“Of course. Did I not let you bind me? That takes more faith than you will ever know. I don’t give up my freedom easily.” Molly lifted her tied wrists and let her fingers trail down his arm. “Take me, Charles. Show me what I need and let me be yours.” The unspoken words, “just for this once,” hung in the air.
“Oh, my pleasure.” He pushed her gently back onto the cushions and settled over her. “Open for me, love. Spread your legs and let me in.”
They may not have been the most romantic words, but to Molly they were perfect and she blinked rapidly to disperse the tears of happiness that threatened to fall. Molly didn’t want to hit Charles with that sort of arousal. She let her legs fall apart, and lowered her lids a little to watch him sit between her open thighs. He took her ankles and put one on each of his shoulders.
“Perfect. Oh so wet for me, love. That makes me wet also, see?” He ran his fingertip over his cock and offered the coated digit to her.
Molly flicked her tongue out to lick and savor the sweet stickiness of his essence. She moaned her appreciation and Charles laughed. “Good, eh? I wonder if you taste as good.” He used the same finger to stroke the lips of her cunt before he slipped it inside to gather her juices. Then he slowly removed his finger, put it to his mouth, and sucked.
“Nice. What do you think?” Once more he dipped into her channel but this time he offered the juices to Molly.
How could she refuse?
Chapter Four
Charles held his juice-covered finger to Molly’s lips. “Taste.”
Her eyes widened, but she opened her mouth and took his finger inside to roll her tongue over it. The tug on his skin, the graze of her teeth, and the way her eyes clouded with emotion made his cock harden to the point of pain. There was no doubt about it; this wasn’t going to be a long lovemaking.
It was hard to hold back, to try and be gentle when his mind was saying
now, push now
. Only his iron will enabled him to take his time. He lifted her arms and stretched them up and over her head before he slowly edged his cock into Molly’s channel and rested for a moment. He was big, and in his eyes, Molly was so delicate.
“I want all of you, Charles. Please, now. Oh lord, it’s been so long.” Her muscles clenched—not to repel him but to pull him in further and keep him there.
He grinned. “Whatever my lady asks.” With one powerful surge he filled her, and began to set up a steady, pulsing, rhythm. Molly gasped and met him thrust for thrust.
She moved her arms and put them over his head and around his neck. Her nails traced stinging circles as she scraped them across his skin. The ends of the cravat added tiny frissons of friction as they trailed along his back and sides.
Charles saw stars. Damned if he could last much longer. Molly’s mewls and sighs, her gasps and moans were a powerful aphrodisiac. As she trembled beneath him, her body suffused with color. Her eyelids fluttered closed, her breathing sped up, and she screamed as her climax overwhelmed her. It was enough to send him tumbling over the edge with her. Charles did his best to be a gentleman and pull out, but Molly’s inner muscles held him fast. His heart beat at double speed, his skin tingled, and his body was on fire. Her scent surrounded him. Roses, lavender, and something that was indefinable, but all Molly. With a roar to rival the beasts in The Royal Exchange, Charles spilled, and tumbled over the edge to join her.
She was crying. Tears coursed down her cheeks, even though she didn’t make a sound. Oh lord, what had he done? He began to pull out of her, to give her space and, for himself, to try and fathom what went wrong.
“Don’t you dare,” Molly said fiercely. “Do
not
dare. Just hold me, oh sweet...hold me...” She burst into loud sobs. No delicate sobbing as most other women would. Molly’s eyes became puffy and her cheeks were blotchy. Charles leaned over her, stroked the soft skin of her shoulders, and noticed how violently she trembled. It almost destroyed him to see her like that. He felt sick. How could he have caused such a reaction?
“Hush now, love, tell me what’s wrong. I’m only a man, not a mind reader. Men are stupid, we have no sense, we think with our cocks. Our cocks act independently.
They
have no sense.” Was his nonsense helping or making things worse? He had no idea but he rambled on, until Molly gave a watery laugh.
“Your cock really does have no sense. He’s all soft and squishy, and about to wave me goodbye.”
Charles knew that. For several minutes he’d grown less erect, and could do nothing about it. Her anguish upset him and, so it seemed, his staff. What was it with pricks and their tendency to hide at the first sign of feminine distress? Coward, he admonished his cock silently, and wouldn’t have been surprised to get an answer along the lines of, “it takes one to know one.” He had no idea what to do or say.
“He is gathering his strength for another session,” Charles said gravely. “I am an old man you know, and I’ve discovered, sadly out of condition.” He levered himself upright and walked toward the ewer of water on a side table. “Cold, but it will do.” Deftly he took up the linen towel and dampened it. He’d wager whichever member of his staff was responsible for ensuring fresh water was kept at the folly didn’t think it would be used for washing quims and cocks...or perhaps they did?
“Perhaps cold is best,” Molly said. “I’m hot enough to start a fire.” Her flushed skin and bright eyes made him imagine how beautiful she would look on a rug. Naked in front of a fire. Like that the flames would light her body, and create interesting shadows over her skin.
“May I?” Charles waited for her nod before he wiped away the evidence of their passion from her body. Only then did he attend to himself, and wrap a towel around his waist before he threw the used water out of the doorway onto the grass. The last rays of sun hit the windows of the folly and gold and red reflected on the glass. Molly appeared at the doorway behind him, wrapped in a shawl she’d found from somewhere. The sun transferred itself to her rosy skin, and she glowed.
“Oh, how lovely everywhere looks in this light. It’s a shame we have to go. There’s something ever so special about sharing the sunset with the man you—” She stopped speaking suddenly, and if it was possible became redder than ever.
Charles wondered how far the blush extended and vowed one day, somehow, to find out. “You?” He prompted her, and wondered just what she would say.
“Have just lain with,” Molly said huskily. “The man you have just spent such a precious hour with. The memory of which will stay at the top of your memory bank forever. The sort of memory you bring out on a dark day, when your mind and body wants to give up, and you wonder how you can climb out of the mental hole you’re in. When you need something so beautiful and perfect to hold on to. Something to make you believe in life.” She sighed.
It was the saddest sound Charles had ever heard and it hit his gut with the thud of a hammer. Even worse than her tears, the thought that she could experience such despair sent his emotions spinning. What could he do or say to take the shadows from her eyes? To remove the uncertainty in her voice and bring his vibrant Molly back? As he struggled for words to comfort and reassure her—after all, why should she need to resurrect the here and now when they had all their life ahead of them—she shook herself and rolled her shoulders.
“Ah well, I suppose I best dress so we can get back before it gets dark.”
Charles wanted to say, “No, let’s stay here. Forget the world, be just us.”
Damn if only it could be so.
“I think we have five minutes for a hug,” he said instead. “The moon will be up soon, and my horse, Meg, knows the track as well as any man. Come here.” He held his arms open. With a tiny sob, Molly gathered the shawl tighter around her body, and half ran the few steps to reach him.
As he enfolded her into his arms and held her tight, Charles accepted that he couldn’t lose her. Molly was his other half, his completion. He’d spent so long looking for that elusive something he knew he hadn’t experienced in any of his relationships. Not since one brief encounter all those years ago.
For several minutes neither of them spoke. Charles contented himself with stroking Molly’s hair as she clasped her arms around his waist and rested her head on his chest. As they stood there silent and at ease the warmth of the day was gradually replaced by the chills of a late summer evening. Eventually she shivered.
He tipped up her chin to look her in the eyes. “You’re cold. We’d best get dressed and head back.”
She nodded. “All good things come to an end.” Above them the first star of the evening twinkled as the moon appeared over the tree line and bathed the landscape and them with its’ pale white light.
“Why? Why end, Molly? What we do is up to us. I can’t believe these few hours meant so little to you.”
“They meant everything to me, Charles. Much more than I can ever explain. But there’s no future. I’m still the ex-mistress of your brother, and I can’t keep a relationship with you secret and hold my head up. No.” She held her hand over his lips. “It would have to be secret. I may be welcome in certain houses now, but only because I know my place. As your mistress, that place would not be in respectable homes. You would be laughed at. People would say I had cuckolded you, or coerced you into an arrangement. And oh, Charles, I love—yes, still love you—too much to do that to you.” Molly twisted out of his arms, turned, and began to walk back to the folly. The end of her shawl caught on a stone and slipped down her back.
In the moon light the crisscross lines of scars stood out starkly on her pale skin.
What?
“Molly?” Charles hurried toward where she stood, gathering the shawl around her. “Who did it? Your back? Was it Ash? I’ll kill him.” He clenched his hands into fists, and resisted the urge to hit something hard.
“No, no! Never would Ash do something like this.” Molly turned around and put her arms around him. The soft gentle touch was a balm to his senses. The look on her face was the opposite.
“If not Ash then who?” Charles’ stomach heaved at the thought of someone doing such a thing. “How did he accept this?”
“Ash never ever saw them. I became adept at keeping them covered. No.” She shuddered. “It was my payment.”
“Payment?” Charles was confused. “For what?”
“Loving you.”
Chapter Five
“Molly you need to snap out of whatever is ailing you. Remove the dark dog from your shoulder and tell me
what is wrong,”
Adriana said forcefully. “Even your godchildren do not put a smile on your face. I thought to see Harry pee all over Ash would make you laugh, but it barely made your lips curve. Now tell me, please, what is wrong? Before I set Ash to find out. I had to threaten him with ordinary boring sex before he’d let me come to see you alone. Are you with child?”
Molly shook her head, unable to even raise a grin at the thought of Ash and ordinary boring sex. Those words and the Earl of Addersley could never be spoken as an entity. “If it were only that simple. I would gladly be so. No, I’m blue devilled and see no end to my misery. Oh, Adriana, I’m a pitiful specimen of womankind at the moment. Don’t worry, it will pass. I will make it pass, but I need time to mourn. And, no, it is too sore to share yet.”
Adriana patted her shoulder and Molly gulped. “Don’t be too nice or I will crumble. Maybe one day it will lose the rawness and I will be able to share my dismals, just...” She swallowed heavily. “Just not yet. So? Apart from the necessity to shake me up, why are you here? Are the children all right? Ashley? Ch—” she stuttered. “Charles?” A bolt of dread filled her and for one awful moment Molly thought the stars in front of her eyes and the drumming in her ears meant she was about to faint. She bit her lip hard enough to draw blood, and the sharp pain and metallic taste took her mind off her shaky state.
She glanced at Adriana, who had the most peculiar expression on her face. Part worry and, Molly was convinced, part satisfaction. Surely not? Adriana wouldn’t be so cruel as to take pleasure from Molly’s unhappiness. She was too kindhearted.
“Charles? Why should he not be?”
Molly shrugged. “No reason. I merely asked to be polite.”
“Hmm.” It seemed Adriana wasn’t convinced, but she didn’t probe further. “As for the babes and Ash? All are disgustingly healthy and the twins have appetites for two. Each of them. However, I’m talking about you. If you’re not increasing, why the fit of the dismals?”
Molly shrugged. She felt like a recalcitrant schoolgirl hauled in front of her headmistress and about to receive a punishment for some misdemeanor. “Oh, the end of summer. A need to be able to get out of town more. Missing the babes now you are at Addersley. Silly things like that.”
Missing Charles like a severed limb.
“Take no notice of me, Adriana. I need a tonic.”
“Or a new pupil?” Adriana said. “That’s one reason I’m here, along with your dark demeanor. A possible student for you has approached me. The work needed with them will challenge you, but I’m sure you are equal to any problems thrown your way.”
“Probably.” Molly wished she sounded more interested. Nothing garnered her attention these days. She gave herself a mental shake. This was her livelihood they were discussing. “Yes, yes, I am fit and able. So who, what, and how?”
Adriana laughed. “Who? You’ll need to wait. What? A need for self-belief. How? Ah well, there’s one problem.”
There would be. Nothing is straightforward these days.
Molly almost wished she were increasing. At least it would give her something positive to focus on, and lift the fog she seemed to exist in.
“Which is?”
Damn, I should sound more enthusiastic.
Luckily Adriana chose to ignore her lack of passion.
“The pupil will need to be helped outside of the capital. This is yours.” Adriana held a large brass key out.
Without knowing why, Molly took it from her and turned it over in her hands. The metal was warm and smooth, and a tingle of something akin to excitement began to trickle through her.