantic. And still she met him, still she moved with him, still she climbed and sighed and sought her own pleasure within his.
“Yes,” she said at the final moment before she broke. “Yes. Please take me. I am yours. I belong to you, Ambrose.”
It destroyed him. It fragmented whatever was left of the gallantry and civilization in his bones. The world went opaque but for the way she squirmed and cried out as she came undone underneath him, on him, her body pulsing around him in a warm, unbearable burst of pleasure.
He heard the climax tear from his throat, felt the rush of it cracking through the core of him, shattering all he was. He pushed it into her; he gave it to her like an offering at her altar, filling her and emptying himself in the process.
For a moment, there was nothing at all. No bed, no body, no room. Nothing but relief suspended in his body above her.
And then he collapsed, off to the side, with a shuddering gasp of air and a full-body tremble.
She rolled over onto him immediately, cradling his face, showering it with kisses, her mouth brushing his cheeks, his forehead, his nose, and his mouth, all while he gasped and panted for air.
And then she collapsed too, curled into his side, holding him so tightly, he thought she might never let him go again.