Authors: Jessa Hawke
"I do not mean to take liberties with you, Lady Knightbridge," he told her, but the touch of his hand on the small of her back said otherwise.
A part of her knew that he was as anxious as she, and she admired his boldness for the effort it cost him to break through his most polite self. Silently, she put the glass down on the table and slowly, she turned her body towards him until her face was parallel to his. He was tall and dark, and there was a vulnerability in his eyes that endeared him to her more than anything she had seen before. Hardly knowing she was doing so, she lifted one slim, pale hand to his face and watched as he closed his eyes against the tenderness of the touch.
It was almost unbearable, this feeling between them, and yet they held back, unwilling to ease over the final hurdle. It was she who pulled the trigger, she who began to trace, with the tip of her finger, the lines of his face. The folding of his upper eyelid, sensitive and shiny, the dip in the center of his bottom lip; he licked it after she moved her finger as if trying to seal in the memory of her touch.
“Olivia,” he said hoarsely, eyes fluttering open and closed, and she stopped thinking, willed herself to halt her hesitations, and reached up to brush her lips against his.
She almost did not notice it at first, the way her heart began to pound against her chest. She almost did not notice the way the hand that was so lightly pressing against her back had now drawn her in close, until her breasts strained against the bodice of her dress, crushed against the surprisingly broad expanse of the duke's chest. Her hands, having a will of their own, slipped into his hair and got entangled in his coarsely soft black curls and waves. He was almost inhumanly male, so far a cry from her former paramour that now she knew heat for the first time. Now something inside of her was calling out, and as if in answer, the duke growled softly against her mouth and hooked one of her legs around his hip. Her pulse was doing dangerous things, and she was forced to grab his shoulders to remain upright, although she felt he would not by any chance let her fall.
He set her down and skimmed her hips with his hands. She had never experienced her own voluptuousness, never understood what it was about her that could make men look twice until this moment. Her breath hitched in her throat and she felt almost like she was going to faint; drawing her head back and gasping at the rush of air, she caught sight of the duke's eyes, the pupils wide and alert. He looked hungry, like a beast, and she knew she wanted him to catch her. She would run, wild and free and chased, and when he finally gained on her, she would succumb without struggle. Instincts both maternal and savage melded in her until she wanted to at once bite on his lower lip and stroke his hair until the beast was soothed.
He was intoxicated by the look in her eyes. The maleness in him responded to her, hands working the buttons of her dress almost of their own accord, and she could feel something of his pressing at her insistently through the folds of her gown, something she had heard about, but never seen. “Why duke,” she breathed incredulously, and he let loose a low laugh, honey to her ears.
With the dip in her cleavage now visible, she might have expected the duke to ravage her as all the rumors had made her expect. But just then, the duke dipped his head and planted one very light kiss on the tops of each of her breasts. It tantalized her skin, just that simple touch alone, and she curled her hand in his hair to pull his face into the valley of her breasts. He groaned low and began to kiss his way back up her collarbone and throat until his lips touched the tender lobes of her ears. She gasped at the slight sting as he nipped there, nuzzled her until all the fine hairs on that part of her body rose and tingled underneath his ministrations. So this is what it was to experience sensuality under an experienced man, thought Olivia, and tilted her neck further and further back, desperate to expose more of herself to the duke, to feel him on her, in her, surely and forever.
She wanted the touch of his hands on her breasts, to feel them scooped and squeezed and anything more he wanted to do to them, so she planted her hands behind her on the table to brace herself. This had the rather provocative effect of thrusting her breasts forward, and the duke buried himself there deeper, taking more buttons down with him as he went until all Olivia wore on the top half of her body was her corset and chemise, the former thrusting her breasts up against the thin fabric of the latter so that the creamy mounds acquired the satiny sheen of the garment.
Deeply knelt the duke. Before Olivia knew what he was doing, he had hiked up the many skirts of her gown to her thighs. She was shocked and immensely excited; she followed the rise and fall of her own bosom, her excitement building with each breath. “Duke...?” she questioned, for his head did not appear back in her field of vision. And then she felt it.
Slowly and firmly, the duke was trailing a path of kisses up the insides of her ankles, calves, and thighs. Olivia could not believe the liquid heat building up inside of her, centered at the core between her legs. Here was the duke pulling down her undergarments so she was newly and gloriously revealed the gaze of a man for the first time. Scandalized, she bent down to pull her garments back up, but was arrested by the look on the duke's face. It was just a moment, but Olivia knew she would never forget how the duke gazed on the center of her womanhood with tenderness and appreciation. If Olivia had any doubts before that moment as to whether or not she would give herself to him, they were erased in an instant.
He lowered his lips onto her. Olivia gasped at the sensation of sensitive flesh on sensitive flesh. She had heard of this from several servant girls who lived with her aunt, but was always under the impression that it was the sort of thing upper class ladies never got to experience. It seemed that all that was in store for that particular section of society was the ravaging of their husbands after they ruined whatever delicate toilet ladies put together for their bridal trousseau. As the duke's tongue began to probe her most private flesh, finding a hot, wet bud at her center, Olivia Knightbridge knew for a fact that she was not one of those ladies. And it was not because she grew up with a maiden aunt or because she had been jilted; it was because she had been given the gift of this wonderful unity with a man she actually loved.
She let him take her to the end of the world and back. She lost count of how many times he licked her, sucked that tiny hot button that made all her nerve endings scream for release. She knew only that when she slipped over the edge into a sensation that rocked her entire body, it was he who steadied her trembling legs and wrapped her in his arms. In the aftermath that followed, she knew only the safe haven of his embrace, and an incredible closeness to the dark-haired Duke of Worchester she would treasure for the rest of her life.
* * *
Worchester Abbey was abuzz with preparations for the arrival of Lord David. “That sounds positively biblical,” said Olivia to a harried Mrs. Huxting, who never seemed to lose her composure amidst all of the hustle and bustle.
“And what do you know of biblical matters, my dear?” joked Mrs. Huxting while handing the cook the menu for the following week.
She meant it lightly, but Olivia had to rush from the room lest the friendly housekeeper see her face flush scarlet. She dreamt of that night between her and the duke endlessly, replaying the way the blood rushed between her legs, how low his voice had been when he called her by her given name for the first time, the way his shoulders had felt beneath her hands. The way her fingers curled perfectly around his arms, and the hard swallow in his throat as he held her and she him. It said everything and sadly nothing about them, for she knew now how he felt.
It had just lead down a road to never-ending pain.
The following day, the duke had received word that his brother, Lord David, was about to make a very hasty business investment in a London inn. Their solicitor had written to the duke, obviously concerned as to the practicality of the plan, and the duke had decided to take his little brother in hand quite firmly. Unfortunately, this had put off any talk of what had occurred between them indefinitely, not that Olivia hadn’t tried.
She had, in fact, made her merry way down to the duke's study, where she felt much like a child caught doing something awful in the schoolroom and afraid to approach the headmistress. There he was again, head bent over the solicitor's letter, and it was as if the previous night had not occurred at all. But it had, it had. Olivia's face burned when she splashed water on it in the morning from the hundreds of tiny scrapes she had received from his prickly chin. She ran her finger over her lips in memory of the softness of his and knew she had to speak else she would go mad forever.
Then the duke looked up and his eyebrows were a question. “Yes, Lady Knightbridge?”
And just like that, her heart cracked.
It was remarkable how the anxiety built in her over the next few days as the entire house began preparations for Lord David. As each day went by and the duke became busier and busier, Olivia wondered if it was actually possible for a person's head to burst open from sheer tension, which is why the next time she entered the duke's study, she locked the door behind her. Not to out them to the servants who might be watching, but to lock her own self inside and ensure she would not try to escape like a coward.
“Duke,” she breathed, running a hand over the smooth wood of the desk.
“Lady Knightbridge,” he acknowledged, scribbling away furiously.
“It was Olivia not long ago,” she said, amazed as usual at her own boldness. It appeared the duke was, as well, for he froze and dropped the quill down on the table, no doubt spattering the papers he was writing on. When he finally looked up, his eyes were agonized. He pushed his chair back and rose from the desk. Olivia watched him like one watches a caged tiger, uncertain of his next move though he was contained by the bars of social norms and regulations.
“Olivia,” he breathed, and in one swift motion, crossed the small space between them and enclosed her face in his hands. She could feel him stroking her hair until it tumbled down from the mess of pins that held it in place, and, caught in the nook of his shoulder, she could feel him lifting strands of it to his nose, burying himself in it as if the smell of her was so intoxicating he would never be able to get enough.
She pressed her hands against his chest and templed her forehead to his. “Duke, duke, what does this all mean?” she asked, holding her dear one so close and yet so far way.
His hands stilled. “I do not know.”
Olivia's blood ran cold. He did not know? And yet, what exactly had she been expecting? The man was a widower for heaven's sake, and all the work she had done for him and his children might have been enough to press against the barrier of the guilt he might feel for loving again, but it was hardly enough to punch a hole through. She stepped away from him and stared him right in his dark eyes. She knew what she had been expecting. What every woman expects who knows the man she loves feels the same way back. But it was too painful to voice aloud, too painful a vulnerability to lay out on the great table between them, open and throbbing like a wound.
“Why not?” she asked, her voice hardly above a whisper.
He ran a hand through his unruly locks and they looked wilder than ever. He looked, for all the world, like a vastly tortured soul, and it was only when she caught sight of the circles beneath his eyes that she wondered if perhaps the sleepless nights he had been having had something to do with her, not only the incoming Lord David. She leaned a small wrist against the table, for she did not feel very steady and she had a feeling his answer would knock her down entirely.
“What would happen to the children?” he asked her, his voice angry. He was angry at her and yet he was not. He was clearly quite upset with himself. “What would happen to the children if I told them how I feel? They would feel as if I were replacing their mother, and I could never do that to her memory.”
She looked up at him from beneath the fall of her lashes. “And how do you feel?” She sounded much braver than she felt, she knew.
He turned his tortured eyes on her and briskly walked over to grasp her wrists in his large hands. “You know how I feel,” he said, and kissed her hard on the mouth. She almost gasped, for there was no air in that kiss, no room for breathing or thinking.
“Tell me how you feel.”
“I love you.”
“Then why can you not say it to them? I love you more than I could have ever loved another man, for all your care and your beauty, and your strength. I love your children and I would not ever want to replace their mother. I only want to bring them joy.”
“But they have become accustomed to you as their governess. How can I uproot their lives by springing this change on them?” he asked, and the minute he let loose the phrase, they both knew it was the worst thing he could have possibly said.
“I am nothing more than the governess and I never will be, will I?” asked Olivia, and before the duke could reply, she wrested her wrists from his hands, spun on her heel and left. He called out once behind her and that was all.