by M. S. Parker
Alexandre was sitting behind his desk when we walked inside, the papers scattered across the top telling me that he was in the middle of some sort of business.
I hesitated. “We can come back…”
“Nonsense.” He stood and gestured toward the chairs across from him. “I was planning to speak to you at dinner. I received word today from one of my captains that a ship should be prepared to sail near mid-April.”
“That late?” I knew I sounded disappointed, but I couldn't help it. I wasn't due until closer to the end of summer, but I would've liked to have been settled by June instead of finishing up our trip.
“A French ship trying to get the colonies will do much better if it appears to be a merchant ship,” Alexandre said. “It also gives us something with which to bribe any British personnel who may wish to stop us.”
“What does that mean?” I asked.
“My men will load the ship with goods that will be taken to America,” Alexandre explained. “That will take a week or two, which should allow for a mid-April crossing. I would not feel safe any earlier.”
I suddenly remembered that the Titanic had sailed in mid-April, from Europe to the US, and pretty much everyone knew how well that had gone. Despite my impatience, leaving in March had lost its appeal.
“Did you wish to speak to me?” Alexandre asked.
“We received word from Washington that a new player will be coming into the country on the first ship,” Gracen replied. “If you are amenable, we would like you to continue working with him, as well as anyone else who may be sent over.”
“It would be my pleasure,” Alexandre said with a smile. “Now, shall we discuss birthday plans before you leave? A proper gathering could be a celebration and a send-off.”
“Birthday?”
Gracen rubbed the back of his neck and stared at the floor. “My birthday is April fifth.”
“How did I not know that?” I stared at him. “How have I been married to you for more than half a year and I'm just now finding out when your birthday is?”
He gave me that sideways, child-like smile that always gave me butterflies. “It is not like we have had the most uneventful time together.”
“True. But it doesn't explain why Alexandre knows.” I grinned at him so he could see that I wasn't angry.
“When is yours?” he asked. “I do not believe that you have told me that either.”
I laughed. “May sixteenth.” I could see in his eyes that he'd just thought of the same thing I had.
May sixteenth might have been my birthday, but turning twenty-five years old hundreds of years before I was even a glimmer in my mother’s eye was a thought process that made my head spin.
“Alize will plan something.”
The expression on Gracen's face said there was nothing he would like less. I pushed myself up on my toes and put my mouth to his ear.
“After the party, you and I will have our own celebration,” I whispered. “And I guarantee you will love every single thing I do to you.”
Chapter 10
“Honor, please, my love, please...”
I loved hearing Gracen beg, but it was nothing compared to seeing it.
I promised him something special for his birthday, but I was pretty sure he'd never come close to imagining the things I'd been doing to him tonight. We were scheduled to leave early in the morning, but I wanted our last night in France to be memorable in a good way. We'd had so much bad happen to us here that I felt we needed to go out on a positive note.
So, after the intimate farewell dinner slash birthday celebration for Gracen that hadn't been nearly as awful as we'd both feared, we retired to our room, and I'd had him strip down to nothing. When he reached for me, however, I told him to lie down on the bed...and then tied his hands to the bedposts. The shock on his face had been priceless, but the way it faded into lust had made my stomach clench. I had a feeling he and I would be exploring this kind of light bondage in the future, and I'd be on the receiving end when that time came.
I'd spent the last half hour or so using my mouth and hands to explore every inch of his body, teasing him with licks and bites, with feather-light touches and rough squeezes until he was pulling at the strips of cloth restraining him. His cock was hard and heavy, and I couldn't help licking my lips when I looked at him.
That wasn't where I was going next though. For the next month, we'd be on a ship where, despite having a cabin of our own, privacy would be questionable. After that, between the uncertainty that awaited us and my growing belly, sex would need to take a backseat to other things. All of this meant that I intended to take my time tonight.
So instead of taking him into my mouth, or riding him until we both came, I leaned back against the bedpost at the base of the bed and spread my legs. I waited until his gaze traveled up my legs, lingered between my thighs, slid over the curve of my stomach, touched on my breasts, and then finally reached my eyes.
“What would you like me to do to myself?”
A moment of confusion crossed his face, then his eyes widened as he understood. “Honor, I need you.”
“Patience,” I chided softly as I cupped my breasts. They weren't as large as I knew they would get, but they were definitely bigger than they once were. Bigger, and much more sensitive. “Tell me what you want me to do to myself.”
He cursed, tugging at his restraints.
Apparently, I would need to prompt him.
“Do you want me to play with my nipples?” I asked, rolling them between my thumbs and forefingers. I kept my eyes on him as I slid one hand down my stomach. “Or maybe you'd like to watch me use my fingers on myself.”
“Yes. Anything, please.” His face and chest were flushed.
“Tell me.”
“Dammit, Honor!” His voice cracked, and his eyes flashed. “Pleasure yourself! If I cannot have my own release, at least allow me to see yours.”
Finally. I was worried I'd explode if I had to wait any longer. My fingers parted my curls and slipped between my folds. I was so wet that I slid a finger inside without any resistance. I moaned, forcing myself to keep my eyes open and on Gracen as he watched. One hand stayed on my breast, giving my nipples enough attention to turn them into hard little points. The other alternated pressure on my clit before sliding first one, then two, fingers inside me.
I could feel my climax coming quicker than normal, the build-up of having been touching Gracen, and now him watching me, driving me to the edge fast. I came with a groan, pressing my palm against my clit as a shudder ran through me. Using masturbation to take the edge off or to finish myself off when Bruce hadn't been able to get the job done was completely different than this.
And I knew which one I liked more.
I opened my eyes to find Gracen staring at me, his expression something primal and dark. I went up on my hands and knees, crawling up his body until we were face-to-face. I leaned down and kissed him, shivering as he bit down on my bottom lip.
“Release me.”
It was a command now, not a request or a plea. I considered not obeying, but everything I saw on his face said that I would enjoy the repercussions of what I'd done, so I reached for the ties and braced myself for what was coming next.
“Oww...” I moaned as I climbed out of bed. I'd gotten only a couple hours of sleep, and my entire body was aching, but I wouldn't have changed a single thing about last night.
Judging by the heated way Gracen watched me as I stepped into my dress, he was thinking about it too.
I turned to the mirror to tie back my hair and frowned. “Really, Gracen?”
“Honor?” His eyes met mine in the mirror.
I pointed at the place where my neck met my shoulder, the place where my normally fair skin had a dark, quarter-sized bruise. When he gave me the sort of smug grin that would've been at home on the face of any alpha male from virtually any time in the past, present, or future, I couldn't help but laugh. Then he pulled aside the neck of his shirt to revea
l what could only be a bite mark right over his heart.
“Shit,” I muttered, face flaming.
He leaned down and kissed the spot just under my ear. “I enjoyed everything about last night.” He winked at me as he straightened. “Including the bite.”
If we hadn't been on a tight schedule this morning, I would've told him to take me back to bed, but instead, I finished getting dressed and then followed him downstairs where the others were waiting.
Once Gracen and I said our goodbyes to Alexandre, we and Celina went outside to the carriage to oversee the last of our luggage being loaded. Father and daughter deserved privacy for their farewell. I understood what they were going through from both sides. When I was young, I'd watched my father leave on deployments, and then I'd done my own leaving, each time never knowing if we'd be together again. Between the war already raging, the one that would be coming to other parts of Europe not long after the Revolution ended, and the ocean between us, their odds weren't any better than mine had been.
I had to admit, I was a little worried about how Alize was going to handle things without her father, but when she came out of the house, she appeared calm and composed. Her eyes were red, so there was no doubt that she'd been crying, but she had stopped. She didn't say anything to any of us as she allowed the coachman to help her into the carriage, but as soon as Celina was inside, the pair wrapped their arms around each other. When I took my seat across from them, I leaned over and squeezed their hands, then moved back against Gracen's side.
The ride to the harbor was quiet, the carriage filled with all different kinds of tension. Grief. Excitement. Fear.
Hell, I was filled with all kinds of tension. On the one hand, I was thrilled to be going back, but on the other, I was terrified about everything that was coming. A baby. The war.
It was enough to make me feel seasick before we even stepped foot on the ship, but Gracen's touch was steady, grounding, so as we arrived at the harbor, I had managed to pull myself together. I might have been pregnant, but I couldn't afford to be the emotional one. I didn't care if people would consider Alize and Celina more or less adults. They were still little more than kids, sheltered, even Celina, in her own way. Neither one had any experience being adults, taking care of themselves. I hoped they learned fast, but until then, I would take care of them.
Gracen took charge of telling the sailors where to put things, and I attempted to look like the wife of a great man with two charges at her side. Considering the admiring looks all three of us were getting, I’d have my work cut out for me. At least I didn't have to worry about any of us returning the men's affections.
A merchant ship, Alexandre had specifically commissioned alterations to the hold below to give the four of us two separate rooms. They were small, with barely enough space for a bed and our trunks, but I hadn't been expecting luxury. Besides, it wasn't like I'd never had to rough it before.
Rather than staying below as we set off, I headed back up top to enjoy my last glimpse of France. While some horrible things had happened here, it was still the place where my child had been conceived. Where Gracen and I had helped raise assistance for the revolution, become a part of history.
I wasn't the only one coming to the rail to say goodbye. Celina stood next to me as the ship began to move away from the coast. The noises went first, people and all the chaos that came with them replaced by waves and wind. The people's faces lost their details, then they shrunk until we couldn't distinguish them from their surroundings. Last to go were the buildings, but I turned away before those had disappeared below the horizon.
“We made it,” I said to the young woman next to me.
She smiled, her face fully relaxed for the first time since I met her. “Oui. And I am grateful for all you and Monsieur Lightwood have done for me. Taking me with you.”
“It's all right to be a little sad about leaving,” I said. “It is your home.”
“No.” She shook her head. “I have not had a home since my brother died.”
“You have one now,” I assured her. “You and Alize are part of our family now. I know it's not the same, but–”
“Thank you.” Alize's voice came from the side. She took Celina's hand, then mine. “I can only hope that, one day, we will be able to pay you back for everything you've done for us.”
“There's no need,” I said, squeezing both their hands. “Now, let's go get our rooms organized. You'll want to make sure your belongings are all tied down. The weather is calm right now, but you don't want to wait until there's a storm or some crazy big wave throwing everything around to try to do it. Trust me.”
I couldn't deny that a part of me was worried that I'd be seasick since the pregnancy had made me nauseous for the first month and a half. And then there was the other part that kept remembering the scene from Titanic where Rose talks about how the water was freezing, and every time I thought it, I found myself wondering how cold it would be if we ended up in its depths.
Maybe I was borrowing trouble, like my mom always said, but I couldn't help feeling like we'd had our reprieve our last month in France. I knew better than to think we'd make it across an ocean without incident.
Except we went, day after day, with clear skies and calm seas. My worries about seasickness vanished as I found it easier to find my sea legs than I had before. Alize was even more at ease than Gracen, moving across the ship with the sort of confidence that came with having spent some time on the ocean. When asked, she'd admitted to begging her father to take her with him on his travels for the first two years after her mother died. After that, she'd been old enough that sailing around on a merchant ship hadn't been considered seemly for a young lady of her station, so Alexandre had turned over the on-hands work to his second-in-command and stayed in France.
I'd liked him enough before, but when I found out that he hadn't pawned off his kid on a governess like most families would have during this time, my respect for him grew. I wouldn't have thought badly if he'd done it, either. A single father in a society where girls were supposed to be raised in certain ways, leaving a daughter's raising to others who might know better made sense.
Gracen spent the first few days on the ship getting to know the crew. Or, at least, that's what he said he was doing. I suspected he was also making sure the entire crew knew that we three women were off-limits. In theory, Alize being Alexandre's daughter should have afforded her protection, but there was always the chance that one of the men might be willing to risk it for the chance to bed a woman of her social status. That also meant Celina, as a woman of unknown family, had little to prevent the men from harassing her.
Other than Gracen, of course. And I knew that my husband would never let anyone lay a hand on Celina. Me, he didn't have to worry about. My overly emotional pregnancy hormones had shifted from me breaking into tears at the drop of a hat to me wanting to rip someone's head off if they looked at me cross-eyed. So if any of them wanted to be crude to the pregnant woman, they might find themselves discovering how well they could swim.
The days began to bleed together until I completely lost track of the date. Without storms, our journey was smoother than it had been before, but it was also slower. At first, I'd thought it was just me feeling like things were stretching out, but when Gracen found me in our room, mending some tears in our clothes, his words told me that I was correct in feeling like we'd been sailing forever already.
“Happy birthday, love.”
I looked up as he closed the door behind him. “What?”
“May sixteenth. That is the day you said, correct?”
I was stunned. “It's May sixteenth already?”
He nodded as he came over to where I was sitting and went to his knees in front of me. “It is.” He set aside the clothes I was working on and took my hands, bringing them to his lips so he could kiss them.
“Thank you.” I smiled at him, but he didn't move.
“I have a gift for you.”
I raised an eyebrow.
“I personally oversaw all of the packing. How did you sneak in a present?”
Then I felt fingers curl around my calves and a pulse of arousal went through me. His eyes met mine, emerald darkened to such deep depths that they almost looked black. His hands slid up my legs, and while I knew he wouldn't care about the fact that I hadn't waxed since we'd left France, I still grimaced when I thought of what it must feel like to him. I'd been in the past for almost a year, but the difference in hygiene was one of the things I was having the hardest time adjusting to. It was always one of the parts of being in the service that I liked the least.
“Shh.” He leaned forward and kissed my forehead. “You are thinking too much. Let me make you stop.”
I smiled as he grasped my hips and pulled me to the edge of the bed. His body pushed my legs apart even as he gathered my skirt up.
“Lie back.”
I did as he said, feeling the strain on my legs and back ease immediately as he pulled my legs onto his shoulders. My stomach wasn't huge, but I still couldn't see when he ducked down. I felt it, though, when he kissed me, his tongue delving deep. I felt it all the way through me, and he didn't pause for a single second to let me process.
He held me tight as he used his tongue to explore all of the places his mouth and fingers had learned in the time we'd been together. We didn't have time for long, slow love-making, and this was no different. He drove me toward climax with a single-minded determination that had me biting my bottom lip to hold back my moans. When I came, I had to shove my hand into my mouth as I struggled to swallow a scream.
“Fuck,” I breathed as my arm fell back to the bed. “Thank you. Definitely the best birthday present I've ever had.”
He chuckled as he turned me so that I was stretched out on the bed. Still kneeling on the floor, he leaned over and kissed my forehead. “When we arrive home, I will give you a gift as thorough as the one you gave me.”
Home.
That word had given me much to think about over the years. Growing up as an army brat, we moved often enough that it'd taken me a while to consider Boston home. Somehow, that idea had never transferred from my parents to my fiancé. I supposed if I hadn't enlisted, if I'd moved in with Bruce, I would've associated home with him. Now, I knew wherever Gracen was, that was home, but for him, he had a place he thought of, a specific set of memories that came when he used that word.