Musk and clean linen and soap and man andAdrian.
Beat, beat, beatwent his heart. And hers seemed to beat in unison.
“I am ready now,” he said. “I…think that perhaps speaking of it with you will help. It is a burden I no longer wish to carry.”
She nodded, continuing to stroke his chest tenderly. “Tell me, my love.”
“We were forced to walk on great wooden treadwheels or to turn crank handles thousands of times in a day. It is their way of reforming a convict, you see. Their philosophy at the prison where I was sent is that a man must be made to suffer so he will not resume his life of crime when he returns to the regular world. Without suffering, he cannot change.”
Shock mingled with grief at his revelation. She tipped back her head, meeting his gaze. “Oh, Adrian, no.”
“Yes.” He flashed her a grim smile. “They also delighted in withholding sustenance and water. There was one officer in particular who excelled at cruelty. On his watch, I was weak and deprived, and I was made to walk on the treadwheel for hours. I lost my strength and fell, but my fellow prisoners continued treading. My ankle was caught between the stairs when I passed out, and I awoke to excruciating pain. The ankle…it had been badly broken. The prison physician attended me, but I was not able to walk for weeks. My punishment then was to pick oakum.”
Dear God.She had imagined something terrible had befallen him, but she had never imagined the extent to which he had been abused. She’d had no notion prisoners were treated so terribly. As if they were no better than animals, it seemed.
“I am so sorry.” Her vision blurred, and she wept.
Tears for him and what he must have suffered. The agony, the pain. And he had been alone. Words were insufficient. Weeping was not enough. Nothing she could do or say would erase the terrible damage which had been done.
He kissed her crown, his fingers still idly traveling through her hair, sifting her curls, allowing them to fall one by one upon her bare back. “Do not cry for me, my love. It is over now, what happened. It is in the past.”
This revelation, coupled with the small pieces he had shared with her before, broke her heart anew. He had been forced to maintain his silence, his dignity and his name stripped from him, and then he had been made to perform menial labor, food and drink withheld from him until he had fainted and had his ankle broken. She was sad and she was furious.
“What monsters they are. How can they do this? Does no one care?” she asked, though his tale was plain evidence of the answer.
“No one gives a damn about convicts.” He cupped her cheek, swiping at her tears with his callused thumb. “They have no voice. They are silenced, their freedoms taken from them, and they must pay the price for their crimes.”
“But you committed no crime,” she said, rage quaking through her.
At Longleigh, for what he had done, so cruelly consigning his own son to a terrible fate. At the gaolers responsible for mistreating the men whose lives had been entrusted to them.
“My crime was loving you.” He wiped away another tear. “Do not cry, my darling. I would love you just the same had I known what awaited me. Having you now, knowing you love me and that you are my wife and Longleigh can never take you away from me again…that is worth any price I have had to pay. I am happy now, and I am free. I have you and Robby. There is nothing more in this life I could want.”
Her heart ached for him. She could not be so matter-of-fact about what had happened to him. “Adrian, you could havediedthere.”
He stroked her cheek. “Many men did. I expect Longleigh hoped I would. But in the end, I am still here. And I have you. Kiss me now, and let us put this talk of the past behind us. I want nothing but the future. We have a lifetime of happiness awaiting us.”
Yes, they did. What a strong man he was. After all he had endured… She shivered. No longer could she blame him for doubting her. If she had been sent away to such a place, starved and worked nearly to death, beaten and robbed of the capacity for the simplest human need for speech…of course it would change her. And it had changed him as well. She felt that she understood him more than she ever had.
“Kiss me,” he said again. “No more tears tonight. Only love and hope, which are stronger than the darkness will ever be. My mother always told me to find the promise of hope, of good after bad. It shall always be there, she said, waiting like a rainbow after the storm. And I know now how right she was. But the promise is not in the sky. It is here in my arms.Youare my rainbow, Tilly.”
An overwhelming rush of love collided with her grief, chasing the sadness. She could not exist for another moment without his mouth. Blindly, she lowered her lips to his, kissing him hard. The salt of her tears mingled with the taste of him. Their tongues dueled. His hands settled on her waist as the kiss deepened, and he pulled her atop him. They were a tangle of limbs, his hard cock jutting into her belly.
The need to have him inside her was strong and insistent. These kisses, his body beneath hers, his poignant revelations had merged. Her desire was like an unquenchable thirst which only he could slake.
But she wanted to show him how much she loved him. How perfect and precious he was to her in every way. How proud she was to call him husband at last. They had fought for this, had suffered and been torn apart and reunited. Tonight was theirs to savor. And he was hers to devour.
She tore her mouth from his, dragging her lips down his neck, over his chest. Lower, following the narrow trail of hair that led her to his straining cock. She clasped him in her hand first, admiring his length, firm and delicious. Silken, warm skin, thick and long.
“Tilly,” he said, part protest, part plea.
“I want to taste you,” she told him, and did just that.
Her head lowered. Her tongue flicked over the slit where a pearlescent drop had already beaded on the tip of him, savoring the tang of his essence. Not enough. Never enough. Holding him in a firm grip at the base of his shaft, she took his cock into her mouth. From the head of the bed, he exhaled his pleasure. And she turned greedy, wanting more. Wanting him to lose control.
She licked and laved and sucked, taking him deep. His hips bucked, driving him down her throat. His fingers were in her hair, tightening, the sounds emerging from him goading her on. It had been too long. He felt too good. Having him in her mouth made her ache with her own need.
Just when she thought she had driven him to the edge and he was about to spend, he disengaged from her, rolling her to her back and spreading her legs wide. The weight of his body pinned her to the mattress. His cock, wet with her saliva, pressed against her desperate core. He rolled his hips, teasing them both.
