A familiar flush crept up her neck, blossomed high on her cheeks. “I wish you would prove it here. Right now.”
Christ. Did she know how close to the edge she was walking? It was only the frailest strand of self-control that kept me from pushing her down and rutting into her right here in the grass.
Instead, I leaned closer. “Do you really? How would I do that?”
Her breathing was faster now. “Maybe with a kiss.”
“What kind of kiss, wildcat?” I was so close to her face now, my lips inches from hers. “Something chaste and contained, maybe. I could brush my lips once against yours and then pull away so quickly that you’d wonder if it happened at all.” I moved my face incrementally closer to hers. “Or maybe I could open my mouth just enough to taste you. Is that what you would like?”
She didn’t answer, but her eyes were searching mine almost frantically now, begging me.
“Or maybe you want me to take your mouth like I used to. Without asking. Without playing. Maybe you want me to kiss you so that you can’t breathe and you need me to hold you upright. Maybe you want to remember what it feels like to have me pressed against you, what it feels like to have me inside of you.”
She was trembling now. “Please. Please kiss me.”
I hovered there for a moment, so close that I could almost taste her delicious lips. But then I pulled back. This was so close to our usual rhythm—me steering, me controlling, and then relishing how she never gave in without a fight. But if she was to come back to me, it needed to be wholly and completely.
It needed to be willingly.
And so it was up to her to make the first move. Yes, I could kiss her and she would melt against me. But if it wasn’t bolstered by her own free will, by her own choice, then no ground would be gained. She had to come to me.
So I pulled away from her face, watching the anticipation fade into disappointment, which then faded into a suppressed look of longing.
She looked away, blinking fast. “You’re making me feel foolish. You’re making me beg, out here, in front of everyone.”
“No, wildcat. I’m respecting your wishes. Remember? You told me that I make it so that everything feels right when we’re together, and then you are riddled with doubt after. I want to kiss you. Christ, I want to do more than kiss you—I want to fuck you until you can’t walk and then bring you back home. I want to marry you. I want to watch your belly swell with my children. But I love you too much to take those things—I want you to give them.”
She was shaking her head vehemently, as if disagreeing. “But I’m asking you to take them.”
“Are you? Or do you want me to take them so that you don’t have to choose?”
“I—I don’t—” But then she cut off, seemingly unable to give me the answer I wanted.
I smiled ruefully. “See? You’re not ready.”
She hesitated, then shook her head. No, she wasn’t ready.
I touched her lips one last time. “But I think that, deep down, you want to be, don’t you? Ready to marry me? Ready for me to be your teacher once again?” My voice turned into a growl. “You want to be ready for me to punish you again.”
Her eyes fluttered closed. “Yes,” she said. “Yes, I want to be.”
I wanted to stand there forever, feeling her lips against my fingers and letting her words roll through me. But Silas and Esther had almost caught up to us, and even though I didn’t care, I knew that people were staring at Ivy and me as we played this intense game of ours.
I dropped my hand. “It’s getting late into the afternoon,” I said. “Perhaps we should head back.”
The smart white house on Eaton Place was a popular destination that next morning. After Esther’s carriage stopped in front, having just pushed its way through the interminably slow traffic around Belgrave Square, I exited the cab and found myself in a swarm of suits and cigar fumes. There was a cacophony of muttered pardons and cleared throats and half-hearted offers to help me up the stairs, but I managed to dodge all of them and reach the front door, where I rang the bell.
I was bade to sit in the front parlor while the butler went to inquire if the mistress was available. As I did whenever I was trapped indoors and participating in an empty social ritual, I fantasized about running away. Simply disappearing and avoiding all of the subtle pits and traps of polite conversation, finding some more useful and productive way to occupy my time. But this morning was different. This morning I had woken up with Mr. Markham’s words still looping in my mind, and I knew that he was right. He was right about my preconceived notions of what was natural and what wasn’t, and he was right about my needing to be ready.
I had realized, as I had tried to go back to sleep, that what I wanted more than anything was somebody to talk honestly to about all this. I wanted to lay all of my fears and ecstasies in front of someone and not have them gasp in scandalized shock. Of course, this eliminated most of the people I knew. Esther was out of the question, not the least because I didn’t want to shatter her fledging respect for Mr. Markham by telling her about some of his more particular tastes.
Our peculiar tastes.
There was always Silas, but although I knew he would be able to comfort me and convince me that all would be well if I went back to Mr. Markham, that wasn’t necessarily what I wanted today. Today I wanted honesty. I wanted the truth with all its serrated edges and cold surfaces. I wanted someone who had loved Julian Markham and lived to tell about it.
Which was why I was at the London residence of Molly O’Flaherty, a woman I’d met early this summer at the same time I had met Silas. She was also a former lover of Mr. Markham’s, and even though I knew they were no l
onger together, part of me was still fantastically jealous of her.
