The Bound Heart (2 page)

He knew as he said the words, he meant them. He would step right back at a single word.

She looked at him, taking in what he said, what he meant.

“I’m the sun?”

He nodded and pleasure broke over her face before she dropped her head and moved up against him.

Heat slammed into his body as every muscle tightened with need. Need to rush forward. Need to pull her hard up against him, to feel her soft breasts pressed onto his chest, pressed into his mouth, his hands, his face.

Yet he held himself still.

Tentative fingers touched his waistcoat, then fiddled with its small black buttons. With her body so small next to his, it was an act of pure will not to wrap her up against him.

“Men have been rough with me before, Mr. Edwards, and I have healed. I will not be beaten, but I’m stronger than you might think.”

His hand tightened around hers. He would find out their names; London was a small place.

“I would never hurt you, Olive. It’s nothing like that.”

Olive nodded, still fascinated with his chest. Her fingertips stilled. She must be able to feel his heart. It was pounding so hard the air should be thick with its beat.

Outside the sounds of the street drifted up in the stillness. The sound of carriage wheels and horses hooves on cobbled streets, thuds and steps downstairs in the bookshop, the creaks, and groans of the wood.

He held his breath. Consciously, trying to calm the wild need screaming inside him to take, take, take right now. Yet the better part of him was resolved, whatever her answer, he would honor it. Then he breathed out, a heavy, ragged sound.

She must know he was affected, that what was happening meant a lot to him. Yet the choice had to be hers.

Gradually, her face lifted.

He was heavy and thickening with want. Chanting her acceptance in his mind.

She’d made her decision.

Something fluttered in his belly.

Suddenly, he was as nervous as when he’d tried his first tie. Worried at failure and success both.

“Do you want to see my brace now?” a whisper.

Red blotched up her neck again.

Olive, sweetheart, you have no idea.

“If you don’t mind,” he said softly.

Her cheek under his thumb was the satin of innocence. Soft, smooth, of course, yet somehow through that layer, a communication was transferred, a charge, an elemental crackle under the skin, which warned him yet again, her fragile flesh was filled with the very thing he had built an adulthood of rules and discipline against.

Don’t let them in son, they’ll crawl into the very soul of you and leave only a shell.
But his father’s words seemed a long way off right now. Instead she drew him in like a man to his ultimate vice.

The raised flesh of her lips tugged damp as he ran his thumb over them. It was a stroke designed to smear perfect lip paint; however, on her clean face, it was a wishful thought that he could wipe away her power, her appeal.

“Please.” Her voice was soft, hesitant, with no idea what she was asking for from a man like him. “I want this. I want you.” Her face went deep red.

His lips felt suddenly dry. He closed his eyes to get some measure of control.

Images pushed forward, his hand threaded through that cool, burnished silk of her hair, her neck arched back and taunt, her mouth lost and loose, and her eyes in that pleasured squint. And of course, rope, her body bound in the softest of rope. Yes, that was the kind of man he was.

He opened his eyes and looked at her trusting face.

Need was there. She wanted him, wanted something he wasn’t made to give, yet also something that he could.

“Let’s look at your brace.”

Olive leaned closer to him. It was as if the coal fire had taken all the air out of the room, a soft fogginess hung in her head and was wiping away all clear thinking. Her heart beat over hard in her ears and there was only him, Mr. Edwards, so wonderfully close.

She needed a few moments. Needed to find her balance.

Of all the things he could have asked her, why ask to see the brace? It made her feel off center, on edge. Her eyes darted over him, anything to buy a bit of time, clear her head, and work out what he was asking.

As they stood there, close, not moving, a soft, woody fragrance wrapped around them. An exotic smell that spoke of satin comforters and large silk cushions. Of soft caresses and deep gentle kisses.

The scent sat in his clothes.

Olive drew it in, her eyelids lowering as she imagined him in that rich setting.

Yet the scent was familiar. Her mind hunted through memories to track it, and then there it was. It smelt like the scented oriental sticks Evie burned in The Velvet Basement below, a woody, soft, smoky smell with notes of perfume in it.

“You smell like the scent sticks Evie burns.”

He smiled.

“I burn them at home.”

She nodded and his gaze moved down to her lips. The burning need in her jumped higher.

What would his world be like?

What would it be like to go home with Mr. Edwards, the man who burned Evie’s oriental sticks at home?

When he looked back into her eyes, need glowed at her. It prickled all through her limbs like fire sparks crackling in the wind.

His fingers slipped stray strands of her hair over her ear.

Her breath caught in her throat. She leaned her cheek into his hand, wanted his touch, wanted this agonizing wait for more to end.

“I wouldn’t think you’d go down to The Velvet Basement,” he said.

Her face grew hot, at his touch, at speaking about the shop downstairs.

“No, I just stop in to see Evie. She doesn’t let me past the counter if there are more than one or two customers.”

“Good for Evie.”

Mr. Edwards wrapped his hands around her waist; the heat of them seeped in through her clothes, and then he lifted her to sit on the table next to them.

There was no straining, no hefting her up, just a clean solid lift.

“You’re strong.” She sounded out of breath. “Not that you look weak.” She hurriedly added.

She never had the right words to say in these situations, not that there had been many. She wasn’t the kind of girl men went for, no playful taunts and flirting. There was her limp and then there was Billie’s brace. No man needed a woman who needed looking after, who couldn’t step up and get food on the table if he couldn’t.

Her steadying hand on his shoulder instinctively squeezed his upper arm.

Steel hard.

She squeezed again and a small smile tugged at the corner of his mouth.

“My interests require me to have strength. However, you, Miss Thompson, are overly light. Are you eating?”

His hands slid up her waist and up her rib cage causing her breath to catch. She squeezed her elbows tight to her ribs stopping him from going higher even as her breasts screamed for his touch.

A hand came up and lifted her chin so she had to look him in the face.

“Are you, Olive? You’re very light.”

She tugged her chin out of his hold.

“As much as most.” Her cheeks heated, and she looked at the bench behind him rather than his face.

She didn’t want to talk about the world outside, the realities of low wages and crowded living. How cold the winter had been, how some nights she’d slept in her coat with her stockings and boots still on.

She was sure shivering the fat off her body was what kept her warm enough to crawl out of that corner of hell, one day after the next, and work for more hours than there was daylight.

The alternative was worse; to stand on the street and to be taken against alley walls, to fall on her knees and suck at a man for enough coin to buy just enough food to have the energy to do it again.

That would have been the death of her. Too soft, her sisters always said. Airs and graces, her mother said. They’d all gone out into that hell when their family needed them to. She’d just taken on more sewing and did her best to help that way.

“I don’t think you really want to see my brace.”

She had been much too slow to cotton on to him when he mentioned it as she walked in.

There was that half smile again.

“Well, you’d be wrong, Olive.”

She felt herself half smile back.

He didn’t really, he wanted to lift her skirt but he was also playing with her, drawing it out. Men didn’t usually take their time like this. Draw out all the tension; savor the tight pull between actions.

He did.

He was enjoying this very much.

Everything about him said he was paying the utmost attention to everything about her. It was heady, made her feel special, as well as frustrated.

Mr. Edwards moved a chair from nearby to next to her right leg, the one she wore the brace on, and placed her foot on its seat.

“Does that feel all right, Olive?”

Her right leg was shorter than her left.

She and her older brother, Billie, had both gotten sick with infantile paralysis, he worse than she. They’d made it; she’d leaned on Billie all the way, relied on his determination that they both would recover. And in the obvious way, they both had.

“Yes. It never hurts.”

“Good.”

He took another chair from the other side and placed her other leg on that. It effectively opened her legs.

Her face burst into heat.

She lifted her leg to move it to the other chair to put her legs together.

He stepped between them. The warm hardness of his thighs touched hers.

Her heart hammered in her chest and her face burned.

She’d waited two years for him to be interested in her, to reach out and take what she offered. Now that it was all unfolding, she felt nervous, jumpy.

“Is Mr. Johns really gone?”

She looked back over her shoulder at the door. Jamie had locked it. She looked at the door into the side room.

Mr. Edwards lifted her chin again to look at him.

“We’re alone.”

His fingers moved from her chin to her shirt, trailed down between her breasts and stopped. His knuckle rubbed at the swell of them making them ache for more.

“Just say the word and we’ll stop.”

“No.” A huskiness came into her voice.

With agonizingly slow speed he lifted the hem of her skirt.

They both watched as the first bit of black woolen stocking appeared above her walking boot. A little higher and the brace wrapped around the stocking came into view.

Mr. Edwards looked up, met her gaze, and she licked her lips. She had to leave them open as she was unable to draw in enough air.

Her arms trembled as he lay the fabric over her thigh.

His palm and fingers closed around her just above the knee and squeezed a little. He slid his fingertips higher under her loose pantaloons and came to the edge of the stocking.

She sucked her breath in, leaned forward just fractionally, and closed her eyes. All her focus was on the touch of his fingers, skin to skin, above the stocking.

She wanted him to move higher, forget about the brace and move faster, move faster and touch her; touch her there where she felt so hot, where she was going to burst into flame, pop like a pinecone thrown into the fire.

But his hand moved down, ran over the leather frame of the brace and her heart lurched.

She could do this.

He started to unbuckled the brace, first one buckle and then the next.

“This could do with some leather softener.” His words faded in her ears as he unbuckled the next binding.

Her fingers curled tight around the edge of the table.

Her heart beat hard and her breathing got faster and not in a good way.

No,no,no. Please not now.

Her chest tightened, and her muscles stiffened all through her body.

No, she didn’t want this, didn’t want to feel like this. Her brows came down over her eyes as she focused, focused on just one calm breath after another.

By the time all six buckles were loose and the brace slid off into his hands, she was frozen.

“Olive, are you all right?”

She nodded. “I’m not used to it being off, that’s all. I’ll be all right in a minute.”

‘Take that damn thing off,’ her mother would say. ‘Billie’s gone and wearing his brace is just plain strange, Olive. No man will want you with that get up. Your limp’s enough to make them feel sorry for you, don’t start adding what’s not needed.’

Billie had always stood between her and the world. Between their mother and sisters when they wanted her on the streets with them; making sure she could do the sewing that gave her peace.

The day they brought him home, his uneven gait had been too slow for him to dodge the trolley carts up on Piccadilly Street. He’d been broken, trampled.

She’d taken his brace. Kept it as a reminder. It had just been a matter of time before the realities of life he’d always held back pressed down on her. His brace clasped around her leg made it somehow easier. However now, when it came off and she was with people, like with Jamie now, her body flew into a panic. Like she really couldn’t walk through life without Billie there in spirit.

“Do you want me to stop?”

“No!” She would not let this get in the way of her first chance with him.

Her legs started shivering in uncontrolled movements. Excitement and panic all mixed together.

Jamie rolled the thick black stocking down revealing white skin, her scattering of red hairs and the occasional freckle. His hand touched, slid and squeezed her thigh, then her calf and shin.

Every stroke soothed and calmed her nerves and sent a warm wash of heat to her core. A throbbing beat between her legs.

Oh, please, just a bit higher.

Her chest was tight.

She imagined that first touch as his fingers pushed through the gap in her knickers, as they touched her sex.

“Breathe, Olive.”

One big ragged breath out and then back in.

Her eyes, when they met his, saw the dark need shining through. All banked up on the inside as he tormented her with half touches.

Her legs started to shake again.

“I’m sorry, I ….”

Mr. Edwards reached out to the basket she’d brought, dug into the off cut bag he’d given her, and took out a length of ribbon.

“I’m, going to tie this on you. Just like a small brace.”

She nodded stiffly.

In moments, he wrapped the burgundy ribbon a few times at the top of her calf below the knee. It was a comforting tie where each width of ribbon as it went around her fractionally covered the previous one so she had a firm three-inch band. Like a firm soothing hold.

Olive looked down at what he was doing as he tied off the ribbon. It felt as if the brace was back on, her body settled, her shoulders dropped and the tight coil in her eased.

“I feel foolish.”

And she did. Her dependence on the brace was such a foolish thing.

He placed the brace on the table next to them.

“Don’t,”-his hand cupped her cheek-“You need the brace; it was thoughtless for me to take it off.”

His face had gone stern. He was blaming himself.

“No. It’s me. I…I don’t really need it. I…I just feel better wearing it, that’s all. I’ve worn it so long my body doesn’t like it being off when I’m with people…”

His eyebrows lifted at that; yet his eyes were soft as he nodded.

“We all have our twists; good for you for wearing yours in plain sight.”

That made her smile.

“Thank you.”

All those years her mother and sisters screamed what a twisted selfish girl she was; and Jamie took it in his stride, knew immediately what she needed when she couldn’t stop shaking. No judgment, just acceptance and approval that she did what she felt she had to.

Her hand reached out and touched his arm. She wanted to tell him what this meant to her.

Then his finger traced the red imprints of the brace on her mid-calf. Slow traces torturing her all over again. Feather light touches flamed her skin with heat.

With the ribbon on her leg, the brace was forgotten. Her fear forgotten. Instead that hot aching need rose and throbbed through her body.

Higher. Please go higher, the chant started again.

Her mouth opened a fraction, and she started to breathe through her mouth again.

Mr. Edwards leaned forward.

“Look at me, Olive.”

She did. He stepped closer between her thighs. Her skirt riding up to her legs. Her white pantaloons, seemed overly bright exposed between them.

His fingers traced the small foxes, rabbits and birds she’d embroidered on the soft cotton. His mouth lifted at the corner before he leaned closer.

Heaven help her, the heat of his body radiated up over her chest her breasts. Her head tilted, her lips an offering begging him to accept.

“Did you use the threads I gave you for these?”

Her hands lifted and pressed softly against his chest.

“Yes.” She whispered it between them.

Yet he waited.

For what she didn’t know.

A crease formed between his brows.

He leaned closer. Gazed at her lips.

Olive followed every change, every small movement he made, every shift of his muscles, his breath, even the change in the shape of his lips.

Her pulse beat at her clavicle. It thumped through her. Hungry beats as she moved forward.

Then he was at her mouth.

“The Japanese say, beware a beautiful women, she may be a fox goddess in disguise. An Inari Okami.”

His breath flowed over her lips.

“I could be the rabbit.” Her breath shuddered out in return, a kiss of sorts as the air ran over their lips.

“Oh, no… you’re definitely an Inari Okami.”

Olive curled her fingers in his waistcoat as his mouth came over hers.

Firm heat pressed against her lips. The hotness spreading through her body, her breasts, her belly, and lower.

How often had she lain in bed and wondered what a kiss from him would be like? Nights where she lay awake and her fingers found their way into her mouth. Her tongue had run over her fingers imagining what he would feel if it was his tongue she caressed.