by Jen Yates
‘This is madness,’ he muttered. ‘Divine madness.’
Their mouths came together with a reverent force that elicited a sighing moan of deep joy from Liberty.
This was what her whole being craved.
This man.
This madness.
Arms wrapped around one another, they clung, cleaved together, as if somehow their closeness could forge a sanctuary, a shield against all the forces that sought to separate them.
Levi’s tongue danced along the seam of her mouth and Liberty opened to him, met him with her own hungry foraging.
Impatience, need, passion rose in her. She pulled away, tugging at the fastenings of her cloak, dropping it to the floor and reaching for him again.
‘Dear God, Levi, I love you. I’ve told Papa I won’t marry Lord Earnslaw but he says it’s all settled. I have a week to—to come to terms with it, accept it. I told him I’ll never accept it. But you know Papa. He’s not listening to me. I love you. How can I—do that—with another man?’
Liberty slipped her hands in the thick dark locks of Levi’s hair and pulled his head back down to hers, sealing their lips together in a deep tongue-tangling kiss that left them both breathless and straining into one another.
‘Levi?’
‘Mmm?’
‘Ruin me.’ His big body jerked against hers and the hard ridge of his arousal was a blessed force against her belly. ‘Then whatever happens, you will have been my first.’
‘Dammit, Lou. Don’t tempt me.’
She’d never heard such raw desperation in his voice. Was he really going to play the honorable gentleman? Now? When she needed him to be as dishonorable as it was possible to be?
His hot, claiming lips pressed into the crook of her neck and his arms clung tightly as if he could never let her go.
‘Why not?’
The words were wrenched from her in a wail.
‘I’d be no better than your father believes me to be if I did that. And while there’s still hope, we should wait.’ His deep blue eyes were black with longing as he gazed down at her. ‘But—we could—I could—pleasure you without actually taking your virginity.’
‘But I want—’
He stopped her protest with his mouth, hot and hard and demanding.
‘So do I. So do I, sweetheart. I know what you want, and I’ll take care of that. But I’ll not risk getting you with child.’
Liberty couldn’t keep her hands from his shirt, tugging impatiently at the buttons and pulling it out of his trousers.
This might be her only chance to see the man he’d become.
Naked.
His only chance to see her as a woman.
They’d been children the last time they’d been naked together—innocents on the verge of awakening. Doubtless, Papa had been right to separate them.
Then.
But not now.
Now, they were meant to be together and if this was to be their only chance, she’d take every advantage.
‘Undress me,’ she demanded, and for several moments the only sound was the rustle of clothing being removed and the soft grunts and moans as their fingers tangled or teased against heated skin.
When they stood naked gazing at one another, Liberty thought she might burst from the all-consuming joy of it.
The boy had been beautiful in a wiry, unformed way. The man was a glorious sculpture of carved muscle over strong bones and his desire for her was rampant and gratifying—and oh so tempting.
Then she looked up into his eyes, for she wanted nothing more than to touch him, all over, but especially down there—which made her unaccountably shy and needing to ask for permission.
They’d never been shy around one another.
But this was different. A huge step beyond anything they’d ever done before.
It was no longer mischief.
It was something much more exciting and exhilarating.
Perhaps even terrifying.
Snagged by the blazing sapphire glow in his eyes, Liberty stood motionless, breathless, helpless—
‘What? What are you thinking?’
His voice was husky and deep and sent quivers of need dancing deeper into her blood, her fingers.
‘Can I touch you?’
Thank goodness he didn’t pretend to misunderstand. Her want was keen but her boldness had limits, it seemed.
‘I dream of you touching me, Lou. To actually have your hands on me will probably be more than I can handle—but touch me so I know—how your hands feel on my body.’
‘There?’ she whispered, glancing down.
‘Especially there,’ he growled softly, and Liberty reached out and tentatively curled her fingers around the rigid length of his penis and then thumbed across the pearl of liquid at the tip.
His whole body shuddered beneath her touch and when she looked up again, his eyes were screwed shut and his fingers curled about her shoulders with a curious kind of desperation.
Did he feel as tremulous she? As if she teetered on the edge of a crumbling precipice, knowing that to fall would mean unimaginable bliss.
Or irreparable disaster.
‘Does—does that mean—?’
His eyes flew open and blazed down at her.
‘That I’m desperate to be inside you, to love you, to make babies with you—but there are other ways we can satisfy each other without taking that risk. Without risking trouble for you, if you have to marry Lord—Cabbage Salad.’
‘Cabbage Salad!’ Liberty burst into giggles. ‘Oh God, it’s good to laugh. I don’t think I’ve really laughed since I came home from school—and definitely not about him. And I’ll not think about him now. This time is for us—and to hell with the consequences.’
Her hands skimmed up over the hard muscular ridges of his body and curled tightly around the back of his neck. Hard like a perfect marble sculpture. Warm and satiny, overlaid with the silken soft roughness of fine dark hair.
With her mouth only a breath away from his, she whispered against his lips.
‘Show me. Tell me how to pleasure you.’
A soft moan rumbled in his chest and his hands slid upwards to her throat. The pads of his thumbs caressed along her jawline and a burning hunger spread down and outwards from her deepest core.
He’d thumb-printed her jawline. It felt as if he’d claimed her. She was so ready to be claimed.
‘Anything you want to do, any way you wish to touch me will pleasure me. Allowing me to touch you, look at you, show you—will pleasure me. Your presence pleasures me more than I can ever explain to you, Lou. Being together—like this, pleasures me.’
With each averral his voice deepened, roughened. Eyes glistening, lips parted with the awe of the moment, he lowered his mouth to hers.
And filled her with the wonder and the shattering magic she’d seen in his eyes. Like an ember touching dry tinder, the press of his lips, the dance of his tongue, lit a spark in her blood, starting a conflagration like to consume them both.
Levi.
His hands caressed with the power of a benediction, from her shoulders, down the smooth planes of her back through the incurve of her waist, to reverently cup the globes of her buttocks.
How could the tensile kneading of his fingers there cause the breath to hitch in her lungs and a searing heat to spear to the very core of her?
Or was it the pressure of his hard naked body against the softness of hers, the rigidity of his penis against her belly? They were all sensations she’d only dreamt about till now and the reality stultified her breath and made her wish there was some way she could sear every moment, every sensation, every visual on her memory.
For even though her heart refused to accept the possibility this would be the only time they’d have together, her head knew once Papa had made up his mind there was no changing it.
Hands clamped about her buttocks, Levi lifted her up his body and carried her through a door into another room, where he laid her on a large bed.
/> ‘Wait,’ he whispered and left her there.
But he was soon back with the lantern, which he held aloft while he took in every aspect of her sprawled on his beautiful quilt, patch-worked in blues and greens with here and there a touch of red. The bed itself appeared to have been hand-carved like the furniture in the living area.
She would wish later she’d taken more note of the details of Levi’s home, but her eyes would not leave his, or his body. He was magnificent, all wide shoulders, narrow hips and muscles sculpted by hard physical work. A piece of living art.
‘You’re beautiful, Lou.’
Abruptly, he placed the lantern on the bedside cabinet and came over her on his hands and knees.
‘Seeing you here, on my bed, is a dream beyond price.’
Dropping to lie beside her, he cupped her face in his large hands and gently sealed their lips in a kiss that was such an anomaly of reverence, gratitude, love and desire Liberty could not have separated one impression from another if she’d been able to gather wit enough to think.
Thoughts, impressions, desires and ecstasy all tangled within her and she could only abandon herself to the force that was Levi.
Lowering his head he swiped his tongue over one beaded nipple and she jerked upwards at the sensation streaking through her body and centering deep in her core.
It was too much.
Not enough.
She needed more.
‘Levi—God—please.’
‘Please what, my love?’ he rasped, laving her other nipple then drawing it deep into his mouth and suckling hard.
Her shoulders pressed into the mattress, her hips arched upwards, and incoherent pleas moaned from her throat.
She’d known together they’d make a lyrical kind of music, magic.
Madness.
‘Levi, please, oh God, please—’
When his hand eased between her thighs and began caressing upwards, her legs easily parted, her most sensitive female flesh welcoming his exploration, needing it.
Her own hands could not stay still, sought to memorize and tantalize every inch of his body. The texture of his skin, the resilience of muscle over the long strong lines of his bones elicited a hunger in her only he could assuage.
‘Oh sweet heaven,’ she whispered hoarsely, when his fingers found a particular small knot of nerves that almost lifted her off the bed. ‘What are you doing?’
‘Pleasure, Lou, pleasure.’
His mouth left her breast and immediately she was writhing upwards, seeking the glorious sensation again. His hand replaced his mouth, twisting a nipple between thumb and finger while his mouth and tongue tasted and suckled down over the taut skin of her ribs to the softer flesh of her belly.
Stopping to dip into her navel, he rimmed it with his tongue and nibbled with his teeth until Liberty was giggling and wriggling, but he refused to let her free. His big hands, one alternating between her nipples and the other cupping and delving into her most private recess, held her down, kept her at his mercy.
She was laid out for Levi’s pleasure, for her pleasure, and nothing had ever felt so right.
His kisses and nibbles traced a fiery path down onto her mound, his lips nuzzling heatedly into the dark red curls down there.
‘Levi! What—?’
Her hands flew to his head, trying to halt him.
‘Hush, Lou. Let me love you. Let me show you.’
‘Dear God—’
Her powers of articulation had seriously deteriorated. What Levi was doing? It couldn’t be right, but—
‘Please don’t stop!’
His deep rumbling chuckle vibrated against that knot of nerves he’d been teasing with his finger and now his tongue was rasping across it, inside her, down there—
‘Levi!’ His name left her lips in a gasping shriek as something broke loose from deep inside her, shattering in shards of brilliance and ecstasy, leaving her limp with satiation and wonder. ‘What was that?’
He crawled back up her body, wrapped her in his arms and covered her mouth with his and Liberty tasted her own essence.
She’d never known. Any of it. What if—?
‘Can—can I do that to you?’
A groan against her lips was his only answer and from the tone of it, and the pressure of his penis against her belly, she deduced that was a decided yes.
Breaking the kiss, she pushed at his shoulders, pressing him back onto the pillows.
‘My turn,’ she whispered, sitting back on her haunches to appreciate the splendor of being with him like this. The splendor of him. ‘You’ve become a beautiful man, my love. I tried to imagine, but—the last time I saw you naked you were twelve years old. You’ve grown somewhat since then and, some parts of you, exponentially.’
***
Chapter 5.
‘Dammit, Lou, I’ve dreamed of this. I’ll likely go off like a cannon if you put your mouth on me. You might not like it.’
She was nibbling and suckling at his nipples and already he was struggling to hold himself together. The need to explode was building an unbelievable tension in his balls that was spreading into the base of his spine with an insidious power.
Liberty Lou. Had. Her. Mouth. On. Him.
He’d not understood what that would do to him. Her intimate touch frayed every last thread of his being.
‘If I suckle you, you will—?’
‘Explode. Messily. In your mouth. You might not like it.’
Please God, let her like it.
‘Or I might? It's alright—to—to swallow it?’
So goddamn innocently erotic.
‘Fuck, you don't have to do that—’
Her lips closed over the throbbing head of his penis and her tongue licked the drop of pre-cum seeping from the tip. He could only groan and buck beneath her hands—one of which was closed about the base of his cock and the other gently cupping his balls.
Heaven. The only way it got any better than this was if he could actually fuck this woman, love her in the deepest possible meaning of the word.
She was killing him. Had stolen his every intelligent thought, restraint, control.
If only the incredible sensation of Lou’s tongue, teeth and lips pleasuring his cock could last forever.
‘Goddammit, Lou, that's amazing—fuck! I'm coming!’
Fingers tangling deep in her hair, he tried to urge her to lift her head. Either he wasn't trying hard enough or she wasn't understanding what he was trying to communicate.
Like an old seam ripping under pressure, ecstasy tore him apart.
Gripping him more tightly, she suckled every last drop from him—and swallowed it.
His heart kicked against his ribs with the force of a rogue stallion. Breath surged from his lungs leaving him gasping and groaning for air and stunned he’d shouted in the power of the moment.
Christ. She’d damned near wrenched his soul from its moorings.
‘Dear God, Lou,’ he rasped, struggling to drag breath into his lungs, and to wrap this precious woman in his arms and somehow convey the depth of his pleasure all at once. ‘How the hell can I let you go?’
Her fingers convulsed around his softening cock and she lifted her head.
‘I can't—won't—do that with anyone else, Levi. I just can't. That has to be—ours alone.’
The hint of vulnerability in her voice ripped at the place inside him where only she resided. He twisted his fingers through the silk of her hair, imprinting the texture, the springy resilience of it, on his touch-memory.
His mind was starting to function again, although he seemed to have lost any capacity for civility.
If either Stannesford or the Earl of Earnslaw stood before him now he’d tear them apart with his bare hands. If only he could spirit her away where no one would ever find them.
But she didn’t need him adding to her misery in this moment.
‘You could play the ‘lady’ card, and tell him if he wants that he can go visit his mistress. Most gent
lemen keep one, I believe,’ he said instead.
She crept up his body, wrapped her arms about his neck and pressed her lips against his cheek.
‘I've not given up hope of making Papa listen to me, love.’
Emotion gripped the back of his throat and threatened to engulf him.
If she still believed she could win against her father, he was terribly afraid she was going to learn a bitter lesson. He had to get control of his faculties, help her understand what they faced, give her hope they would find a way to be together.
Most likely not in the immediate future. But an elderly husband gave them more hope than a healthy younger man. Surely?
‘Realistically, Lou? You may not have a choice.’ Then his determination to hold his bitterness within, failed him. ‘I want to kill the bastard for taking you from me, for daring to think he can have you, but his age is in our favor. He will die—sooner rather than later. And then we can be together. I’ll wait, my love. For as long as it takes.’
Liberty snuggled closer against his chest, trusting him. Loving him. He relished the closeness and the momentary power and comfort of that trust.
What if they could never be together like this again?
But what if they could?
‘Nanette gave me the wicked idea that once I'm married I might have discreet affairs. Apparently that is—done—in some marriages but—’
Even as his heart leapt with the awful hope, he bowed beneath a corresponding swoop of despair.
In his heart he knew it could never be.
‘You wouldn't feel right about that, Lou. It would destroy your mind. I know you. When you make a vow—’
She buried her face against his neck and inhaled. As if memorizing the scent of him.
‘Then I vow—to withstand Papa—until he listens to me when I say—I won't marry anyone but you.’
The words were breathed against his skin, emphasized by soft, heated kisses.
Like punctuation points in a sentence.
He cupped her head and held her so she could see the promise in his eyes.
‘And I vow to wait as long as it takes,’ he told her. ‘And I want to hear you moan and scream for me again, my love. I want to be able to remember the sound in my dreams. I want you to remember.’