I sucked in a breath. “Jesus.”
Molly gave me an exhausted, sated smile—free of all sarcasm and impatience and calculation. A smile I remembered well from those idyllic three days we’d spent together. “I know.” She reached for my hand. “I know.”
I slid out of her, already missing the messily perfect connection, and then squatted down again without bothering to tuck myself back inside my pants. I had to see this first, this image that I’d fantasized about for so long.
“Stay as you are,” I said firmly, giving her pussy a small spank to make sure she heard me. Her thighs quivered, but she kept them spread for me.
Using my thumbs, I parted her folds; I reached for her hand and then directed her fingers to her entrance, guiding them to push inside. Slowly, deliberately, she gave me the show I wanted, the show that was getting me hard again, already. She moved her slick fingers in and out, pushing my cum farther up into herself. My dick gave a jolt as I thought about the implications of this kind of ownership, as I thought about her belly growing heavy with my child.
Is there anything better than this? Than fucking this perfect woman, than having her choose me? Than having this future where I can imagine children?
I groaned as she lifted her fingers to her mouth to suck our mingled juices off of them. “Fuck, Molly. You’re going to kill me.”
“Not if you don’t fuck me to death first.”
I buried my face in her neck, inhaling her cinnamon scent before pulling away. “Don’t tempt me, buttercup.”
Silas cleaned us both as best as he could with his handkerchief, and then we rearranged our clothes. I peeked out from behind the curtain, expecting maybe an enraged Hugh or a prurient spy or two, but there was no one. The guests still danced and dined and drank to celebrate a wedding that wouldn’t happen.
The wedding won’t happen!
That was incredible and wonderful to think. I’d decided to throw it all away when I saw Silas tonight, tall and dashing, his blue eyes sparkling with love and mischief and intelligence. But then he’d told me about what he and Julian had done, and while part of me did truly resist the notion of being rescued, the practical Molly was already adding together stakes and shares and ships and warehouses, dividing and multiplying and cataloging the infinite number of contingencies that must be planned for.
I was so incredibly grateful, and I turned to tell him that when I realized he wasn’t in the curtained alcove with me any more. Prodding at my hair with tentative fingertips to make sure it wasn’t too disheveled, I walked out of the alcove, searching for Silas.
“My Molly.”
I turned, and there he was, holding a glass of cold water. I took it eagerly, heat flaring in my sensitive core as I noticed how hungrily he watched me as I drank. How hungrily he watched my throat as I swallowed.
“Are you going to tell Hugh now?” Silas asked. “Or wait until after the party?”
“I—” I wasn’t sure. I had raced ahead to what this all meant for O’Flaherty Shipping and had embraced that delicious, fantastical idea of loving Silas freely, but I hadn’t yet thought pragmatically about breaking off my engagement. Or indeed, even entering into a new one with Silas.
A new engagement. Another sudden marriage. Are you really ready for that?
The thoughts thudded into me like anchors dropping into the sea—heavy and dragging and nearly impossible to reel back in once they’d been cast out. I loved Silas, I wanted to be with him, I knew these things…so then why was the idea of chaining myself to another man so terrifying? Why, when it was the man I wanted to be chained to, the man I’d been willing to abandon my company for just half an hour ago?
But it was terrifying. So terrifying that I had to turn away from him, masking my discomfiture by taking another drink of water.
“You don’t have to tell him tonight,” Silas said gently, circling around me so we faced each other once again. I kept my eyes past his shoulder, watching the dancers twirl in a carefree waltz. “But the sooner you tell him, the sooner we can announce our own engagement.”
Another drink. Another moment staring at the dancers.
“Molly?” Silas prompted, his voice worried. He ducked down to meet my eyes. “Is everything okay? Are you—” horror flooded his features “—I didn’t hurt you just now, did I? I didn’t make you do anything you didn’t want to do?”
I sighed. “Of course not. I have a safe word, don’t I? You trust me to say it when something is too much and I’ll trust you to stop when I say it. Agreed?”
“Agreed,” he said, his eyes still trained on mine. “But then what is it? You seem…distant…all of a sudden.”
“It’s just…” Don’t say it, Molly. Whatever you’re feeling is just the temporary natural reaction to all of these sudden changes, and saying it will only hurt him pointlessly.
But there he was with those blue eyes so sweet and that face so hopeful and loving and open, and I didn’t want to start this new phase of our lives with a lie designed to spare his feelings while suppressing my own. I wanted honesty and openness, and most of all, I wanted to know that he would still love me even when I was being complicated and difficult.
“Do we have to get engaged so soon?” I asked finally, the words coming out in a rush. “I mean, it will take time for the word to spread about Hugh and me, and the damage to our reputations if we have a rushed engagement…”
Silas frowned, his eyebrows pulling together in the most adorable way. “I care about your reputation, Molly, but in the past, our circle…We don’t care about reputations.”
“We do if it will harm the company.”
