Ava blinked. She supposed Laura meant her. That she would break this cycle of hate and ruin.
Only she wasn’t certain she could.
Laura finished a few touches on her hair and then stepped back. “Was there anything else you required?”
“Will you bring me paper and a writing instrument?” Ava asked. “I am to write a letter to my brother today that the duke says I may post. You may ask him if you are uncertain. I would like to write it immediately.”
Laura nodded stiffly. “Yes. I will ensure your letter reaches your brother. If you write it, I shall post it myself.”
“Excellent. Thank you, Laura.”
The maid slipped from the room to find the paper, and Ava sank back against the chair with a sigh. She was trapped between two men who very well could destroy each other…and her in the process. And if Laura was correct that someone else would have to intercede to ensure the correct outcome, that meant her letter to Liam would have to be carefully worded indeed.
Chapter Seventeen
Christian barely glanced up from his work as Ava entered his office, though he was utterly aware of her every breath, her every movement, her every look.
“Have you finished your letter?” he asked, knowing how cold his tone was, forcing it to be frigid so she wouldn’t know how he felt.
She hesitated. “Yes. I gave it to Laura.”
“Good, I’m certain she’ll manage the posting of the item,” he said, glancing up before he returned to a line of figures in the ledger before him.
“Did you go on your walk?” she asked after a few uncomfortably silent moments.
“No.”
She stepped closer. “It truly will help you to remain active as you heal.”
He ground his teeth, set down his pen and looked up at her. “Your advice, as well as your pity in my situation, is duly noted, my lady.”
He expected her to crumble, but her face brightened with anger as she folded her arms.
“Oh, for heaven’s sake, Christian, I do not pity you.” She paced away with a frustrated exhalation of breath. “Not for anything except that you are so blind to anything around you that does not fit your sour view.”
“My sour view?” he repeated, getting to his feet and striding toward her without the support of his cane.
“Yes.” She spun to face him. “You have decided there are certain truths and you refuse to see anything that is different than those things.”
“And what are my truths, Ava, since you know me so well after one week in my bed?” He laughed, but there was no humor to the sound.
She flinched ever so slightly, but continued despite any pain or humiliation she might have felt at his retort. Once again, he was impressed by her inner strength.
“You have decided hatred is to be your constant companion,” she began, ticking one finger as if she were counting. “That you must follow a path laid out for you by your father or your grandfather or some great-grandfather none of us ever met.”
“Says the woman whose family followed the exact same path as my own,” he retorted with a shake of his head.
“I never said they were better,” she said on a sigh. “But at some point someone will have to stop this nonsense, Christian. Only you refuse to be that bigger man because you are trapped in this brutal, stupid cycle. It is the same with your injuries.”
“Is it?” he asked, his tone icy as he tried to ignore the truth of her statements. “Do tell.”
She reached for him, grabbing his forearm gently as she looked up at him. “You are so convinced that you are broken by your injuries. And that everyone around you who treats you with kindness must do so out of pity. That is your excuse for pushing them, for pushing me, away.”
She leaned even closer, and he couldn’t back up. Not when he could smell her skin, feel her warmth permeate every part of him.
“I do not pity you,” she whispered. “At least not for your scars. In fact, I admire you for living with that pain. By now many other men would have lost themselves in laudanum and locked themselves away forever.”
“Ava—” he murmured.
She shook her head. “I do not feel pity for you,” she repeated, then lifted to her tiptoes and pressed her lips to his. “This is not pity.”
He cupped the back of her head and kissed her again, reveling in how her lips opened on a sigh, and she lifted her arms around his neck with a murmur of pleasure that seemed to reverberate through his entire body before it settled in his throbbing loins. No matter how much he should distance himself from his woman, his body, his mind, even his very soul, would not allow it. Not when he was driven to touch her, taste her, claim her.
And he did not deny himself that drive. He cupped her backside and dragged her fully against him, allowing her to feel the increasing hardness of his cock against her belly.
She hissed out a moan of pleasure at the melding of their bodies and deepened the kiss, driving her tongue into his mouth, winding it around his own in an ancient dance of pleasure and need.
She leaned into him, guiding him backward until he bumped into the desk. He perched there, dragging her into the space between his legs, cupping her against him until there was no light between them, no air.
“This is where I first thought you would take me,” Ava said as she pulled back and slipped her hands beneath his jacket. As she removed it, she gave him a wicked smile. “At the time, the idea frightened me. But now…”
“Now?” he asked, reaching around to unfasten her dress even as she was racing to open his shirt.
“Now I want to feel you take me in…what did you call it? A drafty office where a servant could knock at any moment?” She stepped back and lifted her gown away.
He stared, still mesmerized as ever by the beauty of her form. She was so lithe and lovely, so graceful and yet so strong in her spirit. He had thought he could break her when he took her.
Now he knew she would never be broken. And he envied her for that inner strength. For her confidence that she controlled her own happiness and refused to turn it over to any other person.
Perhaps if he delved deeply enough into her body, into her heart, he could take some of her power with him when they parted. A final gift from a woman who used his attempts to make her into a weapon of war, and instead embarked on a mission of peace.
“Sit where I am,” he said, his voice rough as he moved to give her his place on the edge of the desk.
She arched a questioning brow but did as he asked, perching on the wooden surface in her thin chemise that just barely covered her sex.
He dragged a chair to where she sat, then even closer, between her. As he took his place, he looked up at her for a moment, and it was clear she knew his intent. Already her breath came unsteadily as she lifted the edge of her chemise and moved to grant him greater access to the center of her womanhood, the apex of her pleasure.
He opened her legs wider, placing his hands just inside her thighs and looked at the pussy before him. She was pink and already wet and waiting. He could smell the musk of her desire on the air, sweet and uniquely hers. It was maddening, and just a whiff made him even harder, enough that he had to shift in his chair to adjust for his burgeoning erection.
He placed his thumbs on the outer lips of her sex and spread her open before he lowered his mouth to taste her. She jolted as he lazily traced her folds with just the tip of his tongue.
She gripped at the desk top, scraping her fingers across the smooth surface as she struggled for a grip to hold her steady. Her gasps grew louder as he covered her clitoris for a brief moment, sucking the sensitive bundle of nerves and rolling it between his teeth gently.
“Christian!” She bucked up, demanding with her hips and cries.
Demands he ignored as he abandoned the focus of her pleasure and instead went back to languidly licking her slit over and over. She lifted her hips against him as he found a rhythm, stroking her entrance with firm swipes of his tongue. She was moaning in earnest now, layi
ng halfway back on his desk, not caring as she knocked papers and quills to the floor.
And he didn’t care, either. Watching her lose control like a wanton was very much worth any tidying he would be forced to do when the encounter was over.
He focused once more on her abandoned clitoris, swirling his tongue around the bud first with light pressure, then increasing it bit by bit, swipe by swipe until she was shaking, just on the edge of orgasm.
With a moan of his own he sucked her hard and pressed two fingers deep into her slit. She lifted off his desk with a scream of pleasure that likely echoed through most of the house. Her hips flailed as she reached for more, for further release. And he gave it to her, mercilessly continuing his torment even after she had flopped against the desk, still except for the occasional quiver from a tremor of release.
Only when she was utterly spent did he withdraw from her wet body and stand. He drew her to her feet and turned her around. She bent over the desk without arguing and lifted her still twitching body to him.
He wrestled his cock free from his trousers and speared her with one smooth thrust. She bucked with a second orgasm almost immediately. He pounded into her without finesse, without thought beyond wanting to explode with blinding release. He clung to her hips, grinding into her and suddenly, without warning, his orgasm gripped him. He barely pulled from her clinging flesh and cried out as his seed spurted into his hand.
He fell over her, cupping her body with his own, clinging to her as his heart throbbed and his body soared with pleasure so powerful he could almost forget every other thing in his world except for her.
Almost.
He stood up and took her hand to help her rise to her own feet. She lifted to her tiptoes and kissed him gently, then bent to pick up her dress. She stepped in and turned her back.
“Will you help me?” she asked.
He nodded and stepped toward her. He buttoned her gown, pressing a quick kiss to her neck that she settled back against with a moan and a smile.
“Did you tell him where you are?” he asked.
He was surprised he had asked the question. It had been on his mind since that morning, but he had never intended to voice it. To show her how much her reaching out to a man he despised affected him.
She tensed and did not answer for a moment. When she did, her voice was strained as she whispered, “My brother?”
He nodded as he smoothed the fabric on her shoulders and stepped away. “Yes.”
“No,” she said, pivoting to face him and looking him straight in the eye. “I told him I was well, I was safe and that I would be home by month’s end. I told him not to worry. It won’t help, but at least he’ll know I’m alive.”
He pursed his lips together, uncertain why her answer should cause him so much pleasure when it meant his enemy’s suffering would end.
“I’m here, Christian,” she whispered as she reached out to cup his cheek with her palm. “And you are the only one who will drive me away before my time. The future, in this case, is entirely up to you.”
She patted his cheek gently and turned to leave the room. “Now I am going on that walk we discussed. If you’d like to accompany me, I’d enjoy the companionship.”
For a moment, he considered denying her, staying in his office. After all, they had only a short time left together and it did not do to create false bonds. But as he watched her walk away, he couldn’t do it. He couldn’t pretend he didn’t want to be with her. Not just in body, but in every other way.
He caught up his cane and followed her from the chamber. Only her words rang in his ears as they walked outside and into the garden.
The future was in his hands. But there would never be a future with this woman. And if she could make him so very weak, it was time to remember that before it was too late.
Something had changed between them. Ava knew that as she sat across from Christian that night at the supper table.
Of course, their relationship had always been one built on shifting sands. A revenge plot, a kidnapping, a desperate bargain and then a connection neither of them had expected.
Only now, he was seated as far away as he could be at the table. He hardly looked at her as he picked at his food.
She drew in a breath. He was so very hard to read and figure out. Worse was why she wanted to do just that. Had she not completed her purpose here, to save her brother’s life?
So why was she still so driven to get closer to this man who fought just as hard to keep her at arm’s length?
“Is there any news from London?” she asked, motioning to the paper the butler had left beside his plate earlier in the evening.
He looked up and shook his head. “I have not looked yet. I find this particular London paper is filled mostly with Society rot. Does such banality entertain you?”
She pursed her lips at his obvious attempt to cut her down.
“’All the world’s a stage’, as the Bard once quipped. We are simply its players. As a wallflower, I am often exposed to both the worst and best of Society’s membership. They do not seem to notice if I observe them.”
“So you claim the gossip sheets are merely a form of investigation into human nature?” he asked, dabbing his mouth with his napkin.
Ava hesitated. “I suppose so. It isn’t as if women of my station can do much else, as we are not allowed to pursue a vocation outside our homes. Marry or turn an old maid who comments on the folly of others would be our two choices.”
He frowned, and for the first time that evening, she could see she may have pierced some of the barrier he had erected between them.
“That is a dire prediction,” he said.
She shrugged. “I do not consider it to be. Many old maids are very happy.”
Of course, as she said it, she could not think of a one. She shifted as she put the troublesome thought from her mind.
“Let me see the paper if you have no interest.” She held out a hand.
He held the item out at the very end of his reach, and she took it. Quickly, she skimmed the front page. There was little of interest to her there, so she flipped to the Society page. And the very first line made her heart almost stop.
Lady Ava, sister of the Earl of Windbury, remains missing in shocking potential kidnapping.
She stared at Christian for a moment, trying to control her reaction to her own name in the Society pages. She had not graced those pages in years. Not since she first came out and there was some idea she might be a success.
She read the article and flinched as it detailed with salacious glee how she had vanished from a party and that the Duke of Rothcastle had disappeared at the same time. Of course the speculation ran wild.
And much of it was not very far from the mark.
She shivered. Oh yes, this was exactly what Christian had hoped for when he snatched her, and what she had expected. But to see her fall in black and white as the first story on the Society page still made her stomach quiver with humiliation.
“What is that expression?” Christian asked.
She started. “I’m sorry, I didn’t realize you were watching me.”
He arched a brow. “I am always watching. And normally you do not have such a mournful appearance. What is in the paper that distracts you?”
She swallowed, uncertain how he would react. If he was angry, that would be terrible. If he took glee in her fall…that might be worse.
“It seems,” she began, pushing her unwanted food away and rising to move closer to him, “that your hopes for creating further scandal for my family have worked.”
She set the article in front of him and then walked to the fire. She faced the flames, silent as she thought of the fallout when she returned to London. She could very well never be invited out again. Any remaining friends, beyond dearest Portia, of course, would finally abandon her. Her aunt would rail and scream.
And her brother…well, Liam would only see this as another reason to hate and fight to destroy Christian.
“Great God,” he murmured behind her.
She turned and saw his face was paper pale as he set the article away.
“You needn’t look so mournful,” she whispered. “This is everything you wanted, is it not? And everything I knew would happen when I agreed to your bargain.”
“But seeing it—” he began, then broke off.
She rubbed her arms, suddenly cold. “Yes. Seeing it is a bit different.”
The door to the dining room opened, and a servant stepped in with wine and to clear the dishes. Christian waved him off and they were left alone again. He pushed to his feet and leaned heavily on his cane as he moved toward her.
“Ava…” He lifted his free hand.
She shook her head. “Oh please, let us not begin the apologies for something that was planned. What has happened is your revenge. It is the price for my brother’s safety. I was willing to pay it or I would not have stayed here with you.”
He opened his mouth, but no words came out. He then nodded, gave her a small bow and said, “Then I will not speak of it further. Excuse me.”
To her shock, he pivoted on his heel and stepped from the room, leaving her alone with the full weight of both Society’s judgment and the knowledge that what Christian had done now weighed heavily on both of them.
And thanks to it, neither of them would ever be the same again.
Chapter Eighteen
Ava paced her room the next day, her emotions a riot she could not fully comprehend. She was still embarrassed by the Society article she had seen about herself. But she was also taken aback by Christian’s reaction to it.
He had not spoken to her again after he left the room the night before. As far as she knew, he had gone to his chamber, locked the door and not come out at all since.
His pain, which she had guessed fed his anger for so long, was more palpable than ever now. And she was driven by a strange and powerful urge to ease it. Perhaps that was the only gift she could give him now.
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