chapter Seven
H
e halted his progress toward her, holding her gaze. “Stop what?”
What words could she use? “I don’t want to be a job, a task, an obligation.”
His expression darkened. “You’ve known me for a week, Vivian. This is business. Pleasurable business, one hopes, but business. I am being paid for what happens here, and you are being compensated too, with a lifetime of motherhood.”
“I know.” She sat on the bed, disgruntled, impatient, and not at all willing to be seduced. “But sometimes people can be friends when they’ve business to transact. William is friends with his cronies from the Lords. They argue, fight, and scheme against one another, but they’re friends.”
“Interesting form of friendship.” Darius lowered himself beside her. “I can’t have you getting silly notions, Vivvie. When you leave here, we’re done.”
“You’ve said as much.”
“It has to be that way, for the sake of the child.” He took her hand, which was some consolation. “You cannot have this child raised with rumors regarding paternity. Whispers like that haunt a person. I know, because they’ve haunted my sister Leah her entire life and excused all manner of poor behavior on my father’s part.”
“That is dreadful.”
“More dreadful for her, but you comprehend that when we’re done with this little winter idyll, Vivian, we’re strangers again. Worse than strangers, because a man of my reputation would seldom cross your social orbit unless I’m escorting my sister.”
“I don’t believe that.” She leaned against him, resenting his insistence on this discussion. He was an earl’s spare, and they often became MPs, and she entertained MPs in quantity at William’s table.
“Believe it.” He petted her hand. “The people I keep company with late at night would make you cringe, Vivvie. They’ve turned being mean into a hobby. You don’t want them getting wind we were connected.”
She stayed silent—she could hardly argue this point—until he leaned over and kissed her cheek. “This is not lighthearted conversation, and flirtation should be lighthearted, my lady.”
“Is that what you call it?”
“I honestly don’t know what to call it.” He rose, his tone both impatient and amused. “I intend to pleasure you tonight, Vivvie. So make your decision about the lawn tent.”
He stepped out of his breeches, folding them over a chair with the rest of his clothes, then got the warmer, filled it with coals, and ran it over the sheets. Something about the matter-of-fact, any-night-of-the-week nature of the activity gave Vivian courage. If he could consider this a passing romp, so could she. She dragged the lawn tent over her head and stood by the side of the bed, clutching it to her chest.
Because then again, she had no notion of what a romp, any romp, entailed.
“Brave Vivvie.” He set the warmer aside. “Your courage will be rewarded.”
His smile told her how much he approved as he crossed the room in a few slow, easy strides. He stood right next to her, naked, reminding her of how tall and muscular he truly was, but thank Jesus and the angels, he didn’t tug the nightgown away.
He leaned down and ran his nose along the curve of her shoulder. Because her hands were full of nightgown, she could only stand there and let him inspect her naked person with his nose.
“Relax, Vivvie.” She felt him tugging on the nightgown gently. “The bed is nice and warm, we have all night, and you’re going to enjoy it.”
She nodded, but his nose tickled where he ran it over her shoulder. Then his lips settled at that spot where her shoulder joined her neck, and Vivian comprehended what it meant when a woman’s knees went weak.
“Hold on to me, Vivvie,” he coaxed, and she did, with one hand on his bicep and the other clutching her nightgown to her chest. He pushed her with his chest until she was sitting on the bed, him looming over her, kissing her cheek, her jaw, her temple, and sending heat cascading out along her limbs. He stood between her legs, denying her his mouth on hers until Vivian let the nightgown go and used both hands in his hair to hold him still so she could kiss him properly.
Improperly, she corrected herself, opening her mouth immediately under his. But still, he was damnably coy, only teasing her with his tongue before skating away to press a kiss to her cheek or take her earlobe into his mouth.
She flinched. “That tickles.”
“Behold.” He held her gaze with amused solemnity. “She drops the nightgown.” He went to his knees between her legs and wrapped his arms around her waist before Vivian could recover her shield. “You’re as lovely as I imagined you’d be, and your nipples are the exact right shade of pink.”
“Hush,” she managed, but he was pressing his cheek to her exposed breast, ignoring the nightgown pooled in her lap. “I want the candles out.”
“You won’t, later,” he promised, taking one nipple in his mouth. And just when Vivian’s back arched into the heat of that mouth, he rose abruptly and began blowing out candles. “Though I’ve no doubt we’ll both be too weak to leave the bed, so maybe blowing the candles out now is a good idea.” He paused between candles to give her a brooding look. “Safer.”
But it did not help, not one bit, to see his lean, naked flanks gilded by firelight, to see the red highlights in his sable hair, to see the night shadows on the handsome planes of his face.
He came back to the bed and considered her. “How about if we fold this”—he raveled up her nightgown—“at the foot of the bed?”
She let him have it, one handful at a time, knowing her blush was obvious even in subdued light. She turned her face away when he had the entire garment, and sat naked before a man for the first time in her life. He took an eternity to drape the nightgown across the bottom of the bed, and when he turned back to her, Vivian could see the beginnings of arousal stirring his…
She nodded at his parts. “What does one call this?”
“I’ll tell you later. Touch me, Vivvie.”
She knew it was probably not what came next, but she put her arms around his waist and pressed her face against his flat stomach. Yes, she could feel him, feel the soft mass of his genitals against the rise of her breast, but she hadn’t the courage to do more than hold him, hiding her face against his ribs.
His hand came down on her hair, starting a slow massage at the back of her head, and she realized he’d give her all the time she needed to find her way through this.
She realized something else: All night wasn’t going to be nearly long enough.
***
She was throwing him completely off stride, with her modesty, and her… inexperience. For a lady married five years, Vivian had no sense of herself as a woman, and Darius felt a passing irritation for her. Older men might lack resilience, but they were experienced, for God’s sake. William should have been considerate enough out of sheer gratitude to have given Vivian some confidence.
But here she was, twined around his waist in an embrace so odd and dear he didn’t know quite what to make of it.
And having her wrapped around him was arousing. Usually, his degree of arousal was completely within his control, a matter of willing a response to occur, or willing it not to occur. Some men could throw darts with deadly accuracy, others sang beautifully even when sober; Darius could muster a cock stand on command.
Or not.
He bent over her and tugged on her hair to bring her face to where he could kiss her on the mouth. She slid her arms around his neck, urging him closer, and the shy command in her behavior made him smile against her lips.
“Get into bed, Vivvie,” he whispered, “where you can have your way with me.”
He pressed his cheek against hers for an instant, wanting to feel her blush heat his skin. She scooted back and was under the covers before he could peek at much of anything, but he’d seen enough already to have his cock on the rise.
And for once, he hadn’t had to think his way to an erection. It was just there, along with a growing sense of happy anticipation.
Until he recalled: he was being paid for this.
“Now what, Mr. Lindsey?”
“Whatever you please.” Darius followed her onto the bed. “The kissing was just getting started.”
“You like to kiss?”
“Hmm.” He kissed her again, lingeringly, loving the way her arms came around him of their own accord and her fingers got tangled in his hair to tug him this way and that for her delectation. “I might.”
With her, he did, and there was a small shock in that. He used his mouth on Lucy, frequently, and occasionally on Blanche, and they certainly put their mouths on his body and each other’s, but he didn’t kiss them on the mouth. An unspoken rule, one he hadn’t understood at the time he’d made it.
He understood it now. Kisses were to be given, not bought.
“I like kissing you,” he admitted, seaming her lips with his tongue. “I like it a lot.”
“Mmm.” Which, he supposed translated to “As do I” when considered in conjunction with the way she was sighing into his mouth. He angled his body half over hers, half along it, and slipped an arm under her neck. She paused in her kissing and turned her face into his shoulder.
“Now what?”
“Do you think there’s a list somewhere, Vivvie?” He slid a hand down her thigh and tugged her leg over his hip. “Kiss three to five minutes, fondle at least two minutes. Mount, thrust, spend, wait nine months, name baby?”
She blinked up at him in the firelight, and he could see her trying to think. The way passion slowed her busy brain and softened her eyes was lovely.
“Here’s my list.” He nudged at her belly with his cock. “Kiss her until she’s mindless with it, feast my hands on the glory of her body until she’s begging for my cock, swive her until she explodes with pleasure more times than she can count, repeat steps one through three until she lies sleeping and sated in my arms.”
“Begging?”
“Begging.” He kissed her temple, more than a little surprised that all this blather was the honest truth. “Pleading, demanding, praying for me to give her what she craves.”
“Gracious, everlasting God.”
“Kiss me, Vivvie,” he whispered in her ear then drew her earlobe between his teeth. He shifted so he was over her, but kept his cock off of her lest she become too… rushed.
Hell, lest he become too rushed.
And, by God, she’d gotten the knack of kissing him. Her tongue was bold and teasing, and just when he thought maybe it was time to slide down her body and show her what else a mouth could do, she bit his earlobe, and then his neck, and he had to retaliate by slipping a hand over her breast and tugging at one ruched nipple.
“Darius.” She whispered his name on such an exhalation of longing that Darius heard it in the throbbing tip of his cock. She laid her hand over his and closed her fingers. “More, please.”
Please was not begging, but it was importuning of a sort. He obliged, experimenting with the pressure and grip she liked, until she was arching her back and rolling her hips against him.
“Tell me what you want, Vivvie.” He levered up and twisted to get his mouth on that nipple.
“More, please, Darius… God.” He suckled the one and kept his fingers busy at the other, and she shifted restlessly beneath him, her hands trailing along the muscles of his back, into his hair, over his face, over his nipples.
He’d wanted to make her come a few times before they joined, out of pride, some, but also out of consideration for her. She’d been hesitant, and nothing overcame hesitance like pleasure, except his first plan didn’t seem quite… necessary.
“Darius?” She’d arched up against his cock and gone still, then he felt her hand, carefully shaping him.
The expedited approach was going to have to serve, pride be damned. He moved over her, nudging at her damp sex with his shaft.
“Kiss me.” He lowered his head, but she’d turned her face, so he concentrated on finding the entrance to her body.
“I’m not sure…” she began when he’d settled his mouth on the side of her neck, a spot he already knew made her melt, and her words trailed off until he’d found his target.
“Just relax, Vivvie,” he said, because she’d gone abruptly tense and silent. “Relax so I can bring you pleasure.” He pushed against her gently, feeling the sweet, wet warmth of impending bliss. The urge to thrust hard, to go home in her body was strong, but she tugged stoutly on his hair.
“I don’t think…” She inhaled again and held her breath, waiting.
He wasn’t hearing “no,” so Darius pushed again, more gently, and she stiffened even more.
“Darius, wait. I can’t…”
“Vivvie?” He rested his forehead against hers, his intellect telling him very clearly the lady was having second thoughts, while his body shouted with equal certainty this was no time for thoughts of any kind.
“I can’t do this.”
Well, of course. Last minute nerves, conscience, whatever. This was Vivvie, and nothing was simple with her.
“Am I hurting you?”
“You’re going to.”
“You’re not comfortable?”
“I’m very uncomfortable.”
“Here?” He gave a small but productive thrust, gaining him the first real increment of penetration. She yelped, and her body closed against him.
And not in passion.
“You see?” she muttered, teeth clenched.
He realized as he stayed poised just inside Vivian’s body that William’s disservice to her went deeper than he’d thought. In his infirmity or inconsideration or pure blind devotion to a dead woman, William Longstreet hadn’t shown Vivian even the barest consideration due between any two people sharing intimacies—on those few and distant occasions when he’d availed himself of his marital privileges at all.
“I won’t hurt you.” He smoothed a hand down her hair but could see even by the firelight she didn’t believe him.
“This won’t work,” she insisted, her expression miserable. “I’m sorry.”
“Vivian.” His tone came out more harsh than he’d intended, but the control he’d bragged of so easily was costing him. “Vivvie, don’t you want a baby? A child to hold, to love, to treasure?”
“I want a baby,” she said, near tears, “but I’m not suited to this… I just… I can’t…”
“Hush.” He kissed her forehead and withdrew. “We’ll go with another approach.”
“Another approach?” She sounded not at all reassured, even when he shifted to his back and held out his arms.
“Come here.”
She cuddled against him, apparently ready to be comforted, but he lifted her to straddle him, smiling at her surprise.
“What are we doing?”
“We’re getting you that baby,” he said, settling more comfortably on his back. “Mount up, my lady.”
“Mount…?”
He fished between their bodies to position himself, then arched up so she could feel his cock against her sex.
Her expression changed. “One can conceive like so?”
“Two can. You’ll have to kiss me back into the mood.” Which was a patent lie. His blood was nearly sizzling with the need to be inside her, to swive her silly.
“Kiss you.” She eyed him speculatively. “I suppose that will work.” She leaned down and brushed her lips over his.
“That’s it.” He slipped a hand over the ripe fruit of her breast. “This position has all sorts of advantages, now that I consider it.”
“Such as?” She brushed her lips over his again, and Darius thought she might have pressed the slightest bit down on his cock.
“I can fill my hands with the abundance of your lovely breasts.” He demonstrated, teasing at both nipples simultaneously. “If you like it, you should reward me, Vivvie.”
“Reward… you?”
“Give me a little more of what I crave.” He arched up minutely, and she didn’t resist. “What I need.”
He dug deep for mental and physical reserves he hadn’t had to draw on before, and let her nibble and tease her way down his cock. One kiss, one fondle, one sigh, one suckle, one nuzzle at a time.
He buried his hand in the hair at her nape, holding her over him several fraught, luscious minutes later. “I want to move, love.”
“Move?” Her voice was lazy, distracted, as if she were listening to some internal melody, and he hoped to God she was.
“Here.” He gave her one slow, controlled roll of his hips. “Let me move, Vivvie, please.”
“Do that again, slowly.” She looked thoughtful. He was inside her, not as deep as he’d like to be, but not just begging at her door, either. She sighed as he moved cautiously, and dropped her head.
“Just be careful.”
“Oh, I’ll be careful.” He gathered her close, meaning it. “So careful, but kiss me, Vivvie. Your kisses will help me take you slowly.”
Another lie, for her kisses had become languorous, lazy, decadent imitations of coitus that had him bowing up to devour her mouth even as his cock began to ply her with slow, careful precision.
“You’re all right, love?”
“Mmm.” She hung over him, and he took her nipple in his mouth, not willing that she be just all right. He suckled, teased, and stroked into her, letting himself go a little, but only a little.
“This is… different, Darius.”
“Not painful?”
“Uncomfortable.”
Damnable word. He went still. “You move, then. If it hurts, you show me what you’re comfortable with.”
“I didn’t say it hurt.” She tried a slow glide along his cock, and Darius nearly shouted with the pleasure bolting up his spine. “It’s… unsettling.”
“Arousing?”
She didn’t answer, her expression suggesting she was too inwardly focused.
“Don’t think so hard, Vivvie.” He brushed his fingers over her serious expression, unable to recall when bed sport had required so much talking. He didn’t ask her permission but shifted on a slow roll in counterpoint to her movement.
“Oh… my… gracious.”
“You like that?” He offered her a tad more and prayed for fortitude.
“It… helps. I think.”
“How about that?” He let another inch of the reins slip through his mental gloves. “Does that help more?”
“Mmm.” She folded down, depriving him of the sight of her face should her eyes go soft with further arousal, depriving him of the sight of her breasts, rosy from his attention, begging for more. But she anchored herself on his chest, telling him he was free to pleasure her with his cock—pleasure them both—so he spent a few minutes easing her along, getting her used to the push and drag of two bodies intent on one goal.
“Hold on to me, Vivvie,” he whispered, sneaking in a kiss to her temple and fitting one hand around a full breast.
She clung, and he kept his tempo slow but purposeful, until he could feel her losing her grip, shifting from considering the sensations gathering in her body to being swamped with them.
“Let it happen, Vivvie.” He anchored an arm across her back and thrust deep. “I owe you this. Let me give it to you.”
“Darius…?”
He’d wanted a pleasant little appetizer orgasm for her, an introduction to further pleasures as a way to gain her trust, like the promenade at the beginning of a ball. But the way she was panting and meeting him thrust for thrust told him she was going up fast, hard, and hot.
“Darius… what? Oh, Jesus save me…”
“I’ve got you.” Darius felt her body begin to flutter and grab at his cock. “Let yourself go, Vivvie. I’ve got you.” He held her tightly, curling up into her embrace even as he thrust deeply into her, seeking heat.
And he hadn’t meant to let himself come, but she convulsed around him hard, then harder still, and in the part of his mind not incoherent with pleasure, he heard the words, “Give her a baby.”
Bliss rippled up from their joining and washed out over his body in long, hot pulses, until he lost the sense of where his skin separated him from Vivian, or any other aspect of creation. He heard himself moan—he never moaned—and felt himself clutching at Vivian more desperately than he sought his next breath. His body gave itself up to drenching spasms of pleasure, until he realized that harsh, grating sound was his breathing, and he was going to suffocate Vivian if he didn’t turn loose of her.
“Jesus.” He echoed her earlier prayer. “Holy Jesus.”
She pushed up to peer at him. “Was that how it was supposed to go?”
He smiled at her, loving the earnest concern in her expression, the rosy flush of pleasure on her chest. “It will do for a start.”
“You’re teasing me.” She settled down against his chest, content, and he was content to have her in his arms. More than content, God help him.
“Did I hurt you?” He was smug, intent on his point, and he emphasized it with a soft push of his flagging erection.
She lifted her face again to consider him, and there wasn’t any humor in her eyes.
“I didn’t know it would be like that.”
She was asking him a question. He kissed her nose and dodged, partly. “I didn’t either, love.”
“It changes things.”
“Conception could be considered a change.” He congratulated himself on the nimbleness of his feint. A little honesty went a long way under these circumstances. “We won’t know about that for a few weeks.”
“Gracious. Weeks.” She subsided, laying her cheek over his heart, and he was grateful for her silence, because the magnitude of the possibility was hitting him in a way it hadn’t earlier. This little romp—this excursion into pleasure—very well could result in a life, an innocent life, full of potential for good and ill. The notion stilled the humming pleasure in his body but ignited a different kind of warmth where Vivian lay gathered against his chest.
He couldn’t recall the last time he’d let himself come in a woman’s body. He’d had the experience, of course, with… some pregnant baroness, or the Italian equivalent thereto. He wasn’t sure which, but it had been years ago, before he’d become so desperate for coin, before his sister’s safety and welfare had been thrust into his youthful and impoverished hands.
And now Vivian was in his hands, trusting him to get her a baby and not break her heart in the process.
He could do that. He’d make sure of it. The only real question was whether he’d survive when his own was broken instead.
***
She was going to cry, and Vivian was certain that wasn’t comme il faut. The sensations were overwhelming, the pleasure beyond description, and the emotions… She silently apologized to William, who’d no doubt shared years and years of these kinds of feelings with his Muriel. Feelings Vivian would never have been able to compete with, never have been able to match.
And what of Darius? How did he do this, hire himself out for coin when the consequences were so intimately devastating?
Or were they?
He held her tenderly, his hands on her back leaving a trail of slow, sweet pleasure where he traced her bones and muscles. He’d shown her consideration of a magnitude Vivian had never imagined—was this why Angela loved her husband? Was it the promise of that kind of care that had seen her own mother giving in to Thurgood’s smiles and caresses?
Vivian was witless to puzzle through it, but her best guess was that Darius wasn’t witless. He was used to this. He’d said as much.
Like an ice on a hot day, a good gallop on a fall morning. Nothing more. Not even when it started a precious new life, not even when it meant a woman he hardly knew would be financially secure for life.
She felt him slipping from her body, and then he was patting her backside. “Slide up, so you’re over me.”
“I’ll make a mess.”
“A small mess. On me, rather than on the sheets. Up you go.”
Another gentle pat, and she complied, mortified to feel his seed leaving her body along with him. And then he was casually holding a folded handkerchief to her sex, preventing the mess but completing her sense of embarrassment.
“You’re blushing.” He kissed her cheek and dabbed at her gently. “There’s no need for that.”
“Blushing isn’t a matter of need.” She dropped her face to his shoulder and felt him using the handkerchief low on his belly. “Shall I go back to my room?”
“Is that what you’d like?”
He tossed the handkerchief aside and passed her a glass of water. When she sat up to drink it, she realized she was still straddling him, and she was naked, and he was…
Well, of course he was looking at her, smiling up at her a little… tentatively. The light from the banked fire was dim, but Vivian was certain she’d never seen that exact smile on Darius Lindsey’s face. She passed him the water, and when he’d finished, she set it on the nightstand.
“I’m sleepy,” she said, “and your bed is warm.”
“Never say I sent a lady alone to a cold, dreary bed.” He stroked the mattress beside him, and she climbed off him and cuddled up.
“So is that something they pay you for too?”
“I beg your pardon?” There was amusement in his tone, also something else—bewilderment? Hurt? She would certainly have paid him for it, paid him a great deal.
“The ladies who pay for your favors? Do they pay you for the pleasure of cuddling?”
“They do not,” he replied, sounding displeased. “Nor would I allow it. Now hush.” He settled his chin on her temple, and Vivian was all too willing to hush. She hurt for him. Hurt that he had nobody to cuddle with, that the only child in his life was likely his brother’s by-blow, and he must sell even his kisses to keep his household intact.
She resolved to ask William why this should be so. Most earldoms came with fat, old estates, capable of supporting younger sons to at least some modest extent. But as her body went boneless in Darius’s arms, and sleep seeped into her brain, Vivian considered she might not bring this up with William, ever, for what passed between her and Darius was somehow precious and private, business arrangement or not.
***
Darius knew the moment Vivian gave up and let sleep claim her. He’d been prepared for her to fire off more of her pithy observations about his lifestyle, if not his lovemaking, but she’d succumbed, and now he could wallow in the pleasure of simply holding her.
How long had it been since he’d held a woman for the uncomplicated pleasure of it? He could tell himself he wanted to swive her again in the morning—increase the chance of conception, that is—but right now, all he wanted was to hold her, to keep her and her tender, inexperienced sensibilities safe for as long as he could.
He missed Italy, where the women understood what a cicisbeo was and what he was not. He was a friend, an appreciated friend. And he missed the way Italian men were demonstrative with their ladies. They didn’t show they cared for a woman by blowing another fellow’s brains out on some foggy meadow strewn with sheep dung. They wrote poetry to women and sang to them and toasted them before open company. And the ladies blew them kisses in return.
In England, the last thing Darius could be was a friend to the likes of Lucy or Blanche. They took their power too seriously, dealt too much from weakness and need, not generosity and pleasure.
He hadn’t been willing to let himself think this way, not until the prospect of Lord Longstreet’s coin loomed closely enough at hand that Darius could consider becoming a gentleman farmer in truth.
And how nice it was going to be, to have another three weeks to toss ideas back and forth with Vivian over the breakfast table. To see her dressed appropriately to her station, and to know of all men, he—without coin to speak of, or expectations—had given her her heart’s desire.
In sleep, Vivian stirred then settled, but her hand had slipped lower, from Darius’s waist to rest over his groin. Her fingers flexed, brushing his cock—forbidden territory to all other women—and he went still then shifted slightly under her hand. She brushed her fingers over him again, patted him sleepily, then subsided.
And for that, for that simple, sleepy, affectionate little pat on his soft cock, he gave up another piece of his heart to her.