She canted her hips, and his cockhead suddenly lodged against her entrance. Her wet, pulsing flesh sucked at his sensitive tip. Sweat beaded upon his brow. His muscles bulged with the effort to hold back. To keep from taking what he wanted more than anything.
“I want to be yours. Irrevocably and forever,” she whispered. “Please, sir.”
Holy hell.It was over.
He claimed her with a firm thrust. He pushed past her jolt of resistance, wanting to make her pain as fleeting as possible. An instant later, a welcoming flood of honey bathed his cock. It eased his way into her untried pussy, her snug heat squeezing the breath from his lungs. And the truth from his heart.
“You are mine,” he said raggedly. “I love you, Livy. Always and forever.”
She trembled, the sheen in her eyes undoing his control. He bent his head and kissed her as he began to move his hips. Their joining felt as elemental and inevitable as the changing seasons. He’d finally claimed his Livy, who as a girl had tended to his spirit and as a woman owned him heart, body, and soul. He couldn’t get enough of her, and she lifted her hips to take him deeper. Each plunge felt like absolution, each withdrawal a burning reason to go back.
His restraint decimated, he began to pound into her. Her breathy cries urged him on. Leaning down, he captured her plump nipples between his lips, sucking fiercely as he rammed his way home. Flutters started in her pussy, the contractions milking his cock. She was coming around him, the pleasure almost too much to resist. With his last ounce of willpower, he pulled out and fisted his prick. Two jerks and his climax hit him with the force of an oncoming carriage. Biting back a shout, he shot his seed in luxurious bursts, marking her belly with his pleasure.
Panting, he hung over her. Her love-stunned eyes reflected everything he was feeling. A universe of emotion that no words could convey.
She reached up, sweeping his hair from his damp brow.
“Nowthatwas worth waiting for,” she said tremulously.
“There is no going back. I’ve claimed you now.” He took her jaw in his hand, daring her, or anyone, to deny it. To try to take away the most precious gift he’d ever been given. “You’re all mine.”
A spark of mischief danced in her eyes. The corners of her lips tipped up.
“I will let you in on a secret.” She bent her finger, and he leaned closer to catch her whisper. “I’ve always been yours…and now you’re mine too.”
32
1847, Summer
Livy is 18; Ben is 30
Ben found Livy in the orangery. She sat at the table where they’d spent many pleasurable hours playing games together and appeared absorbed by the wooden tiles she was pushing around. Anagrams were one of her favorite amusements, and he should know. She’d trounced him often enough.
“I thought I might find you here,” he said.
She spun in her chair to face him. “Hadleigh! Goodness, you startled me.”
The truth was, he was a bit startled too…by the changes that had taken place in his little queen. Spending more than a year in seclusion, hitting rock bottom before finally wrestling free of opium’s grip, he had returned to society a changed man. A better man, he hoped.
During that time, Livy had undergone a metamorphosis as well.
She’d shed the cocoon of childhood, hovering somewhere between adolescence and womanhood. Her figure still had a girlish topography, yet her features had blossomed into vivid prettiness. Those exceptional eyes of hers, which regarded the world with that uniquely innocent-yet-wise manner, now seemed more mature. Seeing the changes in her and sensing more to come, he felt an acute pang of loss.
The seasons were changing, and soon she would enter another stage of her life. One where she would meet some lucky young fellow and fall in love. She would become a wife and a mama, her life filled with all the good things a girl like her deserved. For his part, Ben would dance with her at her wedding, see her on special occasions, and perhaps someday dangle her children upon his knee.
But she would never be his little friend again. The one who’d kept him company through the years, who’d written him the letters that had kept him afloat during his darkest times. She would belong to someone else and, slowly but surely, he would take her away from Ben. She would depart from Ben’s life…like everyone he had cared about.
He felt old, stricken by unaccountable grief.
He cleared his throat before speaking. “You disappeared at your own ball.”
“I am surprised you noticed,” she said. “You were busy dancing all night.”
He drew his brows together at the odd edge to her tone. If it had been any other female, he would have thought she sounded jealous. But this was Livy, which meant he must have misheard.
“Alas, since your dance card was full, I had to make do with substitutes,” he said.
After a moment, she wrinkled her nose. “Does that flummery work with ladies?”
