Eleven
Sophie leaned over and kissed Vim, a lingering, claiming kiss that had lust bursting into flame in his vitals. He’d purposely not kissed her, because to do so would have been presumptuous and stupid and dangerous and…
Wonderful. He groaned with pleasure at the taste of her, his hand finding her hair and holding her steady for the plundering his mouth demanded. “God in heaven, Sophie…”
“Uhn.”
A small, female sound, one of satisfaction and pleasure that left Vim envisioning mad, passionate, semiclothed lovemaking on the hearth before the fire, Sophie making just such sounds beneath him, his cock buried—
She patted his cheek and broke the kiss. “I won’t be long.”
She wafted out of the room, and Vim was still sitting dazedly on his heels before the fire when he heard the door to the bathing chamber click shut across the hallway.
He again used cold water to wash off, and found his borrowed dressing gown was still draped across the foot of the bed. Kit was fast asleep by the time Vim had used the warmer on the sheets, banked the fire, then applied his naked self to the sheets to keep them from cooling before Sophie could join him.
Mad, passionate love? Had he ever in his life made mad, passionate love? He enjoyed sex, he enjoyed the friendships that could arise around a shared pleasure in sex, but mad, passionate love?
Sophie appeared in the doorway, wearing only a nightgown and wrapper, her hair curling down her back, her smile a trifle uncertain. The sight of her fresh from her ablutions had blood pooling in Vim’s groin and more images dancing in his brain.
Mad, passionate love it would be. Vim propped himself on one elbow and patted the covers. “Come to bed. Kit will have us up and about before the night’s half gone, and I have plans for you, my lady, that do not involve sleep.”
She wandered over to the hearth. “He does seem to be sound asleep. Crawling is hard work.”
He watched while she drifted to her vanity and sat before the mirror. “I recall when my youngest sister started to crawl. Papa insisted we have a party in the nursery, because his last little princess was up off the floor. I danced with him by standing on his shiny, tall boots.”
“I can do that for you, you know.”
“Let me dance on your boots?” She picked up a brush and tilted her head to the side so the mass of her hair fell over one shoulder.
“Brush your hair.” He tossed the covers back, started across the room, and then caught sight of Sophie’s fascinated expression in the vanity mirror. He snatched the dressing gown from the bed and belted it snugly around his waist.
When he stood directly behind her, she passed the brush back to him, letting their fingers barely touch.
Ah, so she was teasing him. The subtle teasing of a woman who understood the value of anticipation, but teasing all the same. Vim smiled at her in the mirror. “You have gorgeous hair, Sophie Windham.” He drew the damp, curling length of it back over her shoulders in both of his hands and repeated the caress when she closed her eyes.
“Shall I braid it?”
“Please.” She opened her eyes. “Over the right shoulder, because I like to sleep on my left side.”
“What else do you like?”
She blew out a breath, her expression considering while Vim used the brush in long strokes from her crown to her hips. It was beautiful hair, thick, lustrous, and gleaming with an indication of basic health and sound living.
“I like music,” she said, “and sweets. I am quite partial to sweets.”
Vim took this answer for a deliberate and charming prevarication. “I meant, what do you like from your lovers? Shall I kiss you all over? Shall you bind my wrists and have your way with me?” He leaned down and nuzzled her neck, the braid he’d been fashioning forgotten. “Shall you put your mouth on me, Sophie, and make me forget myself utterly?”
She sat very still while Vim slid a hand over her shoulder and let it rest there, just above her breast while he pressed his cheek to hers.
“My love, are you blushing?”
“You are very bold, Mr. Charpentier.”
He straightened, feeling it imperative that he braid up her hair, so he might have the pleasure of unbraiding it once they’d gained the bed.
“I like your hands on me,” he volunteered. “There’s a particular quality to your touch I can’t quite describe. There’s… meaning in it.”
“Meaning?”
She regarded him in the mirror, her blush fading.
“That’s not the right word. Some people can calm a nervous horse with their touch. They communicate to the animal with hands, tone of voice, and posture in ways more substantial than words. Your hands on me feel that way—more substantial than words.”
She turned and pressed her forehead to his midriff. “You must not say such things.”
He stroked his palm over her crown, holding her half-finished braid with the other hand. “Why not, Sophie?”
“You simply must not.” She straightened, and he finished with her braid, using his own hair ribbon to tie it.
“Get in bed, my love. I’ll be along in a minute.”
She gave him a wary look but did as he bid, closing the bed curtains while Vim poured a glass of water and set it on the nightstand, along with a single, tall candle. He wanted to be able to see her face when their bodies joined, wanted to read her expression, gauge her pleasure.
But first things first. He picked up the cradle and crossed to the bathing chamber, making use of his tooth powder once again for good measure, and tucking the child in a warm corner. “Just for a bit. I can’t guarantee you’d have peace and quiet otherwise.”
Nothing from the infant, which was encouraging. He cracked the door enough that if the child fussed, the adults in the next room would hear him.
And now, for some mad, passionate lovemaking.
Except part of Vim was more inclined to take all the time in the world than to permit mindless hurry, to savor and draw out this pleasure for them both, because it was all they would have to keep of each other.
On that sobering thought, he climbed into bed and stretched out beside Sophie.
“Are you warm enough?”
She turned her head on the pillow to look at him. “I’m fine. Did you mean to leave the curtain open on your side?”
“Yes.” The candle was on his side.
He reached under the covers for Sophie’s hand. “Do you suppose the weather has delayed your brothers?”
“Very likely.”
He could roll over and mount her, fuse his mouth to hers, and be inside her in moments. He wanted to. Badly.
And that simply would not serve. He cast around for a topic that might permit some affection without requiring that he concentrate on anything more than the clean, flowery scent of the woman in bed with him.
“Tell me about your brothers, Sophie.”
“They are good men.” She laced her fingers with his. “But they are men. They’ve married and gone their own ways. Two have started their families. One up in Yorkshire, another in Oxfordshire, and the other mostly in Surrey.”
“Surrey isn’t so far.” He brought her hand to his mouth and gently bit her knuckle. “My brother Benjamin hares all over the kingdom. He’s some sort of investigator for the high and mighty, which he tells me is not half so glamorous as it sounds, though it’s lucrative.”
“Benjamin Hazlit?”
“You know him?” He rolled to his side to peer at her in the gloom, wondering when the innocuous topic of her brothers had shifted to the more difficult subject of his own. “He says discretion is the first requirement of his profession.”
“I know of him. I believe Their Graces have employed him in some administrative capacity. He doesn’t look at all like you.”
God in heaven, she knew his brother. She’d seen his brother. This knowledge pinned back the ears of Vim’s lust and had him wishing he had simply initiated the lovemaking.
“Benjamin and I have different fathers. Polite society is such a small world. I can put into almost any port on the globe and find some tavern or watering hole where the Englishmen congregate. Within moments of meeting each other, they’re engaged in an earnest attempt to find common social ground, and we’ve managed it without even trying.”
“Are they trying to find common ground or trying to find out which of them occupies the higher social ground?”
Interesting question, for some other day.
“Which of your brothers is your favorite, Sophie?” He stayed on his side and gave her back her hand so he might trace her hairline with his fingers.
“They’re all my favorites. My sisters are my favorites too.”
Would she never touch him?
“Which one tries your patience the most?”
“My papa. He means well, truly he does, but he is quite determined he knows best for everybody. My mama reasons with him behind closed doors, but other than that, he’s quite unmanageable.”
Mention of Sophie’s papa was not at all conducive to satisfying the lust simmering Vim’s gut. He cast around for yet another gambit.
“Is it hard, being here without your family at the holidays?”
“No.” She answered quickly, the most decisive thing she’d said since getting into the bed. She also took his hand in her own and nuzzled his palm with her nose. “Even your hands smell good.”
“When one washes his hands frequently…”
Her tongue, hot, wet, and delicate, traced the crease between his third and fourth fingers. Vim rolled up and over her, crouching on his forearms and knees. “For the love God, kiss me, Sophie.”
He waited for a long moment while she cradled his jaw then framed his face with both hands. She kissed him on the mouth, a sweet, almost chaste kiss, then ran one hand back through his hair to anchor at his nape.
“You kiss me too,” she whispered. “Madly, passionately.”
Lust sprang from the starting blocks and raged through Vim’s system. He opened his mouth over hers, desire a voracious force singing in his blood.
“Vim.” Sophie’s fingers on his chin were light, her grip in his hair secure without being painful. She spoke his name softly, as if pleading for something.
He hauled back hard on the reins of his lust and rested his forehead against hers. Passionate was not at all the same thing as heedless. Not with Sophie, not on their one shared night.
He tasted her slowly, one corner of her mouth then the other. She sighed, her breath fanning against his neck, and he thanked God for all the ladies who’d taught him restraint, timing, patience, and consideration.
All the ladies whose faces and names he could not recall and probably would never be able to recall again.
He slid his tongue into the soft heat of Sophie’s mouth only to feel her grip on his hair tighten. She drew on him then came out to play in hesitant, teasing forays into his mouth.
“I could kiss you all night, Sophie. I shall kiss you all night.”
She shifted to lock her ankles at the small of his back. “Not just kiss.” She spoke against his mouth.
Vim smiled against hers. “Not just.” Sophie arched up against him at the hips, reminding Vim that while he was naked, she was not. “Nightgown, Sophie.”
She kissed him harder, one arm wrapping tightly around his back, the other lower, so her hand gripped his buttocks.
He drew his mouth back half an inch. “Sweetheart, I want you naked.” Her hand on his backside eased a trifle. “I want to feel your skin next to mine. I want to touch you all over. I want the scent of you on me everywhere.”
Her hands fell away, and she unlocked her ankles. “Nightgown. Quickly please.”
He sat back between her legs, and when she levered up, he got the thing off her, but he didn’t immediately settle into the cradle of her body.
“What do you like, Sophie? How do you want me to love you?”
She blinked in the candlelight. “You were doing quite nicely a moment ago.”
“I was about to go up in flames a moment ago.” He crouched over her and brushed her hair back from her forehead. “I think you were getting a bit enthusiastic too.”
“Is that bad?”
“God in heaven.” He tucked himself closer but kept his cock from grazing her belly. “You do not dally often, do you, Sophie Windham?”
Her hand stroked over his hair slowly. “Not often at all. Then everybody assumes you are not interested in dallying, and the opportunities stop presenting themselves. Pretty soon it doesn’t matter that you might be interested, because no one’s going to ask.”
And she was not designed to ask for what she wanted, for what she needed. He became determined to give it to her, to see that for once Sophie Windham’s every wish came true.
“You have me for this night, Sophie, and I have you.” He started over with the kissing, taking his time as if they’d never kissed before. He kissed her brow, finding that despite her bath, her hair still bore the faint scents of vanilla and cinnamon underscored with gingerbread. He kissed the tender spot below her ear; he kissed the juncture of her neck and shoulder, hearing her draw a slow inhale as he did.
“My love, you like that.”
“I like it.”
So he treasured her with his mouth for long, long moments, until he could detect the pulse in her throat beating more rapidly and feel some tension in the hand she had fisted in his hair.
He trailed his mouth lower, settling his lips over one puckered nipple then the other. She wrapped her legs around his back and used her fingers to trace his ears.
“I like that, what you’re doing with my ears.”
“You have lovely ears.”
He smiled against her breast until she tugged on his earlobe, which created a resonating tug in his groin.
“Sophie?”
“Hmm?”
He went still above her. “I want you.”
The words weren’t said with any mad passion. He’d stated a simple, stark, undeniable reality, one more pressing by the instant.
“I want you too, Vim.”
She brushed a hand down his chest and wrapped her fingers around the length of his cock. “I want this part of you to join us together. I want to feel you inside me.” She squeezed him a little, and Vim felt it in all manner of wonderful places.
“Guide me, Sophie.”
She frowned and made no move to join them.
“Show me where you want me, love.” And then she seated him snugly against the damp, hot opening to her body, her hand falling away, her body still.
“You’re ready for me.”
“I have waited a long time for you, Vim Charpentier. Don’t make me wait any longer.”
Words to make love by. Vim flexed his hips forward just a bit, just enough to effect that first, lush sensation of penetration.
“God in heaven, Sophie…” She was hot, wet, gloriously tight, and wise enough not to do anything to threaten his tenuous control. He advanced again and did not retreat, savoring the sensation of her body gloving his.
“You’re all right?”
She nodded and opened her teeth against his shoulder. She didn’t bite him, exactly, but the sensation helped keep him from completing their joining in one hard, luscious thrust.
He moved again, slowly, gaining just a little more depth, losing a little more of his sanity.
“More?”
Another nod, and the sensation of Sophie’s hand gripping his buttock hard. He managed it like that, a little advance then a mental inventory of Sophie’s reaction to it. She gripped his backside, then his hair, arched her breasts into his chest, ran her foot along the back of his knee.
And then, when he was just shy of his goal, she took a funny, hitching breath.
“Sophie? You’re all right?” He pressed his cheek to hers then drew back. “My dear, are you crying?”
“No, not like that.”
“Have I hurt you?” He could not stand it if he had. He started to withdraw, slowly, carefully, but she locked her legs around him.
“I didn’t know how it would be.”
He paused, keeping his cheek to hers. “How it would be?”
“I can’t… it’s wondrous. Sweet, dear, so intimate… glorious.”
Ah, God… He wrapped his hand around the back of her head and pressed her face to his shoulder. He could feel her crying, feel it with his body, because he was inside her and around her and pressed to her over much of his body.
So intimate, she’d said. Glorious.
“Move with me, love.”
He kept his pace slow, so she could follow his rhythm. Her focus was a palpable thing, gathering momentum as her body learned the give and take from his. When she was moving easily with him, the tempo picking up moment by moment, he dropped his head so his mouth was near her ear.
“Let it happen, Sophie. Take flight.”
He felt the instant she stopped focusing on timing and movement and fell helplessly under the onrush of sensation.
“Vim…” His name on her lips was a whispered plea, one that had him driving into her in tight, hard strokes while she shook and clung and convulsed around him. She gave herself up to it, keening against his shoulder, meeting him thrust for thrust until she was panting and spent beneath him.
When he felt her hands slips from his body, when her legs untwined to rest passively at his flanks, Vim levered up on his arms. By the light of the single candle, he could see a rosy flush on her cheek and tears yet leaving a sheen on her eyes.
She reached up and brushed his hair back. “I don’t know what to say.”
“You say, ‘Vim, give me a minute to recover my wits, and then do that again, please, only better.’”
She blinked, and then a slow, sweet smile bloomed on her lips. He lowered himself down onto her so they were chest to chest, as close as two people could be.
He felt her fingers stroking over the hair at his nape. “Vim, give me a minute to recover my wits, and then do that again, please, but if you do it any better, I won’t possess wits to recover ever again.”
“Then we shall both be loved witless.”
He gave her a minute, but just a minute.
***
Sophie watched as Vim climbed from the bed. He didn’t tuck the bed curtains closed, but rather, moved behind the privacy screen. She heard the sound of a cloth being wrung out over a basin and wished he were tending to himself where she could see him.
“Stay in that bed, Sophie Windham.” He spoke quietly as he emerged from the gloom and arranged the cloth on the hearth screen. “I’ll be back in a moment.”
Naked, firelight gilding his skin, he left the room only to appear shortly thereafter with the cradle in his arms. He set the thing by the hearth, carefully, so it didn’t start rocking.
“Where was Kit?”
“Across the hall.” Vim advanced on the bed, cloth in hand. “Spread your legs, my love.”
“Why across the hall?”
“I can be loud, at certain times.”
“You growl softly, Mr. Vim Charpentier. I like it.”
He was thorough and gentle with her, finishing with a few passes directly over her intimate parts. “You growl too.” He leaned forward and bit her earlobe. “I adore it. Scoot over.”
He tossed the rag toward the hearth, missing the cradle by inches. Sophie scooted, much relieved they’d spend the balance of the night together.
Vim lay down beside her, wrapped an arm around her shoulders, and hiked her leg across his thighs. “You should have allowed me to withdraw, Sophie.” He cradled her foot in his large, warm hand as he spoke. It brought the oddest comfort.
“I am not fertile now. I didn’t want you to abandon me.”
She cringed at her own word choice, given that he’d be moving on in the morning once and for all. He made no reply, though, so Sophie turned her attention to collecting memories: the feel of Vim’s hard male chest rising and falling beneath her hand, the bergamot scent of his skin, the slightly salty taste of his shoulder, the transcendent sensation of him joining their bodies so very, very carefully…
“My business in Kent shouldn’t take but a few weeks,” he said, his tone thoughtful. His fingers smoothed her hair back, and Sophie understood exactly what he was working up to.
“You must not worry. I cannot conceive now, or I would not have been so… selfish.”
“You can’t be certain, Sophie. I’ll leave you my direction when I go.” There was just a hint of reproof in his voice, but he was wrong. Sophie was certain their paths needed to separate regardless of any unlikely consequences. She’d waltzed with his very own half brother, for heaven’s sake, and Benjamin Hazlit’s discreet assistance had been instrumental in keeping both Valentine’s and Westhaven’s wives safe from harm.
Vim would learn that—learn she was the daughter of a duke, no less—and think she’d been untruthful with him.
Which she had. He hadn’t asked any awkward questions yet, but it was hardly likely Lady Sophia Windham would have been all alone, unchaperoned, without servants or family in the ducal mansion. She had contrived mightily to make it so. He would feel deceived and manipulated, and it would ruin everything, even the memories.
“Your brain is turning on a greased wheel, Sophie.”
His voice was lazy in the darkness, as lazy as his hand stroking over her hair. If he’d been offering his direction in Kent out of something other than duty and guilt, she might have considered explaining the situation to him more fully.
“I am trying to recall each moment with you in this bed.”
“There could be more such moments. I’ll come back through Town when I’m done sorting out my relatives.”
Ah, damn him. “I have my position to consider.”
More silence, while in Sophie’s heart, the glow of a wonderful sexual initiation and shared intimacy grew chilled by encroaching regret.
“I could offer you another position, one of substantial duration and considerable standing. One I have never offered another woman worthy of such a consideration.”
She closed her eyes, lest more tears give her away. Vim was a good man, the kind of man wishes and dreams were made of, but she’d made such a tangle of things, he could never be the man for her, particularly not if all he was offering was a few years as his mistress between sea voyages.
And if he’d offered not a careful description of a discreet liaison, but marriage? No hope lay in that direction. Even if he proposed, when he learned she’d been dishonest with him about her position in the household and the world at large, the proposal would be withdrawn.
She fell asleep in his arms and did not recall her dreams in the morning.
***
Vim was learning to read Miss Sophie Windham, learning that despite appearing serene and even sanguine, she was hurting. She was going about her morning routine calmly, her expression pleasant while she tidied up her hair and used her vanity mirror to watch Vim dressing and putting her bed to rights. The heartache was there in her eyes, in her posture, in her silences.
Kit started to fuss but was still in the happy stages of greeting his own toes when Vim picked up the rag he’d tossed aside so casually the night before.
The rag that in the light of another brutally bright day was sporting definite streaks of pinkish brown.
“Sophie?”
“Hmm?”
“Do your courses approach?”
Her hands paused in twining her braid into a bun at her nape, but other than that, she showed no reaction. “They always approach, unless they’ve descended. My mother has a lot of unflattering things to say about The Almighty’s design in this regard. One’s only respite is to carry a child, and that is hardly a fair trade, considering what’s involved in birthing the child.”
In the back of Vim’s mind, he was recalling how very wonderfully snug Sophie’s body had been, how she’d bit his shoulder as he’d sunk into her damp heat, how artless her lovemaking had been. I didn’t know how it would be…
How virginal?