Her fingertips grazed her flesh, circled her breast, and finally cupped the underside and offered herself up to his mouth. She bit into her own lip when he took it, suppressing all but a mewling cry at the back of her throat.
He imagined the taste of a sugared rose, the petal softness, the sweetness of dew. He felt the break in her breathing, the change in the tension of her slender frame. Her head was pressed back into the pillow, her chin lifted and her neck arched. Her throat worked convulsively.
He thrust against her, the sheer folds of her nightgown taking the place of a virginal barrier. She was as deliciously frustrated by it as she was aroused. He gave her the hot suck of his mouth again, and this time he tore the shudder from her body and a cry from her throat.
He made neither of them wait now as he lifted just enough to yank at the hem of her nightgown. She scrabbled at it with as much purpose as he until it was bunched at her hips. Her thighs parted, knees lifted, and she cried out a second time as he pushed himself into her.
Olivia’s hands slipped under his drawers and palmed his buttocks. He was seated in so deeply that she knew nothing but the heavy fullness of him pressing against her. He was still now, as she was also, and they held themselves in just that manner until their breathing calmed.
“Go on,” she said, nodding faintly. “You should not be made to wait, either.” And to make certain he did not, she contracted around him, squeezing as she’d done earlier with her fist. This was far more complete, infinitely more intimate.
Not proof against her heat or her urging, Griffin began to move. In moments his need outstripped his calm, and he rocked them both to the edge of crisis and then beyond it.
Olivia was aware of Nat’s grave regard across the small table that separated them at breakfast. Griffin was still soundly asleep on the floor below, but Olivia did not think his absence had anything to do with Nat’s curious study of her. The child was absently fingering one of the tin soldiers that he’d placed around the butter dish, and as the soldier had his bayonet aggressively thrust forward, she wondered if it was the same fellow who’d stabbed her foot the night before.
“What is it, Nat?” she asked. “Have I grown horns, a third eye? I am no stranger to your table, so what is it that has caught your attention this morning?”
He stopped fiddling with the soldier but didn’t reach for his spoon. His porridge had already grown cold. He shrugged.
“Nat,” she cajoled gently. “You may say anything. Do I have crumbs on my chin? A cocoa mustache?”
A smile came and went as he shook his head. “You look that same,” he said, “but different.”
“Do I?” As an explanation it was not in any way precise, yet Olivia thought she knew precisely what he meant. For her, though, it went more deeply than appearance. She’d awakened this morning the same, yet different. Her reflection in the mirror above the washstand had revealed nothing to her, but the boy across from her was perhaps more accurate than a looking glass. “I might be different,” she said. “It’s a different day, after all.”
He tipped his head to one side, nodded, and began swinging his legs under the table as he picked up his spoon. “Your face is soft.”
“Oh.” Olivia took a bite of toast. “How is it usually?”
Nat used his spoon like a shovel and dug a hole in his porridge. “Just different. Awake.”
There was an apt description. She’d gotten very little in the way of rest in what was left of the night. Every time Griffin reached for her she went to him eagerly, and when he swore he would never be able to move again, she was pleased to show him how wildly wrong he was. She supposed she did look soft and sleepy, though having a yet-to-be six-year-old child remark upon it was disconcerting.
“Did you come to my room last night?” Nat asked.
Olivia was grateful for the change of subject. “I did. I was attacked by one of your infantry. Quite possibly that soldier with the bayonet. What battle were you planning?”
“Marathon.”
“I don’t recall that the ancient Greeks had bayonets.”
“Spears. They had spears.”
“Of course.” If Nat could imagine his floor defined the plains of Marathon, then he certainly could imagine spears. “Lord Breckenridge came to see you also. Did you know that?”
He nodded. “He scattered a great many of my men about, but he left something for me.”
“He did?”
Nat stopped swinging his legs and stood his spoon upright in his porridge. “Would you like to see?”
“I would, yes.” How like Griffin to never mention it. She watched Nat scoot down from his chair and quickly cross the room to his bedside. He reached under his pillow and drew out a small velvet bag that fit neatly into the palm of his hand. He carried it back to the table and placed it beside Olivia’s plate. “Perhaps you should open it,” she said. “I shouldn’t like to be speared a second time.”
He thought that was amusing. “It’s not a soldier.”
“It isn’t?”
Nat shook his head. He spread the drawstring and opened the bag, then tipped it so the contents spilled into his open hand. “I hope you will not tell him that I should have liked a soldier better. I would not have him think me ungrateful.”
