“I didn’t want to enter society,” Liberty said.
“Because you knew I was there?”
“You were one reason, but after the accident, everything that had been so easy no longer was.”
“I’m sorry you suffered.” He stroked her cheek again.
“It was not your fault,” she said, her eyes holding his. “We were young when we were friends. I sometimes wondered if in my head I’d made up how close we were. In the moments when I struggled with what you’d told me that day—”
“I have outgrown you, Liberty,” Toby said, remembering his words clearly. “I have no further wish to be your friend. From this day forth, we are merely acquaintances. Please do not call here again.”
She closed her eyes, and he caught the tear that rolled down her cheek. “Your words were so hard and cold. So final.”
“Forgive me, dear friend.” He kissed her again, needing to erase the memory of the pain he’d inflicted upon her.
“Yes.” She breathed against his lips. A single word that humbled Toby, and then it was her kissing him.
“I want you, Liberty, but have no right to take you.” Toby pulled back. “No right to touch and kiss you more than I already have here in this carriage. However, I fear I cannot stop.”
“I won’t break, Tobias.”
“But you are innocent.” He traced her full bottom lip.
“I’m also an old maid, and therefore able to make my own decisions.”
“Liberty, you could never be an old maid, and you need to move to the other seat right now before I forget I am a gentleman.”
She leaned into him, sliding her hand around his neck. “Kiss me,” she whispered against his lips, and those two words lit a fire inside Toby. He forgot his good intentions and did as she asked.
Soon the only sound was of their mouths devouring each other again. His hands roamed her body, as hers stroked his neck and tangled in his hair.
“I want to touch all of you,” he whispered raggedly.
“I want that too.”
He tugged down her bodice, baring her full breasts, and then cupped the soft flesh. Liberty moaned low in her throat.
She was a fire in his veins Toby wasn’t sure he’d ever extinguish. The control he prided himself on having fled, and in its place was this burning inside him to take more of what she offered. Lifting her, he lowered Liberty, so she was straddling his thighs.
“Tobias—”
“Toby. I want to be Toby to you again.”
“Toby,” she breathed.
“I will stop at any time if that is your wish, Liberty. But this burning need to be with you, touch you. It consumes me.”
He studied her. Eyes heavy lidded, lips swollen from his kisses. She looked ravished. His hands had pulled strands of her hair free, and with her breasts bare, Liberty looked like every one of his fantasies. His friend, his life, and his love. He kept those words to himself for now, but knew them for the truth.
In that moment, he knew what his future held. It would be with this woman and Florence, and for the first time in many years, Toby felt hope.
Chapter Twenty-Eight
Every inch ofher body felt sensitive. Need pulsed through Liberty. Need for the man beside her. Toby was here, and he wanted her as she wanted him.Her Toby.
Liberty had never thought to feel passion. Never believed, if she wed, it would be for anything but duty and to create a child. But that changed the minute Toby put his hands on her.
“Touch me again,” she whispered as his eyes, heavy with desire, ran over her body. In that moment, she would give him anything. All rational thought had fled, and there was just them and now, and the tension spiraling higher inside her.
