Page 42

M inutes passed, perhaps even half an hour, while Silas listened to the sounds of the room, the steady thrum of Ophelia’s heartbeat under his ear, the whoosh of her breathing, and watched his hand rising and falling on the round curve of her belly, his tanned fingers skating over the tiny silvery lines that spread toward her hips.

He was trying so hard to lay still, to enjoy the velvet of her skin against his, the soft, dusky cloud of hair between her legs, the way she absently rubbed one of her feet against his shin while she sifted her fingers through his hair, but the eiderdown was bunched up under him, pressing his cock against the long muscles of her thigh and he could feel himself getting hard again.

He shouldn’t be surprised, he thought, though he had barely recovered from the sight of Ophelia’s hand around him, the surprised moan she made when he came, her nipples tight as she arched against him.

Thinking about it brought his cock fully to life and he felt Ophelia’s surprised huff against his hair.

He was about to tell her they needn’t rush into anything right away, when she wriggled, pressing one leg to rub gently against him. Oh , his brain registered dimly.

She turned toward him, eyes crinkled with a smile, and sliding her free arm around his back, pulled herself up snug against him. Pressing a kiss to his forehead, she said, “Perhaps it’s too soon to want you again, only it felt so good.”

“Not too soon,” he murmured, running a finger from her belly down into the crease of her hip. “I might not come again right away, but perhaps you can?”

“I can sometimes,” she said, colouring slightly and stretching her hand over his, “when I do it myself.”

Sweet Jesus . The thought of Ophelia, coming, her own fingers stroking herself, was something he thought he might die to see.

Still contemplating the image, he let out a strangled noise when she slid down and hooked a leg over his, her warm, wet centre suddenly pressed against his lengthening cock.

Ophelia made to hitch backward in surprise, but he grabbed her, pleased to find that his hand was big enough to cover one cheek of her arse, and snugged her hard against him.

He couldn’t quite believe that he was holding her, naked, against himself, that she was as eager for his touch as he was for hers, that they had by ridiculous, dumb luck found themselves with a chance to be together.

I never want this to end. His hold on her tightened instinctively.

He wondered if she felt the axis of her world tipping as much as he did, if she could also feel herself changing, shedding her old skin like a summer-sleek garter snake.

A horrible thought struck him—perhaps she thought of this only as a dalliance, a casual one-time event.

She was after all, leaning more and more into her suffrage beliefs.

Perhaps there was no room in her life for a man like Silas?

Or she thought him conventional in an unappealing way?

He was scarred now, not whole as he had been when she knew him at the estate, weakened and broken in ways that had nothing to do with his leg.

He could see that her friendships with Hannah and Bess buoyed and enriched her, and he wondered how he might fit into the world of a woman building her own future.

The thought constricted his chest like a vise, small and sad.

Ophelia twisted in his arms, pushing against his hand on her backside, and he forced the worries down, boxing them away for later examination, focusing on the warm woman rising up on one elbow in front of him.

She looked at him solemnly, her blue eyes missing nothing. Her cheek rested on her hand, head cocked, and she searched his face for a long minute then said, “Is everything alright, Silas? Are you ... do you regre?—”

He didn’t let her even finish the word, but slanted his mouth over hers and licked between her lips, tasting the sweet tang of her mouth.

“Not for a second,” he said against her warm lips.

“Only wondering ...” He paused, trying to find the words for his feelings.

“I suppose I wondered if not wanting to be married might change how you feel about me now, after this?” It was coming out wrong, he could tell by the crease of tension that had appeared at the corners of Ophelia’s eyes.

Stupidly, he kept talking. “Perhaps this is only a dalliance for you? Only it would be good for me to know, as I feel I’ve lost my footing here, Fee.

You’ve upended my whole world and well .

.. I find I’m not sure I want it righted. ”

“Nothing with you is a dalliance,” she said firmly, and he saw the truth in her face, the tension at her eyes gone.

“I’ve no idea what things look like after this, I only know I don’t want marriage, for convenience or otherwise, to be the only thing we consider.

I’ve only just tasted a life outside of what I imagined, and I’m not ready for that to be over.

Sex”—her cheeks pinked slightly—“between us is a commitment from me. There are so many things I am fearful of—becoming with child, being discovered, shamed—but I am more afraid of not making my own choice about it.” She was pensive, a finger tracing back and forth along the ridge of his shoulder.

“Can we still be together like this, knowing that?” she asked softly.

“I’ll have you any way you see fit, Fee. We’ll make it up as we go along.”

She surged up against him then, mouth and lips everywhere, hands clumsy, skimming up his back, clutching at his arse, electric and wild and beautiful, and more tempting than he could ever have imagined.

He kissed her harder and held her against himself, fingers firm on her hips, the rub of her belly against the head of his cock an unmitigated disaster for his self-control.

The need to be inside her was overwhelming, pressing like weight behind his eyes, gathering at the base of his spine, tightening his balls against his body.

Pulling back from their kiss, he put a hand to Ophelia’s cheek so she met his eyes. He stroked a thumb across her pouting bottom lip, its round, pink flesh reminded him of her nipples, and he knew he had to get out the words before he lost his focus.

“I want to be inside you ... may I, Fee?” he asked, lust making his vowels slip together.

Her eyes widened a fraction of an inch, and he saw her cheeks hollow with a sharp intake of breath.

The pink point of her tongue darted out, tracing the bow of her top lip, and Silas thought her might never have seen anything so beautiful.

But then she nodded and her blue eyes turned dark with longing, and he knew he had been wrong.

“Are you sure?”

“I want you inside me, Silas. I want it to be you ...”

He was perfectly still for long moments. The words hardly felt real, sounded like every dream he had ever had. But he could feel her heart beating frantically against his chest, and there were her hands at his shoulders and her lips at his ear.

“I want it so much, Silas.”

And so they were sailing together, out past the bounds of any map he knew, in uncharted waters.

Here be monsters, he thought. Love, jealousy, heartbreak.

He would risk it all for this moment with Ophelia, this shared adventure.

Sod off , he told his worries, and flexing his hand in her hair, he kissed her with everything in his heart.

Silas’s mouth was a rogue waving lashing her lips, pushing past the boundaries of her teeth and tongue with a hypnotic rhythm.

Licking warm and wet into her, then sucking gently to pull her tongue into him.

She liked being inside his mouth, feeling the muscular slide of his tongue against hers, the momentary clack of their teeth when they took the kiss deep and clumsy.

She liked the darkness of his mouth against hers, the unmissable echo of his tongue in her mouth thrumming between her legs like a heartbeat.

He had asked her so tenderly if she wanted him inside her, waiting for her reaction, holding himself still against her.

She should have known that Silas would be as self-possessed in this moment as he was in all the others, when she felt like a Valkyrie driving an out-of-control chariot of desire, everything in her screaming for satisfaction.

She wanted to demand he immediately make good on his question, but then she was distracted by the slip of his cock against her wet sex and, she groaned and tried to spread her legs so she might make tighter contact with the rigid length of him.

An unmistakable ache was building in her, the heavy liquid slide of anticipation already slippery between her legs.

“P-please,” she whispered against his neck, running her tongue around the hollow at the base of his throat. He was salty and musky, entirely male, she somehow knew.