The Secret Desires of a Governess (20 page)

There was nothing seedy or wrong in what they were doing. What they shared so intimately with each other.

This was just meant to be between them. She’d not de-tract from something that felt right to her by debasing its meaning.

“Love me,” she whispered, not knowing in what con-text she meant it: love her body, or love her. Both, she supposed.

Bracing himself on one arm for support, he untied his smalls and kicked them away between the

sheets at their feet. The heavy ridge of his cock lay on her lower belly.

The intimate feel of him against her wasn’t enough. She wanted the rest of her underclothes off so she felt every part of him wrapped around her. Despite the heat of their exerting bodies, she shivered in anticipation beneath him.

“Soon,” he promised and lowered his mouth to hers, sucking her tongue against his.

He pressed her thighs farther apart and let the blunt crown of his cock lie intimately between her folds. He did not enter her. She thought maybe he wanted to explore every part of her as she craved to do with him. His fingers lowered between them to rub over her nub.

“You like touching me there.” She moaned against his throat, nibbling at his neck as he slicked her own fluids over her privates.

His beard stubble under her mouth prickled all her senses to life. She’d love the feel of his evening shadow against her breasts, her thighs, rubbing over her bare flesh as he loved her.

“I love watching you come.”

“Is that the term used.” She let out a soft laugh. “I definitely like to come when you touch me like that.”

“Good, because I’m going to do this awhile longer.”

He scooted down lower on the bed, his face just above her breasts. He muttered, “Small but perfect,” before sucking the tip of one breast into his mouth. She arched her back off the bed, wanting him to suck at her harder.

Fluid rushed from her center with the contact of his mouth on her breast. He groaned against her, his hand stilling at her entrance, sliding through the extra fluids, wetting her clitoris more.

She wanted more, less; she couldn’t tell which. The feelings and sensations rampaging through her body confused and delighted her. This was so much more than their previous intimacies.

She felt close to her peak. Close to coming for him. Her knees spread wider, clasping him around his ribs since he was still taking plea sure in sucking at her breasts. Moving her hands from his scalp to his shoulders as her body came close to release.

Her nipple popped out of his mouth after a deep sucking noise sounded. He said, “I want to put my mouth where my hand is, suck all this sweet juice from your quim.”

Her nails dug into his shoulders as her orgasm claimed her, riding her hard, her body throbbing in time with her heartbeat.

His hand eased up. Moving away from that sensitive part of herself.

His expression turned serious. “I don’t want to hurt you.”

“I trust you,” she whispered still feeling her orgasm numbing her limbs. “Completely.”

“Seems like too much faith.”

“You underestimate yourself, Elliott.”

She felt her slickness on his hand as he grasped her waist and moved up her body again, poising himself at the entrance.

He waited a moment, looking down at her, eyes narrowed in question. “Wrap your arms around my shoulders.”

His request was firm. Arms tight around his neck and shoulders, she threaded her fingers through the hair once again. It was thick and silky to the touch, different from the feel of hers with its slight wave.

His hand lowered between their bodies so he could grasp the base of his instrument and position himself above her. His other arm remained braced by her head, keeping his weight from crushing her.

Pressing slowly forward, he lodged the tip of his penis within her sheath. The pain was minimal, almost nonexistent aside from a slight discomfort and a feel of stretching.

Lips parted, she kissed his chin, his jaw, and then finally his mouth and dipped her tongue inside to catch his.

Both their breaths were coming harshly. Sweat dripped from his temple to hers. She kissed his cheek and tasted the salt of his body. She licked him, wanting to taste everything he was. To take all of him in her at once.

He braced himself on his arms and pulled away from their kiss long enough to say, “I’m sorry,” and thrust forward.

Her breath caught in her lungs.

He stayed above her, unmoving. Her body adjusted to him inside her, stretching her. It wasn’t precisely painful; the feeling wasn’t like anything she knew.

“I’m sorry,” he repeated, laying hard kisses against her closed mouth, her cheeks, and her eyelids. The awkward feeling began to ebb the more Elliott kissed her face and ran one hand down the back of her thigh and one buttock in a soothing manner.

“Do you want me to stop?”

There was no censure in his voice.

She shook her head no. Why in all the heaven’s would she want to stop?

“Don’t ever stop?” she answered.

He lowered both his hands back down between their bodies and clasped her buttocks in his firm grip. “I won’t, then.”

He sank into her farther. She wasn’t sure how, since she was certain he was already as far as he could go, but the plea sure it brought made her heart flutter and her limbs shake in excitement.

He pulled out halfway and slid slowly back in. A slight plea sure built with each forward thrust of his hips.

Elliott lowered his head closer, his tongue sweeping inside to steal her words before they could properly form on her tongue.

The sting she initially felt, ebbed. Had completely diminished as he held himself motionless above her. Her hands loosened from their death-like grip around his

neck now that she could feel plea sure languidly radiating from her limbs once again.

Elliott kissed her lips, brushing over them, back and forth, one side to the next.

He pulled out half the distance he’d gained and drove forward with so much force a sob lodged in her throat.

This sob was not derived from pain but quite the opposite.

“Elliott,” she moaned.

“Shh . . . I’ve got you.”

He kissed her again. His hands threaded through her hair to keep her head in place even though she strained toward him. Wanting more, or wanting less— she really didn’t know— just something to dampen the conflicting feelings tumbling around without a cause or sure outlet inside her.

Her hands moved over him, intent on memorizing the feel of his body on hers. Every contour, every nuance.

She caressed the firm swell of his buttocks, the dip at the lower portion of his spine. The muscle straining in his back as he moved in slow, even strokes at a pace meant to titillate and arouse.

This intimacy was something they were meant to share.

She’d take and take everything he gave her in their evening cocoon of secret ecstasy. Every second they were together made her want more between them.

A realization dawned on her with that admission: She was irrevocably, wholly his. Just as she’d wanted.

Which meant she’d allowed herself to do the one thing she’d always promised never to do . . . she’d lost herself to a man. Not because she hadn’t wanted it or because they had joined in the most intimate way a man and woman could, and certainly not because he was the only potential suitor in the wilds of Northumbria, but because he’d stolen into her heart bit by bit; wormed his way so deep that he

was a permanent fixture there.

She cared for him. No matter that she hadn’t fully figured him out, or that he seemed to keep a greater part of himself hidden from those around him— including her. It could not be denied that she might already be in love with him.

“I’ve lost you,” he said, holding still above her, thumbs caressing the side of her face in slow strokes.

She stared back at him. There was something there in his eyes. Was it fear of rejection? From her?

“No. Never that,” she replied, and stretched her upper body to wrap her arms around his shoulders so she was close to his mouth. With no other intention than to taste him, she licked gently at the seam, nibbled at the cleft in his chin like she had wanted to do earlier, and rubbed her cheek against his hair- roughened one.

He rolled over suddenly, changing their positions and putting her astride his thighs.

“What are you about?”

“I want to watch you above me.”

She did not shy away.

To

night they had both shed their shields of self-preservation. To night they could love and cherish every moment shared between them.

What would tomorrow bring? Would there be stolen kisses? A desire to feel the heat of their bodies coming together when no one was around to witness them? Would he want more from her than the evening hours offered? Or at dawn would he shrink back into himself and close himself off to her?

These thoughts gave her no peace of mind. She didn’t want to think that he didn’t desire her as much as she’d come to desire him. She would live in the moment. Share something with him that she’d never shared with another—

nor did she want to ever share this intimacy with any other.

He, apparently, was the only man she wanted. They were meant for each other in so many aspects. Aspects she’d ex-amine later.

Elliott traced over the line of her spine while she explored the contours of his chest, feeling and molding the strong line of his pectorals, brushing her fingers through the coarse dark hair speckled at the center.

He pulled himself up and put his back to the headboard with her still straddling his muscled thighs. His mouth came to her breast and nibbled at the firm peak.

Hunger radiated from his every pore. His forearms were tense where she clasped them. His hands flexed against her waist and hips, moving her at a slow rocking rhythm.

Squeezing and releasing her flesh as he stared at her naked body and traced the lines indenting her skin left behind from the corset.

She thought she’d be too shy to stand naked before a man. Maybe her sister’s paintings had desensitized her to the female form. She saw nothing wrong in his slow study of her nakedness. Or of the appreciation clear in his gaze as he watched the gentle bounce of her breast when she moved above him.

She wasn’t like the women her sister painted. She was so small in stature that she’d been lucky to develop breasts at all. And not till she’d had her first season in Town. She wasn’t embarrassed by that fact; not with the way Elliott stared ravenously upon her, as though she were an oasis on a deep desert trek. He raised one hand and brushed it over the small roundness of her breast, squeezing the firm peak between his two forefingers.

She did not remain idle. She caressed his chest, liking the feel of firmness of his body and the contrast of coarse hair at the center and soft skin everywhere else she pressed into his flesh.

He was still inside her as they slowly explored each other. She liked the feel of him filling her

body. Every now and again she felt a pulse of movement deep inside her. She wasn’t sure if that was her body reacting to his now welcome intrusion or the jut of his penis moving within her.

All she knew was that it felt good. And it made her want more.

Elliott’s movements grew slowly more urgent, until he was thrusting off the bed and into her body. She held his head tight to her breast, wanting him to suck at her harder as she rode his body.

He released her breast and pulled her head down to his as he gave her a few choice thrusts then completely stilled.

She felt the throb of his cock inside her as he found his own release.

They sat holding each other for a long time, Elliott kissing her gently, she doing nothing more than stroke at his hair. What did tonight mean? Did this make her his lover?

He hers? Would he want to see her again after she’d so easily given herself to him?

Those were questions for another night. She’d not ruin something beautiful. She was being a ninny again. Of course this meant she was his lover. There were no other women here, none that she knew Elliott to want.

For now . . . this would do. She didn’t know how long she could remain merely a lover. Time would tell what was meant for their future.

Elliott left the bed to retrieve a dampened cloth, warmed it by the fire, and came back to the bed. He cleaned them both with the wet cloth then tucked himself along her body for sleep.

The only thing she knew with certainly was that she was in a lot of trouble if she couldn’t separate her feelings from her desires when it came to Lord Brendall.

The king asked, “Where has the dragon flown?”

“Here, my liege. He’s come home at last, but you will find him of a different cast.”

—The Dragon of Brahmors

Abby walked around Elliott’s desk, her fingers traced along the edge of the leather inlay. Various sheaves of paper littered the top. The inkbottle hadn’t even been capped.

Elliott must have stepped out.

She’d only stolen a few minutes, while Jacob went to eat, to come see Elliott. She’d been thinking about him since she’d awakened this morning. Their affair— such a dirty word, but the truth to their circumstance— had continued now for two weeks. How was it that she didn’t feel any closer to him even after they’d been intimate with each other?

She slid one of the pages closer to the edge of the desk; it had Martha’s familiar handwriting on it. The older woman must act as chatelaine for Brendall Castle.

How odd, she thought, looking closer. The letter was a copy of one sent to her. Did Martha write out two of all her correspondence letters?

With a glance at the door, she confirmed that she was quite alone. She couldn’t hear anyone close by, either. Placing her walking stick against the desk— she still used it when her ankle pained her— she fingered the quill off the half- filled page Elliott had been working on.

It read oddly. Actually . . . it didn’t read at all. She was well versed in both English and French, could recognize a dozen more languages, and this didn’t look to be another tongue. She picked up the page and walked over into the stream of light that shone through the window. She recognized some of the letters, but the majority ere off. Half appeared inverted and upside down, but written quite neatly— painstakingly precise.

Her fingers curled tight around the bottom corner of the paper, crinkling it up.

How was this possible?

Better yet, why hadn’t he said anything?

They’d discussed his son’s difficulties on enough occasions that the topic should have come up. Why had he kept this knowledge from her? Did he not trust her enough to tell her?

Her newfound knowledge explained a great many things. No wonder he’d been disinterested in looking over his son’s schooling. Did he not trust her?

He didn’t trust her!

She was good enough to play his whore, but not good enough to confide his secrets in.

That sent a pang of sorrow right through her heart. She’d been honest— perhaps not completely, but mostly— with him. She had stupidly opened herself up to this hurt. Had she kept her distance, this might not have stung so deeply.

She’d invited the man into her bed, had opened her heart to him and his son, and he didn’t think it important to share this one scrap of information with her?

How dare he do this to her. She felt . . . betrayed. And up to this point, she hadn’t realized how much more she had shared of herself than he had. Maybe she was a mere dalliance for him. An amusement while she lived under his roof.

Oh, God, she felt so incredibly stupid. So foolish and on some level humiliated and gullible.

She hadn’t noticed his entrance into the study. Elliott approached her despairingly. She held a piece of paper in her hand. The one he’d been working on. He hadn’t expected to find her in here. Had he expected her, he would have packed up all his writing appurtenances.

She would know. She did know. It was in the way she studied the page he’d meticulously worked on last night and this morning. The way her brow furrowed and her lips pursed also told him she understood what she was looking at.

He supposed he couldn’t keep the truth from her indefinitely. The evidence lay right before her

eyes: Martha’s neat scroll around the missive, his straggled backward lettering that had never made much sense to him, no matter how long he stared at it. No matter how many times he tried to copy it out. He’d only started practicing his writing again hoping that, like his son, he merely needed to try harder and focus more diligently. It wasn’t working, of course. He’d thought that if he tried writing less on a page, like he had to do with his numbers so they didn’t get mixed up, maybe the words would start to make sense. Instead the words moved on the page and never looked the same on a second and third glance.

“What’s this about, Elliott?” He saw confusion and hurt in her eyes. Saw it in the way she tilted her head and scrunched her brows.

He stepped back, away from his desk and away from her. Away from the evidence of his failure. He hadn’t wanted her to find out like this. He’d never wanted her to find out.

After the past few days of sleeping in her bed, and enjoying the intimacies they shared, he knew those good times were effectively at an end.

Nothing lasted forever. He more than anyone needed no reminder of that.

He closed his eyes against the knowledge that she now knew his biggest secret. His biggest failure.

He exhaled. “The truth. Nothing more than the bloody truth,” he muttered.

She walked over to the desk and pulled another of the pages closer to her, her expression unreadable as she ran her finger across the words on the page. Words that had never made any sense to him and never would.

Why didn’t she say something? Tell him he was a let-down like everyone else had. Tell him he was less a man and a failure in his role as the Earl of Brendall. It was no wonder his son had struggled all these years. How could he not with a father like him?

“Now you know.” With that voiced admission he wanted to yell out his frustration. Walk away. Throw something to ease the pain of knowing that their time together was now at an end.

Goddamn it, this was not what he had planned. To night he had wanted nothing more than to carry her up to her room and make them both forget everything but what the night had to offer them. She’d not have him now.

He rubbed his eyes and pinched the skin between his brows as he looked back to Abigail. Her back was rigid and straight, her shoulders set firmly back as she stared steadily at him. What was she thinking? What were her thoughts on this whole damn situation? Or for that matter, what did he think of him? Did she hate him? Despite and loathe the fact that she’d lain with a man like him?

Dumb as the day he was born.

Why did she have to find out like this? Why did she have to find out at all? Everything had been perfect. He’d been happier than he’d been in a long time. And now this.

A bitter reminder: Nothing good lasted forever. The love for his mother washed away with her body at sea, the devotion to his sick wife vanishing the day she’d threatened his son’s life and then taken her own.

Abigail, at his side, brightening his every day.

The rage he felt was sudden, probably uncalled for, but it couldn’t be helped.

A strangled noise of pain escaped him as he stepped forward and swept his hand across the desk, throwing all the papers in a messy array, tossing the inkwell and causing the black liquid to splatter across the pages, marring all his evening’s work. Too bad it wouldn’t blot out the truth from her eyes.

“I can’t read. Is that what you want me to admit. There’s your truth. I can’t write! I’m the reason Jacob struggles.

Say something, woman, and stop looking at me like I’m the biggest fool there ever was.”

Her lip trembled. He’d not have her pity him. Cry for him.

“Elliott . . .” Her voice was soft. Too soft. Goddamn.

He hadn’t wanted her to find out. Not like this. Not ever!

“Stop it, Elliott.”

She rushed forward, her ankle obviously paining her because she caught the edge of the desk for support. Worry was evident in the way she approached him . . . much as you would an injured dog.

“Leave me be.” His request was so hushed he hardly heard the words.

“No. I won’t. You can’t make me, either. We need to talk about this.”

“You’re mistaken there.”

If she wouldn’t leave, he would.

He left her standing in his study, making his way out of the house. He didn’t know where he was going. What the purpose of leaving was other than the fact that he didn’t want to face her after revealing such an ugly truth. He needed to get away. He needed air to clean out his lungs.

A long ride to rid him of his thoughts altogether.

He should have denied the evidence of his ineptitude that lay dejectedly about them. Even lying would have been better than seeing the look of sympathy blazing so clear in her eyes. God, he never hated himself so much as he did now.

She followed him to the stable, a silent shadow, but a presence nonetheless that he couldn’t outdistance. Wasn’t sure he really wanted to leave behind.

When he stopped, she rushed right into his back.

“Goddamn you, woman.” He spun around, clasped her face between his hands and planted his lips hard against hers. Maybe it was a parting kiss, maybe he did it to scare her off for good.

She didn’t fight him, didn’t push him away. Instead of being revolted by the truth that made up his character, she clasped onto his arms and held tight, moaning a soft cry into his mouth as she gave him her tongue.

“You’re driving me mad,” he shouted at her. Hating that he was being so cruel to her. Why wasn’t she saying anything? Why didn’t she yell back at him?

Why did she have to sink into the kiss? Or, for that matter, follow him when he wanted nothing more than to be alone? He broke away from her mouth only long enough to grab her hand and pull her into the stable, away from prying eyes. It was too late for his son to be hiding in here, but those at the keep would have a clear view of him should they be outdoors.

None too gently, because his mood had gotten the better of him, Elliott pushed her up against the wall on the inside of the stable. He stepped forward and assaulted her mouth with his once again. He couldn’t taste deeply enough to appease and ease the disjointed anger unfurling inside him.

It was rage directed solely at himself.

He ripped himself away from her and paced the floor; once, twice, thrice, jerking his hands roughly through his hair the whole time. Afraid he’d regret any actions he couldn’t take back, he grabbed Ivan’s saddle and readied his horse.

Abigail didn’t move from where he’d placed her. Didn’t weep as most women might have from his manhandling of her delicate stature.

“Elliott,” she said more firmly as he checked the belt around the barrel of his chestnut.

“Don’t,” he replied. He didn’t want to say any more words he would regret. Didn’t want her to say something he would lash out against.

Swinging himself up into the saddle, he took up the reins and turned the horse for the open doors. He gave one more piercing gaze toward Abigail. Her lip trembled. Had he frightened her? Maybe she’d leave to night, never look back on this pile of sullen rock.

His first assessment of her had been correct. She was a bloody nuisance. A nuisance he had come to enjoy. A woman he had grown to adore in so short a time.

He didn’t look back after that. He didn’t want to know if she followed him out to watch him leave. Didn’t want to know if she didn’t. Goddamn her for making him care. For making him want more than the lot life had dealt him.

He swiped the back of his hand over his dampened cheek. He looked up to the sky. It wasn’t raining. Great, just bloody great.

Tightening his thighs, he raced Ivan toward the castle’s gates, intent on riding both himself and his horse senseless. He was in a destructive mood, so it was better he left her in the stable to her own devices. He slowed his pace after about a mile, sure he was far enough from his home.

Far enough from the truth and from Abigail.

What in hell was he running from? And why?

He’d probably numbered his days with the governess.

Bringing Ivan to a canter, he turned the horse back toward the castle, unsure if he wanted to go home or not. Should he have stayed? Was it the right thing to do in leaving her when he wanted nothing more than to lose himself in her?

It would somehow be kinder to send her away. Provided she wasn’t already packing her bags.

Pulling Ivan to a stop, he stared up the slope leading into the castle grounds. The giant mound of rock was cursed of any luck. Any love. All the woman who came to live here eventually grew to hate it and the men that inhabited the castle.

It was probably because Wright men were an unkind lot. Cads, scoundrels, black- hearted bastards. Madeline had called him that toward the end.

He let out a frustrated sigh and closed his eyes for a moment, blocking the castle from sight.

He had few good memories of his home. His mother kissing him on the cheek, telling him to be a good boy and that she’d forever be proud of him. Reading to him from the storybook she’d written for him. His mother standing in the path of his father’s angry tantrums only to be struck in his place. Then finally, the fateful day when his mother had walked out into the sea to never come back.

He wished he understood why she’d left him behind.

His father had beaten him senseless the night his mother had killed herself. Beaten him close to within an inch of his own worthless life. Worthless life— those words were pounded into him over the subsequent years and repeated until his father’s death. He never remembered his father being kind. Not to him, his mother, the help around the castle. He was a miserable old abusive coot.

There was the memory of his wife coming to the castle for the first time, a shy young woman who knew of his father’s cruelties toward the inhabitants, toward his mother.

Yet she had still married him. Then he’d put a babe in her belly, and the radiant glow of life slowly leeched from her cheeks as the weeks and months wore on.

The glorious day his son had been born made everything wrong in the world disappear. Until his wife’s madness had taken hold of her mind and everything he thought to hold dear in the world was ripped asunder.

His son had nearly died by his wife’s hands. Much as he’d nearly died at his father’s hands. The castle had come close to burning down in her insanity. Her madness had finally taken her in a blazing inferno of death.