This Wicked Gift (Carhart 0.5)

“I want one other thing,” he said. “When I touch you, I want you not to flinch.”


She frowned in puzzlement at this proclamation. As she bit her lip, she reached for the catch of her cloak. She fumbled with the ties, and then removed the wool from her shoulders, folding the cloth into a careful square. The dress underneath was a faded rose, the fabric old enough that it had shaped itself to the curves of her hips. He’d seen her in the gown before, but never while he stood close enough to touch.

She tugged on her left glove, loosening each finger before rolling the material down her arm. He noted, with some distraction, that there was a tiny hole in the index finger. Her fingers seemed impossibly slender.

“Very well,” she said. “I agree.”

He hadn’t really believed it would happen. He had passed last night, after he’d retrieved her brother’s note of promise, in a delirium of dazzled lust. But up until this moment, he’d expected her to walk away, snatched from him like all his other dreams. She removed her second glove, as slowly as she’d taken off the first, and aligned the two precisely before setting them atop her cloak. He swallowed. When she slid the pins from her hair, letting that coiled mass of cinnamon spill down her back, he realized he was really going to have her. Somehow, this impossible plan had worked.

If he were a gentleman, he’d stop now and send her on her way.

She turned her back to him—not, he realized, to hide her face. No, Lavinia didn’t shrink from him. Instead, she lifted the mass of her hair so that he could unlace her dress.

The gesture gave him a perfect view of the back of her neck. It was slim and long. He could make out the delicate swells of her spine. Up until this point, nothing truly untoward had happened, except in William’s mind. But once he touched her—once he unlaced that gown—it would be too late for them both. If he had any strength of character at all, he’d leave her untouched. But all his strength had turned into pounding blood, thundering through his veins. And if he had any will at all, it was directed toward this—this moment of heaven, stolen from the angel who had haunted his dreams for a year.

He would never find forgiveness if he took her, but then he’d been damned for a decade. All he would ever know of paradise was Lavinia. And so he laid his hands on her waist and claimed his damnation.

She was warm against his palms, and oh, it had been so long since he touched another human being. He leaned in and kissed the back of her neck. She tasted of lemon soap. His arms wrapped around her, drawing her against his body. She nestled against his erection, and by God, she did what he’d asked. She didn’t flinch. Instead, she sighed and leaned back into his arms, as if she enjoyed the feel of his touch.

“Miss Spencer,” he murmured in her ear.

“You’d better call me Lavinia.”

His fingers found the ties of her dress and unraveled them carefully. Then he slid the dress off her shoulders. Long muslin sleeves fell away to reveal creamy shoulders, milk-white arms. When the gown hit the floor, she turned in his arms. She was wearing nothing but stays and a chemise. Her skin was warm against his hands and she arched up toward him. Her lips parted. Her eyes shone at him, as if he were her lover instead of the man who’d forced her into this. She’d looked at him that way, just last night in the library. Surely, then, she hadn’t meant to invite a kiss.

He was not such a fool as to turn down that invitation twice. He kissed her, hard, savoring the feel of her lips against his. She tasted as sweet as a glass of water after a hard day’s labor, felt as welcome as sunshine in the darkness of winter. He pulled her into his embrace roughly. She twitched in surprise when his tongue touched her lips, but she opened her mouth with an eagerness that made up for any apparent inexperience.

He had to remind himself that she’d not chosen this, that he’d ordered her not to flinch from his advances. It was not real, the way she nestled in his arms. It was not real, the way her hands pressed against his back, pulling his thighs against hers. It was not real, the way she opened up to him. It was all a fraud, obtained through coercion.

He was impoverished enough that he’d take her caresses anyway.

She pulled away from him, but only to unlace her stays. As she lifted her arms above her head, a stray shaft of light came through the window and illuminated the outline of her legs through her chemise. She let her stays drop to the ground. She didn’t look up—no doubt suddenly ashamed, aware that William could make out the dusky purple of her areolae through her chemise. A shaft of heat rippled through William, and he could wait no longer.