Page 19 of The Lady Who Left (The Flower Sisters #4)

M arigold rolled over for what must have been the thousandth time, rearranged her pillow, and huffed. She never fell asleep easily, but knowing Archie was on the other side of the wall behind her made sleep impossible.

His mother and sisters had already been abed when they came inside and Archie showed her to where she’d be sleeping. She’d hardly taken notice of anything about the cozy chamber with sloped ceilings except for the door leading to another room just beyond.

Archie’s room.

He’d had the decency to flush when she noticed. “Louise and Polly shared a room until they argued so much my mother wanted to cast them out. I put the wall up, and there’s a lock on the door. You’ll have your privacy.”

She’d only been able to nod. Did she want to keep him out? “I trust you,” she’d said .

But now, as the hour had crept from late at night to early in the morning, she wondered if she could trust herself.

I want to try with you.

She wanted to be a different woman, one who wasn’t cowed into submission by fear of the unknown. Archie was no small part of this newfound confidence, but the desire she held for him— all of him, not just the pleasure he’d give her—was an impossible temptation. As much as he’d built her up, fortified her foundations, an affair with him would destroy her family, threaten everything she needed to survive.

If only no one would ever know.

The sound of a bed creaking and a soft moan reached her ears. Archie . She bit her lower lip, then rolled over until she was kneeling and rapped softly on the wall. “Are you awake?”

The sounds stopped. “Uh, yes. Are you?” She smiled, and his laugh was audible. “Lord, obviously you’re awake. That was a ridiculous question. Did I wake you?”

“No, I couldn’t sleep.” She hesitated, drew from her newly found confidence. “Do you want to open the door and talk?”

A long pause. “That’s not a good idea, Marigold.”

She tried to ignore the sting. “I apologize, I d-didn’t mean to bother you.”

“It’s not you,” he interrupted, his voice strained. “I was… Dammit, I’m sorry.”

“Why are you sorry?”

This pause held weight. “I’m…” He hissed an oath, so low it vibrated through the wall. “I was touching myself, Marigold. ”

“Oh,” she breathed as a heat pooled deep in her belly, pressing into her core. She’d pleasured herself to thoughts of her night with Archie on too many occasions to count, and knowing he might do the same…

“Should I leave you alone?” she asked, and he groaned. She heard the bed shifting, the steady footsteps approaching her door, and for a moment she wished he would burst through, crawl over her rapidly heating body and press her into the mattress, take her like she’d been imagining.

“Lock the door, Marigold.” His voice was rougher, lower than she’d ever heard it, and a bolt of worry replaced the lust swirling in her core.

She scrambled to the door, pushed the lock in place. “I locked it.”

When he spoke again, his words sounded pained, as though he was fighting to maintain control and losing. “I know this is wrong, beyond unethical, but I can’t stop thinking about you.”

Her lungs seized. “Me?”

“Who else?”

Her cheek pressed against the rough wood surface, and the memory of him against the small library door, kissing and caressing her, sent fiery desire clambering down her spine. Her hips rolled of their own accord, craving friction, her core clenching around emptiness. “What do you think of?”

He groaned, and what must have been his head thumped against the door. “Marigold… ”

Every instinct told her to apologize, to retreat. But she stood her ground, her curiosity clawing at her insides. She needed to know if what she felt was reciprocated. Tell me , she thought, as close as she would get to speaking. Please tell me.

“I think of you, that night.” He must have been against the door because she heard him clearly. “You were— are so beautiful. I wish—”

He broke off, and her heart skittered. “What d-do you wish?” she asked after a long hesitation.

“I wish I’d known you were going to leave.” The words sounded like he’d dragged them over broken glass. “I would have gone slower. I would have savored you.”

The heat that had been building in her core poured over, and arousal rushed between her thighs. “Savored me? How?”

“Made you come more, that’s for sure.”

More? She’d barely survived their first encounter, but she wanted more, wanted more then and now. Something elemental and single-minded took control of her tongue and bypassed her mind entirely. “That night, you said you wanted to t-taste me.”

He muttered an oath. “Only one of my regrets.”

She swallowed down her fear. “What did you mean? You did kiss me.” Her hands were dragging over her thighs, and she allowed herself to pull up the borrowed nightdress, let the cool air soothe her heated flesh. Everything was too sensitive, too raw, the slick between her legs hot on her fingertips .

“God, not like that. I wanted to spread your legs wide, Marigold, lick your sweet pussy until you came on my tongue.” He paused to pull in a ragged breath. “Is that what you wanted me to say?”

Her legs trembled, and she slid down the surface of the door until she sat on the wooden planks, her knees bent and thighs open. “Yes,” she breathed, realizing how truthful it was, how safe she was to speak to him like this. “T-tell me more.”

His hum was luxurious, intoxicating, and crept under her skin until she was drunk with it. “That dark room, I hated it. I couldn’t see you, your gorgeous breasts, that beautiful pussy of yours. I have to imagine.”

In any other moment she’d be conscious of how the flesh around her belly sagged, the fine spiderwebs of lines that criss-crossed her breasts. But not now, not when he made her sound like a sensual goddess worthy of his praise.

“I’m aching,” she breathed, shocking herself with her words, but knowing he wouldn’t judge her for it.

“ Fuck , Marigold. Is the door locked?”

“Yes.” Her fingers itched to release it, to throw the door wide and allow him in, give him access to her, light all the bloody lamps in the room and let him explore her until she was boneless, weightless, a vessel for pleasure and nothing more.

“Thank god. I don’t trust myself, not with you.”

Now she was desperate to open the door, but the last vestiges of her common sense held firm, as did the lock.

“I wish I was with you,” she said, grateful he couldn’t see the flush crawling up her face. “I wish I could touch you. ”

“Touch yourself for me.” His words were breathless, pained, as though he too were holding on to the last strands of his control, each of them fraying with alarming alacrity. “Are you wet, love?”

Her fingertips had been creeping up the inside of her thighs, and with a fast exhale, she swept them over the heated flesh between her legs. She dipped a finger around the rim of her channel, and a mewl escaped her lips. “Yes, so wet.”

“Touch your nub. Touch it for me. Does it feel good?”

She hissed, her breath heaving as she caressed the throbbing bundle of nerves buried in her folds, already swollen and aching for friction. “Oh…”

“That’s so good. God, I’m aching for you.”

“Are you touching yourself?” Lord, who was the woman who asked that question, without a single stutter, but she needed to know. She wished she was the one with her hands on his flesh, watching his face contort with pleasure.

“Christ, now I am. I’m so hard for you. I keep thinking about your perfect cunt gripping my cock. So hot, so damned tight. Put your fingers inside yourself.”

She whimpered, put her other hand between her legs and slid a finger into her wetness, gasping as her internal muscles clenched around the digit. “It’s so good, Archie.”

He grunted, the door shifting between them. “I wish I could have you right now. I’d make you feel so good, better than you’ve ever felt. If only you were mine.”

Tears pricked the back of her eyes, the want and urgency so conflicted and confusing she whimpered while her fingers moved faster, one hand pumping two digits inside her channel while the other strummed her clitoris.

“You’re close, aren’t you?” His words were grasped from the air, as wrecked and desperate as she was. “God, I’m going to come, and it’s for you, only for you, Marigold.”

She cried out, her body shuddering and seizing as her hips bucked against her hands, her head arched against the door. His curses and grunts reached her ears through the static and she knew he was coming as well, overcome by her .

A strange sense of power possessed her. The same woman who’d been diminished to a shell of herself had reduced a man like Archie to a trembling mass of lust without even touching him. And she wanted more, craved it.

“Marigold,” he gasped, his breathing still ragged. “Are you alright?”

She laughed, surprising herself. “Yes. Are you?”

His chuckle was deep, velvety and rich. “Yes.” He heaved a sigh. “Christ, that was—”

“Incredible,” she interrupted. “Amazing.”

A long silence fell between them, and anxiety climbed through the debris of her climax, reaching out its insidious tendrils and burying them in her flesh. What would happen next? They’d crossed a clear boundary and sent something precarious into motion. How could they maintain distance, protect themselves from ruin when they knew what they could have were the circumstances different ?

Her fingertips snaked through the gap between the door and floorboards, and after a beat, his fingers touched hers. Somehow, even after all that had happened, this was the most intimate moment of the night.

“Can you sleep now?” he asked.

“Yes. But I don’t want to.”

Silence again, as though he was thinking about what to say, something wholly outside his character. “Neither do I.”