His heart sunk a bit at this confession, but he supposed it was better than ano.
“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.”
“Forthirteenyears?”
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?”
