Chapter Twenty-Two
Olivia was flushed and nearly naked before him—and so there was nothing to do, in his mind, but reach for her. He shut the door behind him and then pulled her towards him. Montaigne hadn’t expected resistance, but he had not necessarily expected that she would melt into him as she did now, opening herself to him in complete and total surrender.
He kissed her, deeply. Through the thin fabric of her chemise, he could feel every curve of her body, every tempting, choice corner of secret flesh.
“I find you exactly as I wanted to,” he murmured, “Almost completely unclothed and willing to greet me with a kiss.”
“I—was thinking of you.”
He looked down into her eyes and saw a confession there. Arousal flared in him at the possibility of her suggestion.
“You were touching yourself?”
She merely cast her gaze downwards in response, her cheeks pink.
“Right here?”
“Yes,” she nodded. “In front of the mirror.”
He groaned. And then he knew he had to see it for himself. He turned her to face the mirror. Her back was towards him but he could see her fully in the glass before him.
“I was imagining that you were the one touching me,” she said, her eyes closed. “That you were bringing me to ecstasy.”
“Show me. But, first, take this off.” He gestured towards the chemise.
She nodded and removed it, now naked except for her stockings, baring her body to his view.
God, he loved her body. Her full calves and thighs formed such breathtaking curves—her silhouette in the mirror threatened to unman him. The lushness of her arse pressed against him and teased his cockstand mercilessly. He took satisfaction, too, in the roundness of her belly, how its pretty swell tantalized him. And then there were her breasts, which he knew from experience overran his grasp—they were large and perfect, an overwhelming, delicious feast. The apricot brown of nipples, the areoles large and inviting, made his mouth water. He adored that every part of her was ripe and overflowing. Nothing about her was strict and taut—and he reveled in it. He could not imagine anything more beautiful, more bountiful, than her.
He watched, his heart pounding, as she brought her hand to the cluster of curls at the apex of her thighs. Delicately, she spread herself open and, in the candlelight, he could see the delicate pink flesh of her core.
She began to rub herself, lazily, as if she were not in any particular hurry. Her little intakes of breath sent him into a frenzy. He felt himself harden even further and pulse against her backside.
“You are so beautiful, Olivia,” he said, unable to help himself from speaking when such a sight was before him. “You are the most beautiful thing I have ever seen.”
“Touch me. Please.”
He didn’t need to be asked twice. While he loved watching her pleasure herself, he yearned to take over, to be the one delivering her satisfaction, and to feel her wetness against his fingers. When he slid his fingers between her curls, he nearly hissed with satisfaction. He played with her, touching her clit and then dipping his fingers in and out of her, alternating with that same unhurried pace.
Soon, she was writhing against him in the mirror. He loved watching her become undone by his efforts. Between the candlelight and the flush that stole over her, her skin looked like burnished gold, glowing and precious.
“Do you want to come, my love?” he said to her softly, delving deep into her, watching in the mirror as his fingers disappeared into her beautiful pussy.
“Yes, please.”
He would give it to her. He would give her anything that she wanted. All he wanted in the world was for her to allow him to keep doing so.
Montaigne continued to plunder her. Her ass teased him, cushioning his swollen cock and making him bite back his own moan of satisfaction. But he kept his concentration on her.
She let out a ragged cry and then he felt her clenching and unclenching over his fingers, her orgasm coming in tight, rhythmic waves. He loved the feeling of her core on his fingers and yet he longed for it to be his cock that was there instead. It was clear what her core wanted, what it surged and worked to find. And he wanted to give that to her. His cock. His seed. To fill her up completely and make her his own.
But he shouldn’t allow himself such pleasures. Not when she hadn’t agreed to marry him. Not when taking such pleasures could imperil her or drive her from him further.
She quieted in his arms and he led her to the bed. She folded onto it and he followed, sweeping her into him. He held her like that for a long time, feeling utterly sated, or at sated as a man could feel with a raging cockstand that would not die down, no matter how much peace he had in his soul.
After a while, he was not sure how long, she reached down between them and put her fingers to his throbbing cock. Her soft touch felt so good that he had to stop himself from crying out.
“I want to please you. I want you inside of me. Tonight.”
“You have not agreed to marry me,” he said, his voice catching as her palm made contact with his cock. “I won’t let you take the risk.”
“I have not yet decided about the proposal.”
His heart sunk a bit at this confession, but he supposed it was better than a no.
“But I want you—you have to know that. Not just in the bedroom. I do not know if marriage is the best for us. But, please, let me love you tonight. In the way that I want.”
God, he wanted her. His cock seemed to have no scruples about such a proposition. It pulsed underneath her hand, begging him to listen to her.
“It would be selfish of me. I can give you pleasure without fucking. It is not necessary.”
“For me, it is. It would not be selfish of you. It would be a gift to me. I want to give you pleasure, too. And I am jealous, I must admit. I think of all the women you have been with—not servants, I know, but still—since we were last together. I want to be with you like that. To make you mine again.”
He knew he was trembling, but he couldn’t help it. Somehow, he couldn’t cross this threshold without being honest with her. For one, he was sure that, if he attempted it, he would spend in a second. His body would betray him—give him away.
“Olivia,” he said, gasping as her other hand trailed down his stomach, her nails sending a cascade of feeling into the base of his spine, “I must tell you—I—”
He found he could not say the words. He was not sure why, but he struggled to speak. Perhaps, it was just the splendor of her spread out before him, the soft bounty of her body rendering him speechless.
“What is it? What’s wrong?”
Her alarm pressed on him the urgency of speaking well. He knew he couldn’t go back now.
“I haven’t—well—I haven’t been with anyone else. With any other women. Since you.”
Her brow furrowed and then she smiled, emitting a little laugh. “I appreciate the confession. However, I must say that I did not think you guilty of cavorting with other women in the past few weeks.”
Montaigne closed his eyes. He was revealing to her his biggest secret—to say he was ashamed of it was not quite right, because it hadn’t been a choice, not really. He wasn’t ashamed of the fact itself, but rather the subterfuge, the lies of omission, that had gone into maintaining it.
“No,” he said, opening his eyes again, “Not in the last few weeks. Since you left London. The last time.”
Her eyes widened, their honey-brown depths practically whirring.
“That is not possible.”
“I already told you about the servants. How I never touched them. Well, I never—I didn’t bed any other women, either. I couldn’t.”
“For thirteen years?”
The astonishment in her voice cut him, but only a little. He knew how absurd it sounded spoken aloud.
It had been a long time. Without her. He could hardly believe it himself. It seemed, even now, impossible. And yet it was the truth.
“I couldn’t,” he said, hearing the raggedness in his own voice. “I tried, I did. Multiple times. After you first left. I did try back then. I kissed a few women—women who were willing and ready and wanted me. Not the servants but others. On a few occasions, I even got close. But I couldn’t, Olivia. It felt like a betrayal of you—and of myself. Of what I really wanted. And physically, I couldn’t. My body—it wouldn’t let me.”
She had pulled herself upright beside him.
“You haven’t bedded a woman since I left London? Not one?”
Her shock was plain. He closed his eyes again, briefly, unable to take the intensity of her gaze for a moment.
“It is true.” He opened his eyes again. “No one knows. I am not ashamed of the fact of it. But I am embarrassed by the subterfuge.”
“Your friends? Do they know?”
He shook his head, letting out a little laugh. “They think I’m the most debauched among them. They have for years. And once they were under that misapprehension, it was just easier to feed it.”
“I cannot imagine that maintaining such a lie has been easy.”
“It has been easier than you would think. It saved me from having to explain myself. To my friends, most of all.”
“What do you mean?”
“They would have found such a reaction to heartbreak unbelievable. They would have not let me rest. It wouldn’t have been in their power. And it would have been unbearable to me. Maybe now, with John and Trem—they love their wives very much. They might understand now. But, back then, it would not have been possible. Even John. He loved Catherine for a long while, but he still bedded other women.”
She nodded.
“You must think less of me. For the fact itself—and my unwillingness to own it.”
“Of course not,” she said, her voice soft, “I am a bit stunned. It seems that I will never stop being mistaken about you.”
“Do you still—I would understand if—”
Her gaze stopped his words.
“Of course, I still want you. Just as much as I did before.”
“It’s been so long,” he said, figuring that there was no use holding back now, after he had told her everything, “I am afraid that—I am afraid that I will spend very quickly. I will disappoint you. I am sure of it.”
“Impossible,” she said, shaking her head, but the word did not make him feel better. He knew how possible it was. He had to fight back his spend when he had brought her to ecstasy just now before the mirror. If she touched him, never mind if he were inside of her, he knew how it would be. It had been too long without a woman. No, he corrected himself. Too long without her.
“But,” she continued, “If you are concerned, I can think of an easy remedy.”
He raised his eyebrows in response. Her hand returned to his groin, where he was still hard for her.
“If you let me please you before we tup, then you won’t have to worry about spending once we do. We have all night in this room. I want to have you, but there is no reason that that need be the act we commit together first. Or second, in this case.”
Her hand reached his cock and she began to stroke him. Almost immediately, a little bit of his seed wet her fingers and, expertly, she used that moisture to tease him. His breath shallowed, coming faster.
“Will you let me?”
Under the sensation of Olivia’s fingers, he was powerless. She stroked him again and he let out an incoherent moan.
That, apparently, was all the response she needed.
Turning to face her, he watched as she continued to stroke him, moving his hands to her breasts as she did so. He luxuriated in the feel of his hands on her smooth skin, the heavy, sensual weight of her breasts in his palms, all while she tantalized him.
God,he thought, if he were to die here, it would be enough.
Montaigne could feel his spend coming and as he grew aware of it, of the sweet release that she was about to instigate in him, she moved downwards, pressing against his bollocks before bring her fingers back up to his member. He let out yet another cry at the unexpected pressure. He closed his eyes at the intensity of the feeling.
But then her fingers were gone. His eyes flew open.
“Shh. Don’t worry.”
And then she was sliding downward. He couldn’t believe it, somehow, even though, given all that had transpired between them in the past few weeks, it was hardly shocking. And, yet, Olivia, with her mouth level with his cock, would never not thrill him.
“Olivia,” he rasped.
“I know.”
He felt her lips close around him and then the wet silk of her tongue. He jerked back at the pure sensation, his cock so sensitive from the frenzy she had already brought him to with her fingers. Seemingly aware of his state, she sucked him gently, hardly moving her mouth, her ministrations soft.
Gentle though her movements might be, they still rendered him incoherent. He lost all control of himself. He heard himself moan. He was so reduced—he could not contain himself.
When he thought that he could not bear the softness any longer and his body began to yearn for more, she quickened her pace, giving him exactly what he craved. Once more, he felt his spend begin to build, its intensity presaged by an exquisite tension in the base of his spine and the top of his skull.
“Fuck,” he swore, needing an outlet, “Olivia. Fuck.”
She hummed approval at his words and the vibrations of her mouth sent him into a renewed frenzy. His hand clutched at the bed sheet, the futile gesture of a man absolutely ruined by pleasure.
“Olivia,” he managed to gasp, finding relief only in her name, in the sureness of her nearness. It seemed, in this moment, his only assurance that the pleasure would not kill him, that he would not expire from wanting her.
She hummed her approval again and slide him deeper into her mouth, into the back of her throat, and that did it. He felt himself release, propelled over the threshold, and then, with a little flick of her tongue, he was coming in earnest. He felt the hot seed pour from him, torrential in its release, a deluge of pent-up desire and fruitless yearning thirteen years in the making.
He cried out her name, threading his hand through her hair.
As he did so, he felt tears, too, prick at his eyelids, the intensity of the release so insane that he couldn’t batten back the swelling emotion. He clenched his eyes shut as she continued to suckle him.
He rode his ongoing release, more cum rushing from his bollocks into her mouth, unstoppable.
It was perhaps unsurprising then, that in this moment, when she had so completely dominated him, that he was left with only one thought.
He needed to marry her.
To lose her again would kill him.