Winter’s Desire

by Amanda McIntyre, Charlotte Featherstone

  “Really? How so, if you don’t mind my inquiring?”

  He shrugged. “I don’t mind at all. It just sounds…I don’t know, somehow modern. Like you. A modern woman. I saw you drive up in your jaunty little motorcar, you know. Is this your motoring ensemble?” he asked, gesturing toward her garments.

  “Indeed,” she said, reaching up to unfasten her coat and remove her muffler. “Along with a veil, goggles and gloves. You should see me in it all—I’m such a fright! Though not half the fright I would be without such things to protect me from the dust.”

  “Here, let me take those,” he offered, and Aisling handed over her things. “Though perhaps I shouldn’t leave them down here, just in case.”

  “In case of what? Your mother’s untimely return?” Aisling couldn’t help but laugh. “Pray, what would you have me do in that case, sneak out through your window?”

  “Just how nimble are you?” he asked, leading her toward the stairs.

  “Nimble enough, I suppose. It sounds as if you’ve experience in such matters. I’m not certain I approve,” she teased, looking around, taking in her surroundings. After all, she’d never been inside the Coopers’ cottage before. Not once in all her life.

  It was, first and foremost, clean and tidy. Homely, but decorated in what she’d call comfortable simplicity. The room they stood in boasted a built-in window seat and inglenook, a sofa and a pair of spindle chairs with embroidered cushions. In the room’s far corner stood a small Christmas tree, waist high and simply decorated with red bows, a painted gold star on top.

  The floors were maple, with colorful rag rugs scattered about. The hearth was simple brick, the mantel uncrowded, with only a carriage clock and a photograph of Will looking scholarly in his Cambridge robes decorating it, along with a seasonal drape of pine boughs and holly. The walls were stark white, unadorned with paper, but framed botanical drawings were placed at pleasing intervals, and Aisling stepped up to one, a drawing of a multifronded fern, for closer inspection.

  “Did you draw this?” she asked, noting the fine detail. It looked so very real, almost as if it were a pressed specimen, preserved forever in its most perfect form. Beneath the drawing, the species was labeled in a neat, familiar hand.

  “I drew them all,” he answered with a shrug. “Specimens native to Bedlington. I’ve no idea why Mum likes them so much.”

  “Beautiful,” she breathed. “I had no idea you were so gifted.”

  “Perhaps one day I’ll draw you, if you’ll allow it.”

  Aisling nodded. “I’d like that very much.”

  “With your hair down. I’ve never seen anything lovelier than you with your hair down,” he added.

  Aisling couldn’t help but laugh. “Funny you say that, as my mother has been lamenting my hair since the day I was born. ‘There’s nothing more unfortunate than being born a blonde,’ she always says. Between my fair hair and light eyes, I’m about as far from fashionable as they come.”

  “Fuck fashionable,” he said sharply, then, “You must forgive my language. I sometimes forget—”

  “What, that I’m a lady? Don’t apologize, Will. I think that’s why I like you so much—you say exactly what you think. I admire that.”

  “Can I get you something?” he asked, gesturing toward the kitchen behind them. “I’m capable enough with a teapot. I’m sure there are some cakes around, too, if I look hard enough.”

  “No, thank you.” Aisling headed for the stairs. “May I go up?”

  “Of course. Come, I’ll finish showing you around. It’s not much, I know, especially compared to Wainscott House.”

  “I think it’s charming,” she said, following him up the narrow stairs. “What is it they call it, ‘cottage quaint’? Wainscott House just seems so cluttered in comparison.” It was the truth. With its Elizabethan styling and dark wood trim, heavy furniture crowding every room and knickknacks on every available surface, Wainscott House often felt crowded and oppressive, despite its cavernous size.

  “You realize this entire cottage would fit easily inside your drawing room alone? I used to worry I’d make a wrong turn and get lost there when I was a boy. Here, this is my mum’s room.” He opened a door to reveal a small, square bedroom with a narrow bed in its center, a tall maple dresser opposite it.

  Aisling nodded her approval, then moved on. It somehow seemed wrong to step inside the woman’s room in her absence.

  Will paused at the next door, and Aisling peered inside. “This is where Mum does her sewing,” he said, his voice filled with pride. A sewing machine sat on a stand beneath the window, and tables held bolts of fabric, piles of linen and pieces of clothing. Baskets lined a row of shelves on the wall, filled with ribbons, flowers and lace. In the room’s far corner, a rack held various garments including what looked to be Aisling’s mother’s lilac watered-silk gown. The hem had ripped last week, she remembered. Of course she would have brought it to Mrs. Cooper for repair.

  Her cheeks reddening slightly, Aisling followed Will out into the corridor. More than anything, she wished she hadn’t seen her mother’s gown. It only reminded her of their differing circumstances, something she did not wish to dwell on, not now.

  Luckily, Will did not seem to notice her discomfiture. “And this is my bedchamber,” he said, opening the opposite door and leading her inside a room that was twice as large as the other two.

  “I know, it’s ridiculous, isn’t it?” He laid her coat and muffler across the back of a chair. “I don’t even live here anymore, and still she insists on me having the largest room. As if I were royalty or something.”

  “Perhaps you are,” she said wryly, hoping he would appreciate her humor. “Your father could be a prince, for all you know.”

  The iron bed was larger than Mrs. Cooper’s, and finer, too. There was a saucer of half-drunk tea on the bedside table, a book lying open beside it. A well-worn trunk sat on the floor by the footboard, its contents spilling out rather haphazardly. In the corner, a closet stood ajar, a row of suits hanging inside. Beneath a pair of dormer windows was a rolltop desk, papers scattered across it. A tall stack of books sat on one edge, looking as if they might topple over at any minute.

  “One could never accuse you of being neat, could they?” she teased, taking in the clutter, the lived-in feel that her own room back at Wainscott House lacked, despite the fact that she actually lived in it. Will was only a visitor here, she reminded herself.

  “I won’t let my mother come in to clean as if she’s my housekeeper. Is it really so bad? Believe it or not, I tried to tidy up a bit, just in case you came by.”

  She sidled up to him, batting her lashes like a coquette would. “So sure I’d make it up to your bedroom, were you?”

  “I’m nothing if not optimistic,” he answered with a wicked smile. “I did allow my mum to change the bed linens, however. I shudder to think what she must suppose happened in my bed last night to result in such a request.”

  Aisling laughed, surprised at how comfortable she felt alone in a man’s bedroom, discussing bed linens as easily as they’d discuss the weather. Feeling bold, she reached inside her skirt pocket and withdrew the folded pages she’d tucked inside earlier that day.

  “Look what I’ve brought you,” she said, unfolding the pages and smoothing them flat. “It’s one of my favorite scenes.”

  “Indeed?” he asked, reaching for the pages. “One of your own personal fantasies, I hope.”

  “If I say it is, will you indulge it? No matter how wicked it might be?”

  “Good God, Aisling, don’t tease me that way. Just how wicked is it?” As he scanned the page he held in his hand, his cock made a visible bulge in his trousers.

  Aisling longed to reach out and stroke it, to coax it. But she would wait, patiently, ’til he finished reading. She sat on the bed, testing its plumpness, running her fingers across the worn coverlet while Will read, standing by the window, his hair falling across his forehead.

  At last he looked
up at her, his pale eyes piercing hers. “You really wrote this?”

  She nodded. “I really wrote it. Are you shocked?”

  “In a good way. I just never imagined that women like you…I mean, that a gently bred lady…” He trailed off, shaking his head.

  “Say it, Will. That a gently bred lady would wish to be fucked like that? Why not?” she asked with a shrug, hoping she sounded more sure of herself than she felt.

  Indeed, a niggling doubt crept into her head—what if it was unnatural? What if the very idea repulsed him? After all, her knowledge of sex came almost entirely from reading erotica, not from real-life experience. I’m a fraud, she thought miserably.

  “I’m only wondering where you’ve learned such things, that’s all,” Will said at last, sounding slightly awed.

  Aisling shrugged, forcing her voice to sound breezy and light. “I read. Besides, I grew up in the country. Around livestock,” she added. “That doesn’t leave much to the imagination.”

  “No, I suppose not. Come here,” he said, laying the pages on his desk. Aisling rose on shaking legs and quickly closed the distance between them. He took her hands in his, raising both to his lips. “Have you any idea how badly I want you?” he asked, his gaze burning with an intensity that nearly stole away her breath. “All the time. I can’t sleep, I can’t eat. You’ve entirely taken over my mind, my heart, my soul. How can I go back to Cambridge after this? How can I leave you here? It’s as if I’ve been bewitched by you.”

  Dear God, there it was again—the notion that they were both under some sort of spell, that what they were feeling wasn’t real. That poem, that damnable poem and her wish…was it possible? “There’s something I should tell you,” she murmured, no longer able to keep quiet her fears. “I found a poem, you see. On the solstice. I made a wish,” she continued hurriedly, now desperate to get it all out in the open. “I wished for the perfect man, one I knew didn’t exist. And yet…and yet you did. That very night, at Wainscott House, it was as if my wish had been granted the moment I laid eyes on you.”

  His eyes narrowed, his brow furrowed in confusion. “Wait. What does this have to do with a poem?”

  She pulled her hands from his grasp and rubbed her temple, aching now. “I don’t know. It was almost like a chant. I found it, tucked inside a box, a very old box. I read it aloud, and then I wished for…well, for this. For what we have. It’s almost like some sort of white magic.”

  “But that’s ridiculous,” he said, shaking his head. “Surely you don’t believe that?”

  She squeezed her eyes shut and took a deep breath, then opened her eyes once more, gazing up to see the hurt there, etched on Will’s face. “One minute we were completely indifferent to one another. And then the next…well, how else can you explain it?”

  He raked one hand through his hair. “I think it was always there, a spark of some sort. Perhaps it’s why you hated me so. God knows I hated you, hated the way you looked at me, as if I were worthless. I think I always wanted you, deep down. And hated you for not wanting me.”

  Aisling reached one trembling hand to her temple, feeling suddenly light-headed. “Perhaps you’re right. I…I just don’t know. All I do know is that I can’t help myself, can’t stay away from you. It must be the magic.”

  “Damn you, Aisling. It’s convenient timing, isn’t it? I bring you here today, show you the home I grew up in, show you firsthand the differences between us, between our families, and suddenly you claim that what we’re feeling isn’t real? That it’s some sort of magic, summoned by some goddamn poem you found? I’m supposed to believe that?”

  “I…I don’t know, Will. Truly, I don’t. I’m so confused, feeling things I’ve never before felt. And that’s exactly what I wished for, don’t you see? I’m not myself, not who I was last year, not even who I was last week.”

  “Who are you, then?” he challenged, his eyes stormy now. “Tell me, Aisling.”

  “I don’t know!” she cried out, hating herself, hating the hurt she saw there on his face. And the worst part? Even now, all she could think of was the secret fantasy she’d written about in the story he’d just read, the rumpled pages still lying there on his desk.

  She wanted him still—oh, how she wanted him! Despite it all, despite her fears, her confusion. He was angry, furious, even—and still she was going to let him take her, just as she’d imagined he would, just as she’d fantasized about all night long, anticipating this day.

  Without another thought, she rushed into his arms, rising on tiptoe to press her lips against his, her hands finding his trousers’ fastenings as she did so.

  “Damn it, Aisling,” he said against her open mouth, his body taut against hers, his fully aroused cock pressing into her belly. “What is it you want from me?”

  “Shh,” she whispered, then moved her mouth to his throat, her tongue lapping against his bounding pulse. “That fantasy, Will,” she ordered. “Now.”

  7

  FOR A MOMENT WILL THOUGHT TO PROTEST, to refuse to fuck her in her current state of mind. It would be the gentlemanly thing to do, after all—refusing her. But damn it, he was no gentleman, and he was tired of pretending he was. She’d come to him, after all, that erotic clipping in hand, claiming it was her own fantasy—and now she was practically begging him, stroking his cock while she tried to unfasten his trousers.

  By God, he would indulge her. What else could he do? He was weak where Aisling was concerned—weak and needy. It was as if his mind had been taken over by his longing, his desire, as if it was utterly beyond his control.

  But he would not be fooled by her claims of white magic—of some poem, some wish, that had brought them together. That was rubbish. Perhaps it was her way of justifying what they were doing, what she was doing with a man so far beneath her. But he didn’t believe it, wouldn’t believe it. He was a modern man, a man of science, for fuck’s sake. He acted on his own accord, his own desires. And he wanted her. Damn, how he wanted her.

  “Turn around,” he growled, disentangling her hands from the front of his trousers. Reaching around her waist, he half dragged, half carried her back toward the foot of the bed and deposited her there. A discarded necktie lay on the edge of the bed and he reached for it, snatching it up and quickly looping the soft folds around her wrists.

  In seconds, he had her captive wrists pressed against the bedstead, her back toward him. He could hear her breathing grow faster, more ragged as he slipped the cloth through the iron bars and tied a knot, making sure that the bindings were neither too loose nor too tight.

  “Are you certain, Aisling?” he asked, once the knot was secured. “I’ll stop now, untie you this instant if you’re not.”

  “I’m certain,” she answered breathlessly. “I trust you, Will. With all my heart.”

  Trust. How could she trust him, when he could barely trust himself? When she couldn’t even trust her own feelings? Will shook his head, refusing to think about it now. Instead, he grabbed at her skirts and petticoat, raising them, bunching them around her waist. He heard her gasp as he tugged down her drawers, relieved that she seemed to be wearing fewer layers of undergarments than she had the day before. Anticipating this, no doubt.

  Her hands still restrained, she bent over the bed’s low iron footboard, her back arched, her thighs parted invitingly. In seconds he managed to shove down his trousers and free his straining cock, pressing it against her backside as he bent to kiss her neck.

  “Like this?” he asked, grinding his hips against her pale white buttocks. “This is what you’ve fantasized about?”

  “Yes. Oh, yes.” Her pulse leaped wildly against his lips as he breathed in her scent—violets, sweet and fragrant, a scent that would forevermore make him think of her.

  “Bend over more, then,” he whispered, nibbling at her earlobe. “Show me.”

  She did, arching farther. She was already wet for him, glistening with desire. “Good God, Ash,” he groaned, taking a deep, steady breath. “You’re so ver
y beautiful.” He didn’t want to spend himself, not yet, but the sight of her like that—her cunny ready for the taking—nearly undid him. Urging himself to slow down, to savor every moment, he reached down, parting her, slipping one finger inside her tight sheath.

  “You’re so wet,” he murmured against her ear. “So ready.” He drew his finger out, rubbing her wetness across the tight nub of flesh at her entrance. “It’s not magic, Ash. It’s desire, don’t you see?” Desire that coursed through his veins like fire, that stole away his breath. He’d never felt anything like it before, this possessiveness, this primal need for a woman. And not just any woman—for Aisling.

  “Now, Will,” she urged breathlessly.

  Slowly, carefully, he probed her slick entrance with the tip of his cock, his hands gripping her shoulders, his lips buried in her neck.

  With a small cry, Aisling rocked her hips back against him, taking him deep inside her in one single thrust. Knowing full well he wouldn’t last long, he found her clit with his fingers and stroked it, hard and fast, making her moan, making her writhe against his hand as he drove into her, again and again.

  In seconds her cries became louder, more insistent. God, how he wanted to please her, to satisfy her to the point that she’d never desire another. He wanted her—only her—forever. He dropped his mouth to her shoulder, kissing her through the layers of clothing, wishing he’d taken the time to undress her before he’d tied her to the bedstead.

  One more thrust, one more stroke, and together they climaxed, their bodies shuddering against one another, his heart hammering against her back. Could she feel it? Did she know that he was in love with her, entirely mad with it? I’m a fool, he told himself, trying to catch his breath, to slow his racing heart.

  “My hands,” Aisling murmured, turning her face so that his lips rested against her jaw.

  “Of course,” he said, hurrying to untie the necktie that bound her. In seconds, he freed her, wincing as she rubbed each wrist, her pale skin reddened where the fabric had abraded her.