“It’s a gentleman. I told him you wouldn’t be able to receive him since your aunt wasn’t home, but he insisted. He said you were engaged to be married.”
My head snapped up, adrenaline flooding through me. Julian.
“Should I tell him to leave or…?”
“No,” I said, standing and giving my reflection a cursory inspection. I looked pale and tired, but there was nothing to be done about it at the moment. “I’ll be right down.”
I smoothed my dress, pinched my cheeks, and went down the stairs, swallowing back my trepidation and excitement.
How desperately I wanted to see him. And how desperately I wanted him to go away.
I caught my breath as I entered the parlor. He stood by the window, the light framing his tall body, catching in his too-long hair, every edge and line of him sharp and clear, as if he were somehow more real than anything else around him. It was as if I’d seen everything through a veil since I’d left Markham Hall, seen everything in the sepia tone of photographs, and he was the first truly vivid and detailed thing I’d seen in days. He turned at my entrance, his eyes drinking me in, his mouth parting slightly. His fingers twitched by his side, and I thought of all the times they’d traced circles around my breasts, slid deeply into my cunt.
Not even thirty seconds in the same room with him and I was wet.
He knew, somehow he knew, because he crossed over to me in a few quick strides and slanted his mouth over mine, pressing his warm lips against my hungry ones, parting them and licking into my mouth with a ferocity that made my knees weak.
“God, wildcat,” he whispered. “I’ve missed you so much. I’ve missed the way you taste.”
And then his lips moved down my neck, kissing the silk swell of my breast, the corseted nip of my waist, going down to his knees and sliding his hands up my legs.
I knew what he was going to do as soon as he lifted the hem of my dress and tugged the interfering underclothes away. I should have said no. I should have said that we had to keep away from each other until we could make decisions about our future. But the tired apathy was blasted away in his intense presence, leaving only a quickening pulse and a growing hunger in its wake. So what I said instead was, “Someone will see…”
“Let them,” he said, looking up into my eyes. I’d imagined those eyes so many times the last few days, thinking perhaps I was exaggerating how green they were, how expressive they were. But if anything, I hadn’t done them justice. They were a vibrant emerald that painters would murder for and framed by long dark lashes that fluttered now as his fingers found the sensitive skin in between my thighs.
I couldn’t stop the moan that left my mouth.
“Your pussy is so wet for me,” he said, his fingers running softly over my skin, stopping here and there to delve deeper or rub a little harder. “Why won’t you come home to me so I can take care of it all the time?”
I was already so upset, so worked up, and here he was, his stubbled jaw and his haunted eyes making him look more desperately delicious than ever, and my body had been keening for him for what felt like years…
“Oh, you’re going to come, Ivy. Let me taste it. Let me taste you.” Without waiting for my response, he raised my skirts and pressed his lips to my swollen clitoris. Just the soft kiss made me buckle and gasp, but then his tongue licked out, tasting my flesh, and I truly cried out. I laced my fingers in his hair, not caring how tightly I pulled, only needing him to stay exactly where he was, exactly where I wanted him, and then my climax erupted and I came violently on his mouth. His arms wrapped tight around me, supporting me as I rode out the waves as silently as I could, still distantly aware that we were in an open room in a house full of servants.
After I finished, he rearranged my skirts and stood. I put my finger on his lips and then brought it to my own mouth and licked it.
He groaned.
I wanted more. I wanted more of him, more of us and our pleasure and our sweat. And right now, I didn’t care about anything else. All the doubts, all the questions, they could wait for just another handful of minutes. It was like I was a sleeping queen in a fairy tale, brought to life by the right man’s kiss, and I felt so very very awake right now, so very alive. What was that shadow world of doubt and worry compared to this? What queen would choose that twilight slumber alone when they could consort with the king who brought them to life?
But of course, I wasn’t a queen.
I was a wildcat.
Abruptly, I put my hand on his chest and pushed him roughly back until his knees hit the sofa and he sat. He helped me free his dick from his pants, and then I was climbing on top of him, impaling myself on the iron heat of his shaft. I sank all the way down until he was completely buried in me.
He made to speak again, but I stopped him with a hungry kiss. “No words,” I said. “Please.” And then I ground myself against him, feeling his cock sink even deeper, and began rubbing my clit against him as hard as I could. I rode him with everything I had, rode him with all the pent up emotions I found it so difficult to grapple with. I expended them all on him, I unleashed every ounce of longing and betrayal and anger. I scratched his arms, pulled at his hair, bit his neck. And he took it, his eyes hooded as he w
atched me work myself on him, wrench my pleasure from him. And I did get my pleasure, biting him on the neck one last time before I started shuddering and clenching on top of him, feeling more wild and free and clear of heart than I had since before I left.
Only he gave this to me, I realized. This three-dimensional world, this open world, and only with him could I completely be myself. In the haze of pleasure, it was so easy to ask myself why did I run?
Why?
Mr. Markham held me carefully as I came down, but when I finally opened my eyes, I could read the look on his face as clearly as if he had spoken aloud.
My turn.
His hands found my waist, those long fingers almost meeting in the middle, and he lifted me up and slammed me back down, the force of it making me grunt. He didn’t go easy on me, as if he were punishing me in the same way I had just punished him. I surrendered myself to his impressive strength and let myself be carried away by it. By him and his brute force. By the huge cock that jabbed into me over and over again. By the waves of uncontrollable emotion that rolled through me.
