Hadrian (20 page)

“You’re quiet,” Avis remarked, tossing the soap onto the bank.

“Rendered speechless by your tender ministrations.”

“This is eloquent.” She sleeved his erect cock with cool fingers, then her hand was gone.

“You are more than welcome to touch me,” he managed. She rinsed the soap from her hands under the pond’s surface. Was she rinsing off the feel of him too? He tried again, more honestly. “I’d love for you to touch me.”

His nymph of the hillside pond regarded him curiously. “We’re such different creatures.”

Not repulsed, then, but in want of confidence.

“Delightfully so. I certainly explored your treasures when you gave me leave to do so.”

Birds had begun their evening chorus as the sun dipped, though despite the brisk temperature of the water and the cooling air—also despite two weeks of relentless physical labor, bone-deep exhaustion, and a bit too much summer ale—Hadrian’s arousal was unabated.

“You honestly don’t mind?”

She had twelve years of wondering, waiting and wishing to make up for, and she’d chosen to cover that precious ground with him.

“At this moment, your touch on my intimate parts would be my fondest dream.” Fondest, most desperate, passionate, wildest… Even if it killed him.

She tugged him by the hand toward the bank and toward a fate he could not have anticipated when he’d given his last sermon over in Rosecroft village.

Hadrian lowered himself to the blankets and passed her his shirt. “It’s clean enough. I had it off for much of the day.”

He didn’t want her taking a chill, and his self-restraint would benefit from a sop to her modesty. The daft woman didn’t button the shirt closed, though, but merely drew the sides together, leaving all manner of curves and shadows to tantalize his fevered brain.

Hadrian lay back, his head pillowed on his jacket, and let his hands fall to his sides.

“Do with me what you will, Avie love.” Such a pronouncement should have felt silly, to use her word, and yet, putting control of their intimacy into her hands was the only gift he had to offer her.

Avie sat beside him and swaddled herself in a length of toweling. He hadn’t kissed her enough lately, but as she settled cross-legged at his hip, he kept his gaze on the darkening sky. Watching her mouth had his mouth aching. His mouth,
aching.
His tongue, his hands, his chest…

God in heaven.

Then he had to close his eyes, as a fleeting brush of Avie’s index finger circled the crown of his cock.

“That spot,” he rasped. “That…right
there
. You could bring me off in a minute flat, less than a—God, Avie.”

She desisted, only to caress his balls, and when Hadrian might have been shivering in the cooling air, he was burning.

“These are odd bits.”

“Odd, and vulnerable.”

“They don’t look vulnerable. Does this hurt?” She closed her hand around him and tugged his stones gently away from his body.

“Not hurt. It doesn’t exactly soothe, either.” Nothing involving her hands and his breeding organs would soothe.

“Shall I do it again?”

“You shall do as you please, Avie. Whatever you please, for as long as you please.” For the next twelve years, and for the next eternity.

“But you’ll want to…” She hadn’t the words for that they embarked on now. Hadrian would give her those too.

“I’ll want to spend. I already do, but that’s of no moment. A man learns to deal with his urges, or he’s not worth the name.”

She drew his cock straight up, perpendicular to his body, then let it bounce back up against his belly, and even that—

“I got you into this state,” Avis mused. “Some say a man’s bodily urges should never be thwarted.”

Oh, for God’s sake.
“A man, particularly a young man, gets into this state frequently. That doesn’t create responsibility in any handy female, Avie. The high street of the smallest village wouldn’t be safe if it did.”

“I’m not done with you.”

He closed his eyes again, knowing that in short order, he’d be
done
, one way or another. He was only human, all his honorable blather notwithstanding, and the past twelve years had been long for him too.

Also lonely.

“Holy hallelujahs.”

She’d leaned in and licked the head of his cock. “Is that your seed?”

“Just a drop,” he whispered. “Touch me like that again and I will spend, Avie. It isn’t tidy.”

“I want to do it again.”

Hadrian prayed, earnestly and sincerely, for strength, then realized what she was asking. His role was not to withstand or endure what she offered, but to surrender to it—to her.

“You must do as you please, Avie. Whatever you please.”

“You care for me.” She came to this conclusion while beaming at his rigid cock, having hopscotched intuitively from one sort of intimacy to another.

“I do.” Could not recall a time when he hadn’t cared for her, hadn’t included her in his prayers, hadn’t known on some level that coming home to Landover would also be coming home to her.

She leaned forward, and while he watched, drew her tongue up the length of him. “I care for you too.”

“One has hoped—
singing saints
, that feels—” She did it again, and he couldn’t get the words out. His brain shut down, save for the ability to recognize and rejoice in the pleasure she brought him.

She got comfortable, resting her head on his belly, and Hadrian had to touch her, had to be connected to her through more than his straining cock. He tangled his grasp in her damp hair and wished he hadn’t offered her his shirt. His fingers and palms yearned for the glory of her bare skin.

“How does one do this?” She licked up his length, as if he were a sweet on a stick, and he fought to recover his command of English.

“You take your time, and you satisfy your most prurient curiosity,” he said, and that was a prayer too.

“Honestly?” She twisted to glance up at him, her expression so full of devilment Hadrian felt an honest frisson of anxiety.

“Honestly.”

She said nothing more for a quite a while, but tasted every inch of him, nuzzled his balls, and drove him beyond reason with her tongue. His hips lifted, despite all his intentions, resolutions and prayers to the contrary.

“You’re allowed to move,” Avis said. Then she plunged her mouth down on him and drew on him in a slow, relentless rhythm, even as her wet hand worked the base of his shaft.

“Avie—”

“Hush.”

She teased, tormented, nibbled, licked and experimented until Hadrian was moving mindlessly to her rhythm. She was proving something to herself, asserting dominion over him, and over some aspect of her adult femaleness Hadrian didn’t comprehend.

He should finish in his hand, the blankets, or some-damned-where besides her mouth, but Avie wasn’t leaving him an instant to figure out how to manage—

Abruptly, satisfaction welled. “Avie, I’m about to—”

Hadrian dropped his hand from her hair, lest he force her to keep him in her mouth, but she didn’t leave him, she drove him with that mouth beyond sanity, beyond earthly experience, into the most glorious, intense,
unbearable
experience of protracted bodily delight he’d ever endured.

Had he been capable of using words, the term transcendent would have accurately applied.

“Avie.” Some creature dwelling in dark bliss had rasped her name, not Hadrian Bothwell. His body sang fading hosannas as the sky welcomed the night, and Avie subsided onto his belly. “For God’s sake, love, hold me.”

She obligingly shifted over him and wrapped her arms around his shoulders, then buried her face in his neck.

As he tried to recover his breath—his wits were a hopeless cause—she said something against his throat. Asked a question. He wasn’t sure what. He closed his arms around her in answer.

Precious
, was all he could think. The experience was precious, yes, but more than that, the woman was precious. He’d teased her, telling her he was lonely and needed relief from matchmaking mamas. He’d also told her he wanted to keep her safe, but his words had not been honest.

He was beyond lonely,
for her
. Had been for years, and he didn’t want to keep her safe, he
needed
to, more than he needed to breathe air.

“You didn’t answer, Hadrian.”

“I couldn’t hear the question for all the bells ringing in my ears.”

She tucked her face against him again, but Hadrian was focused now, and he heard her.

“Did I do it right?”

“Well, to be honest, no.” He kissed her chin, feeling her brace herself for his judgment. “Not quite, though it wasn’t a bad effort, and one appreciates your enthusiasm. With my selfless and generous cooperation, if you practice diligently at
every
opportunity and apply yourself assiduously and
very
frequently to the—”

She hit his shoulder, and then they were laughing and rolling in a tangle of naked, happy limbs, until he rose above her and kissed the stuffing out of her.

“If I live to be older than Gran Carruthers,” Hadrian said, “I will never forget the pleasure and trust you’ve given me this evening, Avis Portmaine. You showed me nothing less than heaven on earth, and I will treasure you always for your generosity and courage.”

He nearly told her they’d shared some sort of baptism of the heart on this outing, but her brows were drawn down.

“I managed well enough?”

He kissed her cheek and lowered himself to wrap his arms around her. “No other lady has shown me such consideration. You have ruined me, and I am pleased to be your wreckage.”

She stroked his hair. “We’re both ruined, then.”

He angled back up. “You cannot be ruined. You’re to marry me, or have you forgotten?”

“I haven’t forgotten,” Avie said, though clearly, Hadrian had spoiled the moment. “But I’ve yet to accept you, or had you forgotten?”

“Apparently that detail slipped from what passes for my brain.” Hadrian pushed over to lie at her side lest his unruly parts become inspired. “Trifling with me and tossing me over won’t be well done of you, Lady Avis.”

“Shame on you, Hadrian.” She rolled away from him, clearly unappreciative of his attempt at humor—if that’s what it had been.

He spooned himself around her and threaded his arm under her neck so she might use his biceps for a pillow, then drew half the blanket up over them. “I truly want to marry you. Please say yes.”

“You’re not thinking clearly.”

She was right—and she wasn’t.

Hadrian kissed her shoulder. “About this, I am thinking very clearly. I won’t argue with you now. I’m too happy.”

“You’re sated,” she said, pleased with herself,
as well she should be
. Every kiss and caress, every inch of bared flesh they shared was a powerful light banishing the shadows left by her past.

“I’m plotting revenge, silly wench.” He fell asleep, wondering if she’d let him use his mouth on her. That delight had been denied him by his wife, and now he was glad of it. With Rue, such an adventure would have been the result of curiosity and boredom.

With Avie, his intimate attentions were driven by the need to protect, to treasure, and to love.

“Going somewhere, Lily my love?” Fenwick’s question had the intended result of freezing Lily Prentiss in her tracks.

“I am not your love,” she hissed, “and I have never given you leave to use my name, nor will I.”

“Alas for me.” Fen ambled out of the shadows on Blessings’s back terrace, because he intended to detain his prey. “Care to join me for a moonlit stroll in the gardens?”

“Do you never listen, Mr. Fenwick? Your company is not agreeable to me.”

“I listen.” Though he often regretted what he overheard. “I look too, and I see a lady out by herself after dark. Clearly, you’re bent on mischief.”

Lily drew herself up, sails filling with a purpose Fen was determined to thwart.

“I am bent on finding Lady Avie. She hasn’t come in yet, and the evening grows both chilly and dark.”

Chilly indeed. “After remaining behind to tidy up the ale station, Lady Avis accepted Mr. Bothwell’s escort. You may toddle back to your needlepoint, assured our mutual employer will come to no harm.”

Lily’s gaze darted up the shadowed slope, confirming that she’d been spying on Avis—again.

“She’ll need her shawl.” Lily started toward the trees. “She worked too long in the sun today. She’ll take sick—”

Fen plucked the shawl from Lily’s hands.

“I’m sure Bothwell will lend her his jacket, gentleman that he is. I’ll hang on to this so you don’t have to loiter here in the night air, waiting for your employer.”

“She’s not my—” But Lily wasn’t entirely foolish. She and Fen were at best equals, and forcing Avis to choose between them was not prudent—not with Bothwell taking Lady Avis for moonlit strolls.

“You are insufferable, Mr. Fenwick, but what else should I expect from a half-savage heathen like you?”

“I believe you’ve commented similarly before.” Fenwick let his eyelids droop, as if she’d offered a flirtatious innuendo. “We heathen have our endearing attributes. Was that why you came out here searching for me?”

“I hate you,” Lily said through gritted teeth. “You are the furthest thing from a gentleman, and you do not deserve to walk the same ground as Avis Portmaine, much less interfere with my protection of her.”

“Dearest Lily,” Fenwick drawled, “it’s time you accepted that Avie can look after herself, and took your interfering self off to bed. Shall I escort you?”

She slapped him, a good hard smack, much as he’d suffered from her on previous occasions.

He touched his cheek, then his heart, the better to aggravate the silly bitch. “A parting token of your esteem. Good night, sweet Lily. Pleasant dreams.”

He held his ground, and Lily had the sense to retreat into the house. If she dealt him a blow every so often, it took the edge off her ire. Fen didn’t exactly like being slapped, but violence from her was proof of something besides the towering disdain she affected.

Some fellow had probably dealt a figurative death blow to her feminine confidence ages ago, but even that thought didn’t stir in him one ounce of pity for her.