Olivia stared. “You have my eternal gratitude, contessa.”
The conte snorted.
“Alessandra. And I have no doubt you will return the favor one day.” The contessa smiled, and at once Olivia realized she might have made a friend. “There is one thing I ask.”
“Anything.”
“When it is time to bring to me both of my Titians, bring this Wyldewood as well.” She leaned close and spoke low into Olivia’s ear. “Perhaps by then you will be his mistress, yes?”
“Oh I don’t . . .” Olivia paused then grinned. “Perhaps.”
“Do not be a fool. He is rare, this one. And he wants you. You have his heart, I think.”
“Do you?”
Alessandra nodded. “It is obvious to me even if not to you.”
“Thank you.” Olivia smiled. “And again you have my thanks for the painting.”
“It is nothing. We are two alike, you and I.” She smiled. “Pietro is not my first husband.”
Sterling cleared his throat. “We should be getting back to the hotel.”
They said their farewells; the conte again kissed her hand. Even in the presence of his wife, there was a definite reluctance in his manner to let Olivia go. Sterling was again distant and thoughtful on the ride back to the hotel. He was obviously annoyed with her. At the door to his room, he opened it and waved her inside, stopping to pick up a note that had been slid under the door.
She swept past him. “If you are going to chastise me—”
“I have no intention of chastising you.” He snapped the door closed behind him, unfolded the note, and read it. He rang for a porter, then strode to the desk, and quickly penned a response.
“You’re not?”
“No.” He folded the note. “I have no intention of chastising you for going to see the conte alone although I do think it was foolish.”
She drew a deep breath. “Perhaps.”
“Nor do I intend to chastise you for drinking too much wine. Although that too was foolish.”
She squared her shoulders. “I am not inebriated.”
“No, I can see that. But you admit you had more wine than was wise?”
“It was very good wine,” she said under her breath.
“Nor am I going to chastise you for not telling me your plan.” He paused. “I thought it was brilliant.”
She bit back a pleased smile. “Did you?”
“I did indeed. But then for the most part, I have never questioned your intelligence.” A knock sounded. He opened the door, stepped into the hall, and returned without the note.
“What was that?”
“A note to Josiah. The earliest ship does not depart until morning. I instructed him to book us passage.”
She raised a brow. “I thought we were going to explore the city. Trust to the wind.”
“That particular wind no longer blows.”
She shook her head. “I don’t understand.”
“I shall explain later. Now, you and I have a discussion that is long overdue.”
She swallowed hard. “Do we?”
“Yes, we do.” He moved closer.
“About . . .”
“Everything. The past. As well as the future.”
She stared up at him. “Oh?”
“First, as flattered as I am”—he pulled her into his arms—“I am no longer on your list.”
Twenty
Olivia scoffed. “You can’t do that. It is not your list. You can’t take yourself off.”
“Nonetheless, I am.” He stared into her eyes. She was in his arms exactly where she belonged. And where he planned to keep her for the rest of her days. But it would not be easy. “I refuse to be nothing more than an item to be scratched off.” His lips met hers in a kiss hard and long and lingering. Until her body relaxed against his, and she met his passion with her own. At last he raised his head. “I had thought to allow you to cross me off your list only after I had married you, but I am an impatient man. And you are all that I want. All I have ever wanted.”
“Very well,” she said in a breathless voice.
He narrowed his gaze. “Very well what?”
“Very well, you are off my list.”
“No argument?”
“No.” The word was scarcely more than a sigh. She reached up to press her lips to his, and he struggled to keep his wits about him. He drew his lips from hers and kissed a spot right below her ear. “What about marriage?”
“No.” She sighed. “I will not marry a man because he feels an obligation to me.”
“Obligation is not what I’m feeling.” He let his lips drift down her neck.
She shivered. “I thought you wished to talk.”
“We’ll talk later,” he murmured against her skin.
She tilted her head back and closed her eyes. “Are you seducing me?”
“I am trying.”
She stilled and opened her eyes, her gaze caught his. “You should know I have not done this for a very long time.”
“You needn’t say—”
“No, I do.” She grimaced. “I have not been with a man for more than nine years. My late husband—”
“Was a vile creature and a fool.”
“No, that’s not . . .” She shook her head and gently pushed out of his arms. “You should know . . .”
“There is nothing I need to know.”
“Yes, you do.” Apprehension flashed in her eyes.
“Livy.” He reached out and took her hands. “You can tell me anything.”
She stared at him for a long moment, then nodded. “I am the one who has avoided talking about the past. It’s time that I did.”
“It’s not—”
She ignored him, and continued. “I tried to escape marriage by telling him I was not . . . that is I had been . . .”
“With me.” He nodded, ignoring a fresh wave of remorse. “Go on.”
A myriad of emotions washed across her face. “The night you and I were together, so long ago now it feels like a dream, it was quite wonderful. With him . . .” She pulled her gaze from his, looking anywhere in the room but at him. “I did not want to be in his bed, and that was of no concern to him. I fought him at first. I fought him for a long time. He . . .”
He squeezed her hands. “You don’t have to—”
“But I do. I have never told anyone.” She paused as if searching for the right words. “He liked that I did not want him. He liked that I fought against him. He liked that he could use me as he wished. That he could take what he wanted. Because I was his possession as much as any of his artifacts.” She met his gaze. “I learned that resistance was futile. That he enjoyed . . .”
“Livy.”
“That, for him, causing me pain went hand in hand with his physical pleasure. If I did not protest, and he did not force me or beat me, he did not want the rest. So . . .” She closed her eyes as if praying for strength. “. . . I surrendered. I stopped fighting him. And he soon lost interest. I regret that, surrendering that is. I should have been stronger. But . . .” She raised her chin. “He is dead, and I have never been so alive.”
She blew a long breath. “I want to be with you, Sterling. I want to be in your bed, and I want everything that means, but . . .”
He shook his head. “Therefore we shall wait.”
“No.” Her eyes widened and she pushed him backward. “Are you insane? I thought you wanted this. Wanted me.”
“I do.”
“Do you want to wait?” She pushed him back through the archway between the sitting room and the bedchamber.
“No,” he said slowly, “but—”
“I have no desire to wait. We have waited far too long already.” She stepped closer and pushed him again until he felt the bed behind his knees. “I want to feel again what I only dimly remember feeling. How it was to lie naked in your arms. With your body warm against mine and your heart beating in rhythm with my own.” She threw her arms around him, and he lost his balance.
Together, they tumbled backward onto the bed, and she kissed him without reservation. “I want everything you want. And I have wanted it for a very long time.”
“Livy.” He moaned and wrapped his arms around her, pulling her tighter against him. He would make it up to her. He would make it all up to her every day for the rest of her life.
Her mouth opened to his, and he drank of her, reveling in her taste. Of wine and what they had once and the promise of what they now had again.
She tore at his clothes and he struggled with hers and all the while their hands were on each other. He could not touch her enough, and she responded in kind. His mind fogged with lust and desire and love. Their movements grew more and more frantic, more and more desperate. He fumbled with the closures of her gown, and she tugged at his coat and pushed it off his shoulders. Her dress slid down around her waist and she wiggled out of it and kicked it aside. His lips met her lips, her neck, her shoulders. She pulled his cravat from his neck, and he drew his shirt over his head and tossed it away. He trailed kisses over her shoulders and lower to the swell of her breasts, revealed above her corset. He loosened her stays with fingers clumsy with need and pulled free her corset. She groped at the buttons of his trousers, and her hands slipped beneath the fabric to caress his naked flesh. He wasn’t sure how it happened, but abruptly it seemed their clothes were scattered on the bed and the floor. And she lay naked beside him.
For a moment, he could do nothing but savor the look of her, her fair hair and warm skin colored in shades of peach and pink. Her breasts were full and firm, her hips shapely, her stomach softly rounded.
“Sterling.” She reached out to him. “This is not a fear I have yet to face.”
“Excellent,” he murmured, and pulled her close, nuzzling that delightful spot where neck met shoulder. His hands roamed over her, lightly skimming along the side of her body, then sliding to the small of her back, gathering her close to press against him. Her breasts crushed against his chest. Her skin was exquisite, warm, and like fine silk beneath his fingers. His hand cupped her derriere, caressing and molding. He told himself to slow, to savor every intoxicating moment, to think of her pleasure, but she would have none of it and demanded more.
He cupped her breast and took the nipple gently between his teeth and flicked his tongue over the hard tip. She gasped and arched toward him. He toyed and teased and shifted his attention to her other breast, his fingers tracing light circles on her stomach and drifting lower to slip between her legs. She was slick with desire, and he slid his fingers between the soft folds of flesh and stroked her. She writhed beneath his touch, her hands grasping his shoulders.
He drew back and watched her face. Watched cautious enthusiasm melt to rapture. She was lost in the sensations he provoked, and he was lost in unbridled need.
He shifted to position himself between her legs, then guided himself slowly into her. She was tight and hot and wet with wanting him, and he slid into her with a moan of sheer pleasure. He stroked slowly, trying to resist the aching need for release at once tightening within him. She wrapped her legs around him, urging him on, deeper and faster.
He withdrew a bare fraction at a time until only the head of his cock touched her, then thrust hard into her. Her muscles tightened around him, and he throbbed within her. Her moans surrounded him and mingled with his own. He pulled back and thrust again. She rocked her hips against his, matched his thrusts with hers, his passion with her own. Over and over he drove into her. Over and over she pulled him deeper. He lost himself in the exquisite feel of her, the pleasure of the joining of their flesh, the joy of the meshing of their souls. Until he could no longer fight the release that threatened to tear him part.
He slipped his hand between them and stroked her until he felt her tense around him. Her body shuddered against his. She called out his name and arched upward, her nails digging into this shoulders. And his own release exploded within him. His body jerked with spasm after spasm of sheer pleasure. He groaned and thrust again, then once more, his seed filling her, claiming her. Until at last he collapsed against her, savoring the feel of him inside her, of her body pressed to his. Joined. One. For now and for always.
They lay together entwined in each other’s arms, her heart beating in tandem with his. Her breath was labored, and he struggled to catch his own. He stroked her hair and felt her sigh against him. A sigh of contentment and satisfaction and, surely, of love.
“Oh my.” She giggled against him, the delightful girlish sound he had never forgotten tugged at his heart. He grinned although he felt rather like giggling himself.
“ ‘Oh my’ indeed,” he murmured.
She raised her head and stared into his eyes, her green eyes dark with passion. “Was that, well, normal?”
He laughed. “ ‘Normal’?”
“I mean is . . .” Her brows drew together. “Well, is that supposed to happen? That rush of . . . oh my. It’s not odd or unusual?”
“Did you find it odd or unusual?”
“I found it extraordinary.” She grinned in amazement. “Really quite . . . extraordinary. And wonderful.”
He tightened his arm around her. “It happens when a man is as concerned with your pleasure as he is with own.”
“I see. I had no idea . . . well, then you have my thanks.”
“The pleasure”—he kissed the tip of her nose—“was mine.”
She giggled again and curled against him. “Not entirely.”
They lay together, spent, for a few moments more. The late-afternoon sun poured into the room, turning her fair hair to gold and gilding her skin. The woman fairly glowed, which Sterling decided was not at all attributable to the Venetian light that poets and artists praised but rather the spirit and the beauty of the woman herself. And she was his.
“Now.” He kissed her lips, her nose, her forehead. “You shall have to marry me.”
She laughed. “Don’t be absurd.”
“I’m not being the least bit absurd. You have ruined me, and now you have to marry me.”
“I ruined you long ago.”
“And now it’s time to pay the piper.”
“I have no intention of marrying again.”
“And I intend to change your mind.”
“Furthermore, I would never marry anyone who considers doing so an obligation.”
“Neither would I.” He grabbed her hand and pulled it to his lips.
“I will not marry because I have no other choice,” she warned. “To save myself from genteel poverty.”
He kissed her palm. “Josiah will be so disappointed.”
“Therefore, if I do not win my inheritance, I will not marry.”
“I knew that.” He smiled into her eyes. “Which is why I will do whatever is required to help you succeed. Besides, it’s always wise to marry a woman with money.”
She laughed. “Or a man.”
“It was the question of money, you know,” he said slowly, “that should have made me realize your father was lying.”
“Oh?”
“He said that you had decided to marry Rathbourne because his fortune was greater than mine.” He smiled. “You were never especially concerned with wealth.”
“Because I was never without it.” She fell silent for a long moment. “When I sent you the first letter, the day after my father talked to you, before my marriage, I didn’t know the lengths my late husband would go to, to keep me. He didn’t know about the first letter, or the others, but he threatened to have you killed if I refused to marry him. If I so much as spoke to you. And I knew he would.”
His breath caught. “You married him to save me?”
“It isn’t as noble as it sounds. I didn’t see another choice.” She shrugged. “Your safety was the most important reason, but there was also my father to consider.” Her expression hardened. “Although, if I had not feared for your life, I would have thrown him to the wolves. I was confident you and I could weather any scandal.” She sat up, pulled up her knee
s, and wrapped her arms around her legs, resting her chin on her knees. “You should know it all now, I suppose.”
He rolled onto his side and propped his head in his hand. “Know what?”
“The reason my father made me marry. Why he traded my life for his.”
He studied her but didn’t say a word.
“As perverse as my late husband’s likes were . . .” She glanced at him. “Men are allowed to beat their wives, you know.”
He nodded. “I find it appalling. A man who would hurt anyone weaker than he because he is allowed to do so is no man at all.”
She cast him an absent smile, then turned her gaze toward the far wall and the past. “My father knew if his secret was made public, his life would be ruined. And mine as well, but I doubt that was a concern.” She paused to choose her words. “As I said, while the viscount’s preferences were unpleasant they were within his rights in regards to the law. My father . . .” She hesitated as if summoning her courage. “My father’s tastes did not run to women. He preferred men. Young men.”
“Good God!”
She shook her head. “I had no idea. The viscount took great pleasure in explaining to me in explicit detail my father’s perversions.”
“I am so sorry.” He sat up and pulled her into his arms. “You’re right though, we could have survived the scandal together.”
“It scarcely matters now.” She snuggled against him. “The threat to you and him is gone. And with any luck at all, I will soon have beaten my late husband at his own game.”
“Damnation.” He winced. “I had nearly forgotten although there is nothing we can do until morning.”
She pulled away and looked at him. “What now?”
“Josiah discovered a clause in the will that had somehow been overlooked.”
“A clause?” she said cautiously.
“Rather a nasty one too.” He blew a long breath. “If you attempt to complete the collections before a suitable period of mourning, Josiah and I interpret that as a year, then your time to gather the articles needed is limited.”
Desires of a Perfect Lady Page 24