She was safe. She was home. She was a grown woman. Her father was dead. She did not believe in ghosts.
Walter. She focused on Walter. He was in the Zeus Room in the bachelor wing. Down the corridor, up one flight of stairs. She was safe. Walter was only one corridor and one flight of stairs away.
She remembered, then, as she gulped in breaths and shivered from fear more than cold, she had made her decision. She fell asleep thinking about her decision. The decision had been final and confidence-building, but now she was afraid, so very afraid. Terrified. What if she made the wrong choice?
Another clap of thunder, another creak of the floorboards.
She threw off the bedcovers and fled the room, leaving the unlit candle in her wake.
Chapter 23
By the time she reached the Zeus Room, the panic had subsided. The storm had not. Lilith stood outside Walter’s bedchamber, staring at the door, caught in limbo. Each time she reached a hand to knock on the door, she stopped herself. What was she doing here?
Fear had taken hold of her moments ago. Fear of abandonment, fear of judgement, fear of solitude, fear of everything. She knew nothing but desperation to be held and loved.
And now?
She had made her decision, though she could not say if it was the right choice. What would going to him accomplish other than to complicate matters?
It would unite them forever. It would bring unforgettable love to her life. It would replace all negative memories of Roddam Hall with a single, perfect memory. It would be the first moment in her life when she was wanted, loved, and needed. With this action, she could walk boldly to her decision without regrets.
Her eyes closed, the doorknob in her hand, she prayed he would not reject her. Hoping the door was not locked, she turned the knob.
The door gave way.
Her heart in her throat, her breathing shallow, Lilith entered, shutting the door behind her with a decisive click. As her eyes adjusted to the room, darkened by the closed curtains, she heard a stirring in front of her, though some distance away, a rustle of sheets.
“Who’s there? Is something amiss?” Walter asked groggily.
Lilith leaned against the door, her hand still on the knob. She stood in silence, unable to respond. What was she doing here? Walter rustled his way across the bed to the bedside table.
One part of her wanted to open the door and run before he saw it was her. Let him think he had been dreaming. The other part shivered and longed to be held.
He swung his legs to one side of the bed, fumbling to light the candle. She could scarce breathe. Anticipation heightened her senses.
Light arced across the room, momentarily blinding Lilith. She squinted.
“Good Lord. Lilith? Is that you?” Walter asked.
She heard him rise from the bed, her eyesight still adjusting.
“What’s wrong? Are you unwell? What’s happened? Is there a fire? Flooding? A roof cave-in?” His questions tumbled one after the other as he walked to her.
Only when she felt warm hands grip her upper arms did she look up, his outline blocking the candlelight. He had donned a dressing robe. She blinked, her eyes focusing. The side of his face wore creases from his pillow, the same side showing flattened curls. The light behind him cast a halo around his head. Walter. Her angel.
He gave her a gentle shake. “Lilith? What’s wrong? You’re shivering, and your eyes are red-rimmed. What happened?”
“I…I need you to hold me,” she stuttered.
“Pardon?”
When she did not immediately answer, he untied his dressing robe, slipped it off his shoulders, and wrapped it about her instead. The robe was warm from his body heat and smelled of him, of that delicious cologne he wore. She burrowed into the robe.
“Sit. I’ll ring for help.” He turned to the bell pull.
“No!” she shouted, louder than anticipated, startling them both. “No, I don’t need help. I need you.”
She stepped further into the room. He crossed his arms over his chest, wearing nothing but a nightshirt that stopped below his knees. His legs and feet were bare.
“Lilith, you look as though you’ve seen a ghost. You’re pale and shaking. Will you sit and tell me what’s wrong?”
Seduction was not her forte, it would seem. Not that this had been planned. Oh, she really ought to have made a run for it when she had the chance.
“Please hold me, Walter. I want to be held.”
A crease etched between his brows. “I’m not certain that’s the best course of action. Allow me to ring for help or escort you back to your room.”
She shook her head. “Please hold me,” she repeated.
When he did not move, she took a step forward and held out a hand. He stared at it.
Thunder rumbled. Wind whispered from the fireplace, the fire in the grate a mere memory from hours earlier.
Squaring her shoulders in determination, she closed the space between them and wrapped her arms around his waist, resting her cheek on his shoulder, her forehead against the side of his neck. She tightened her embrace, breathing in his cologne until his arms came around her and held her.
Neither spoke.
In this moment, there was nothing she wanted more than to be loved by him. She wanted him. She needed him. She feared never seeing him again. She feared facing the rest of her life never having known him.
Lifting her head, she puckered her lips against the side of his neck. At his sharp intake of breath, she kissed his neck again, a slow and sensual trail up to his jaw. Pressed against her as he was, the only articles between them being two thin nightdresses and a dressing robe, she could feel his attraction to her. The knowledge flooded her with warm desire. No longer did her body shiver, rather it flamed with a hot passion, a need to know the man she loved.
“Lilith,” he said, his voice cracking. “You need to return to your room.”
Ignoring him, she reached a hand between them and pulled the tie on the dressing robe, letting it fall open. With an effortless lean, her body arched against the length of his. She could feel every muscle and a pulsating heat through the thin material of her nightdress. A shrug of shoulders freed the robe to fall to the floor.
Their eyes met. Twining a hand around his neck, she raked her fingers through his hair and kissed him. Though his lips yielded to hers, his body remained rigid with tension, the only telltale sign of his arousal being the hardness throbbing against her abdomen.
“Lilith,” he said again. “I need you to return to your room.”
Winding his curls about her fingers, she angled her head to kiss him more thoroughly. She slipped her tongue past his lips and explored, tasting the sweet evidence of sleep. Suckling his tongue into her mouth, she reached one of her hands around to move his arm from her shoulder to her waist. He responded by sinking his fingers into her hips, tugging her harder to him. Her body’s natural reaction was to rub against him.
“Lilith,” he said against her mouth.
Before he could say more, she sealed his lips with hers and dragged her fingers down his back until he tremored. Gathering a fistful of his nightshirt, she pulled it up over his thighs.
He shuddered a laugh and grabbed her wrist, stepping back and away from her. Frantic, she reached for him, but he grabbed her other wrist, gripping them both securely.
“Tell me you’re certain, or I’m taking you back to your room.”
He regarded her in the candlelight, his eyes searching hers before sweeping over her to take in the loose tresses of her hair flowing around her shoulders and down her back.
“I want to be with you,” she said.
In a breathtaking movement, he released her wrists, and hooked an arm behind her knees, scooping her up into his arms and carrying her to the bed. She felt weightless and safe and giddy. Gently, he laid her on the feather-stuffe
d bed, enveloping and still warm. With a reach over his shoulder, he pulled at his nightshirt until he slipped it over his head and tossed it to the floor. Standing before her was the most gloriously beautiful man she had ever seen.
However deceptively slender of frame he appeared when clothed, his body was well-toned magnificence. Russet curls covered his chest, dusted his abdomen, and thinned to a single trail down past his navel, ending in a bed of lighter red curls, crowning his manhood. Lilith was not sure if she gasped aloud or silently. Her medical training had fully prepared her for the differences between men and women, but she had never seen the difference, not in person at least. Not beyond drawings. No drawing she had ever seen looked so…large.
She knew a moment of trepidation.
It passed when he leaned over the bed, cupping her face to kiss her. The concern was replaced with an aching need that throbbed through her womb and down between her legs. The mattress dipped as he climbed into bed next to her, stretching his body against her side. He radiated heat. Walter propped himself on an elbow and looked down at her, his eyes dark emeralds. With a fingertip, he traced her eyebrows, her nose, her lips, his finger trailing down her neck to her chest and over to a breast, circling a nipple through the fabric of her nightdress.
His hand trembled, his exhale shaky.
She closed her eyes to concentrate on the sensation of his circling finger. The heat of his hand seared her flesh with longing. Her nipple hardened, increasingly more sensitive as he feather-touched it to the palm of his hand, wafting back and forth and around. She arched until he cupped her breast.
At the shocking feel of dampness, her eyes flew open. Walter leaned over her, a breast in his mouth, nightdress and all. His tongue mimicked what his hand had done moments ago. She gasped and grabbed a handful of his hair. When she thought the torture had ended, his mouth removed from her body, he blew lightly on the wet fabric, the coldness shivering her, the throbbing between her legs contrasting with an urgent pulse of fire.
She released his hair and dragged her fingernails down his bare back. Undaunted, he took her other breast into his mouth for a similar treatment. She moaned and pressed her head into the pillow, digging her fingers into his shoulder. And then his mouth was against hers, a hungry kiss, full of need.
Her hand found the curls on his chest, soft and downy, at the same time his hand caressed from her breast down to her waist. His hand ventured to her hip, his palm flattened and stretched until his thumb traced the crease between her thigh and mound. He slid his palm down her thigh to pull at the nightdress. Gathering the fabric’s edge, he gazed at her, his eyes looking into hers. He breathed raggedly, unsteadily. His hand trembled against her thigh as he raised the gown ever higher.
Lilith lifted her hips so he could pull the gown out from under her. He stopped just at her most private of parts.
In a husky whisper, he said, “Would you like me to douse the candle?”
She shook her head, her hair matting around her. “I want to see you.”
Sitting up, he took her nightdress in both hands and tugged it up and over her head. With a flick of his wrist, he sent it to the floor.
His eyes traveled up and down her, just as hers had done to him. She fisted the bedsheets, feeling self-conscious. Her hips were too wide, her legs too long, her breasts too small, her stomach not flat enough, and her freckles too dark. She felt every day of her three and thirty years as his eyes roamed, feasting on her.
Taking her bottom lip between her teeth, she returned her hand to stroke the hair on his chest, hoping he would not find her undesirable. She was here to be wanted, not abandoned.
Walter lowered himself, a hand to her cheek, and brushed his lips over hers. He kissed her eyelids, her nose, and her cheeks, before returning to her lips.
Rubbing his nose against hers, he whispered, “You rob me of breath, my love. You’re beautiful.”
She exhaled a soft laugh of relief. He spoke the truth. She knew it. His voice revealed his sincerity.
The length of his body leaned against her side. Tickling beads of sweat trickled down her hip where their flesh met. He was in no rush, though. Neither was she. She wanted to cherish every moment and recall it from memory for years to come. His hand caressed, rubbed, tickled, running from her knee to the top of her head and on down, chafing, massaging, kneading as he went. Her body burned everywhere he touched.
She ran her fingers across his chest, memorizing the feel of his soft flesh over hard muscle. His nipples puckered when she imitated what he had done to hers.
Leaning her firmly against the pillow, he kissed her deeply, his hand moving down her stomach and into her curls. She gasped a laugh. He palmed her mound, holding his hand in place as he explored her mouth with a thorough kiss. She was uncertain which sensation to focus on when his tongue and his finger began to mimic identical motions, one above and one below. Her body arched against his hand, and she returned his kiss with feverish desire.
He moved, then, rolling onto her, his weight pressing her into the mattress. His knees came between her thighs, parting them. Just as his weight stole her breath, he propped himself on his forearms and looked down at her. He looked heaven sent in the candlelight. She touched his cheek and smiled up at him.
His thighs pressed against hers, stretching her legs. She knew a moment’s discomfort as her thighs butterflied to make room for him. Widening her legs, she drew up her knees and flattened her soles against the bed.
And then she felt him. His hardness probed her entrance. It touched her lightly, tenderly, curiously. A foreign pressure nudging, then pressing into her. Walter watched her from above, his eyes never leaving hers, his brows slightly furrowed. The pressure increased, a too large object trying to push itself into too small of a space. Lilith inched away, not at all sure anymore this was a good idea. His lips found hers, and he plunged his tongue into her mouth in a hard kiss, distracting her long enough for him to slide with a slow but determined thrust into her.
His mouth stifled her cry. She strangled the sheets in tight fists. Their bodies were joined, his hardness stretching her with a complex combination of pain and satisfaction. He held himself inside her while her body throbbed, clenched, and ached. His kiss had become languorous and savory.
When he withdrew, she cried out, bereft.
He moved into her again, the sensation more fulfilling than painful this time. His movements were unhurried and exaggerated. They made love in long, slow time, each memorizing the other, each reveling in the other.
Kissing her cheek and jaw, he nuzzled her neck, suckling the sensitive skin. He kissed down to her breasts, taking each into his mouth, one at a time, teasing and flicking each nipple, the sensation accentuated by the wet friction of his thrusts.
Oh, she had not known. She had not known it would be like this. Never in her wildest dreams had she thought it would be like this. She had longed to feel wanted, needed, even loved. She had wanted to belong. But never had she thought making love would be like this. It went beyond belonging. They were joined. They were part of each other, connected, two parts of a whole.
They made love for hours and days and years it seemed, slow and tender, a steady rhythm of part to whole. She wrapped her arms about his sweaty shoulders and buried her face against his neck.
“Lilith,” he whispered.
She could do no more than stutter a sob in reply. Here, in his arms, she found everything she had ever wanted, a place of belonging.
His body shifted over her, releasing more of his weight onto her. He tucked his hands beneath her buttocks, angling her hips, and thrust, pressing even further into her. She moaned into his curls. Cupping her bottom, he rode her with increased friction, rubbing her in a new way, a different way, a strangely exhilarating way.
There were too many sensations. Lilith felt overwhelmed, overstimulated. Her nipples rubbed against his chest, sweat chaffed her thi
ghs, his hair tickled her cheeks, his hardness reached deep within her core, and that peculiar friction of his body kneaded against her mound, massaging her lower lips.
His rhythm quickened. She closed her eyes to concentrate on the new way he rubbed against her, her hips angled into their joining. A fiery heat lit where their bodies met, spreading with tendrils, a growing warmth unfurling. She met plunge for plunge, desperate to be whole. With each thrust, the sensation intensified. She wanted to be a part of him and he a part of her. She wanted them to be one, body and soul, so she could never be abandoned again. She wanted to belong.
Walter’s body shuddered against her, his rhythm erratic. The movement was so unexpected, Lilith stared at him, alarmed, and in that moment, as their eyes locked, she knew love. She gasped as euphoria embraced her, fulfilling her, warming her, completing her. Light colored her vision, heat branded her body, tremors racked her soul. On another plane, far from the physical, her spirit joined his, luminous, ethereal.
Walter cried out in the same moment Lilith reached the pinnacle of wholeness.
He watched her sleep. His arm pillowed her head, mussed hair spilling over her shoulders and onto the actual pillow, tickling his hand, which had gone numb some time ago. Her legs were tangled with his, and one of her hands splayed over his chest, hot and clammy. She had fallen asleep soon after their coupling. He had not.
How could he sleep? He was wide awake, watching her, so in love he could burst.
Her words echoed. I want to be with you.
She wanted to be with him. She had made her decision. Despite potential scandal of her birth, gossip of her upbringing, loss of her midwifery and teaching positions, and all other sacrifices, she had chosen to be with him. He wanted to weep with joy. He would do all in his power to ensure she never regretted her decision. He would introduce her to the wives and sisters of his friends, people he knew would accept her and love her. Did she have any friends? He thought not. What she needed was a friend or two to help her navigate polite society.
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