WidowsWickedWish (27 page)

No sooner had the footman opened the carriage door and
released the steps than Jack was descending onto the walkway. As if he could
not wait to get away from her.

And why not? Once again she’d allowed her temper to take
over, blinding her to everything but the sorrow and fury and frustrated desire
that had taken up residence inside her and refused to depart.

Olivia took the hand extended through the open door without
thought, intent only upon getting inside the house and to the privacy of her
chambers where she might toss and turn in her bed before getting up to pace
about the room. Such had become her nights.

Strong hands, bare and calloused, gripped hers and pulled
her through the door. She stumbled on the steps, looking up in surprise to find
her husband grinning at her.

“Carrying it is,” he said just before his hands dropped to
her waist.

“What are you—”

Her words ended on a squeal of outrage as Jack lifted her
off her feet and tossed her over his shoulder. One strong arm wrapped tight
around her knees, the other banded around her thighs just beneath her bottom.

“Have you lost your mind?” she cried, struggling in his
grip.

“Hush, my lady,” he answered around a chuckle as he started
across the walkway. “You’ll rouse the neighbors. What would they think to see
you tossed over my shoulder like so much baggage?”

“They’ll think you are a barbarian,” she answered, pummeling
his lower back with her fists.

“I am a barbarian.” Jack tightened his arm around her knees,
locking her against his chest. “Hold still. I don’t want to drop you.”

“Then put me down!”

“Not just yet.” He took the half-dozen steps onto the
portico at a leisurely pace, not so much as breathing heavy.

“Pendergrass, help me,” Olivia pleaded as they passed by the
butler who held the front door open, his face perfectly composed.

“That will be all,” Jack said to the man.

“You cannot just toss me about this way,” she hissed.

“You are my wife. I’ll toss you about however I damn well
choose.”

“You insufferable ogre, you unfeeling monster, I’m warning
you—”

Jack’s hand landed hard upon her bottom, stinging her flesh
through her gown, two petticoats and drawers. “I’m warning you, Lady Bentley.
This nonsense has gone on long enough.”

“Twelve years too long,” she agreed as he strode through the
foyer toward the wide staircase. “You cannot mean to carry me upstairs in your
condition. We will both fall and break our necks.”

“Oh no, there is not a chance in hell of you getting off so
easily as that. I have plans for you this night,” he warned.

Jack hefted her more securely over his shoulder and ascended
the stairs with no more effort than he’d expended upon the front steps. With
each step he took, Olivia was jostled about until she finally dropped her cheek
to his back, wound her arms around him and locked her hands together. She held
herself perfectly still as she fought to pull the tattered edges of her temper
together.

“That’s better,” he crooned, turning his head so that his
lips pressed against her hip. “No use fighting the inevitable.”

“Inevitable?” she repeated, her voice shrill. “I’ll show you
inevitable just as soon as I am on my feet.”

“I can hardly wait,” he replied, his warm breath penetrating
her clothing to caress her flesh.

Desire, dark and dangerous, shot through her, making
mincemeat of her attempt to subdue her fury. Even now, while he mocked her and
manhandled her, Olivia wanted him. She wanted his rough hands on her, his mouth
hot on hers, his cock buried deep in her body.

“Damn you,” she muttered against his back.

Jack turned into her chamber, kicking the door closed behind
them.

Olivia lifted her head as he walked through the space into
the small sitting room where they’d dined together on their wedding night. It
seemed a lifetime ago when in fact it had been less than a month. Twenty-six
days feigning contentment. Twenty-five nights fighting the urge to cross the
space that separated them, to crawl into his bed and beg him to continue the
pretense of wanting her.

“Why are we in this room?” she demanded.

“I’ve a mind to go back and right a wrong,” he answered.

“Put me down,” she ordered, confused by his words.

“Your wish is my command.” Jack released his grip on her
legs and settled his hands on her waist. Slowly he brought her up over his
shoulder before allowing her to slide down his torso, her breasts brushing his
chest, her nipples hardening at the contact.

When her feet touched the floor, Olivia stepped back. His
fingers flexed, slipped to her hips, and he held her fast.

She tilted her head back and met his gaze, expecting to find
him grinning, enjoying her humiliation.

Instead she found him looking back at her with a frown. In
the silvery light of the moon shining through the open drapes, his eyes gleamed
like dark sapphires as they swept over her upturned face.

“What did you mean, twelve years too long?” he asked.

“Only that you are right. This has gone on long enough.”

“What?”

Olivia waved her hand between them. “This…whatever it
is…this fascination between us.”

“Fascination between us?” he repeated, his voice gravelly.

“Again you are correct,” she replied, stepping back with a
twist of her hips that had his hands falling away. “It was never between us.
Always and forever it was me wishing for the impossible.”

“What the hell are you going on about?”

“Do you know what I was doing when you thought I was congratulating
myself on foisting you off on Elizabeth?” she asked, sidling around and behind
the table “I was wishing upon a star. Star light, star bright.”

Jack stepped to the table, circled it and Olivia shifted,
keeping its bulk between them.

“I wished I might be as wicked as Elizabeth, wicked and
daring. And that someday a man…no not just any man…I wished that someday you
would desire me.”

“Be careful what you wish for.” Jack followed her movements,
stalking her around the table.

“Be careful lest you believe your wish has come true,” she
corrected with a self-deprecating laugh. “That was my mistake, believing you
desired me.”

Jack froze, his hands curling around a chair back.

“You made me believe it.” Olivia grasped the spindles of the
other chair, her eyes fastened on the man across the smooth expanse of wood
that separated them. “But it was all a lie.”

“No. Olivia, no.” Jack seemed to sway on his feet, his eyes
wide, and his hands gripping the chair.

“It wasn’t desire at all. Every time you touched me, kissed
me, thrust your cock into me, it was with cold calculation, not fiery passion.
Every time you made love—” Olivia slashed her hand through the air, negating
the words. “Every time you rogered me, swived me, fucked me it was with the
intention to plant your seed in my womb!”

With a roar Jack lifted the chair and sent it soaring across
the room to crash into the wall before splintering into so much kindling.

Olivia’s eyes darted from the mangled wood to her husband
who stood staring down at her, his hands clenching at his sides. His chest rose
and fell beneath his waist coat, air wheezing past his parted lips.

“Is that what you think?” he shouted. “That I don’t want
you? That I don’t desire you?”

“It’s what I know,” she replied, her voice shaking but not breaking
in the face of his anger.

“You don’t know shit.” Jack darted around the table.

Olivia turned away, thinking only to flee to the safety of
her bedchamber.

Strong arms wrapped around her waist from behind, halting
her escape and pinning her to his broad chest.

“Let me go,” she said, wiggling about in his arms, prying at
his hands clasped on her belly.

“Never,” he growled in her ear before pulling the lobe
between his lips. His tongue swirled around and he pulled the sensitive flesh
into his mouth, his teeth biting down just hard enough to send a shot of
painful pleasure through her.

“Release me this instant,” she ordered, fighting to hold
back the moan that hovered on her lips.

Jack ignored her words, one hand coming up to cradle her
breast, the other dropping to the apex of her legs. He drove his fingers over
her mound, pushing them between her thighs, stroking over her folds through the
layers of her clothing.

“Not want you?” he growled, releasing her earlobe to press
his lips to her neck. “Does it feel as if I don’t want you?”

He thrust against her bottom, his cock riding the crease.

“You…that…it proves nothing,” she gasped, battling the urge
to wilt against him, to submit to the pretense once more.

“It proves I want you,” he replied, his mouth racing along
the column of her neck to her shoulder. “Christ, Olivia, how could you think
otherwise?”

“I will not get pregnant,” she cried. “I will never bear you
a child, a son. No matter how much you might wish otherwise, no matter how many
times you plow your giant cock into me.”

“I want you. Not a child, not a son to carry on my name.
You.” He dragged his wet mouth over her shoulder. His hand on her breast
flexed, squeezing her, lifting the weight in his palm. His fingers dove deeper
between her legs, separating her folds, pressing against her clit. “I want to
bury myself so deep in your body you lose all thought beyond the anticipation
of the next hard thrust of my cock. I want your fingers biting into my back,
your cries echoing around us as you come apart in my arms. I want to eat your
cunny, watch you suck my cock. I want you beneath me on your back, before me on
your hands and knees, above me straddling me, riding me. I want to make love to
you. I want to fuck you. I want you in every way.”

A shaft of pure lust shot straight to Olivia’s core. And
still she fought him, fought her traitorous body.

“No, you can’t want me,” she mewled, bucking against him,
trying to break free of his embrace, of the dark fantasy he wove with his
words.

“Damn it, Livy.” With his hand caressing her breast and his
fingers dragging over her mound, he shifted, turning them both. “I want you and
I’ll prove it to you.”

“I don’t want you.” The words left her on a breathless moan,
her very last weapon against the desire evoked by his words, by his hot hands
on her body.

“Liar.” Jack released her breast and withdrew his fingers
from between her legs. Before she could truly miss his touch, he placed one
hand on her back and bent her over the table.

“No,” she whispered, her hands coming up to rest on the
surface, to push against his hard hand.

“Oh, yes, wife,” he replied, his voice harsh as he forced
her down until her cheek rested on the cool wood. He dragged her skirt and
petticoats up, tossing them over her back, before yanking at her drawers,
ripping them down her legs to pool at her ankles.

“Not want me?” he whispered above her, pushing her legs
apart and stepping between them.

His hands landed hard on her bottom, squeezing and shaping,
pulling her cheeks apart, exposing her.

“Not want me?” he repeated, some new emotion in his throaty
voice. “If I thought that was true, if I believed I’d lost you…”

His words drifted away even as his thumbs dipped into the
crevice of her bottom, skimming along the tender flesh to hover just over the
forbidden portal.

He tapped against the puckered hole and Olivia trembled, her
senses alert to the thrill of the taboo touch.

“I could take you here. Drive deep into your ass with no
possibility of a child. Would you believe me then?”

“Jack,” she breathed, her hips lifting, pushing her bottom
against his marauding thumbs.

“Someday,” he promised. “Right now I want your tight cunny
around my cock.”

His hands skimmed down her thighs, spreading her wider.

Then two long fingers were circling her quim, dipping into
her body.

Dark laughter whispered from above. “Not want me? You’re wet
for me.”

He thrust his fingers into her, hard enough to force a moan
from her lips, the sound mingling with his rasping laughter.

“You want me.”

Olivia shook her head, her cheek rubbing against the wood
beneath her.

Jack withdrew his fingers, thrust them into her again,
harder, deeper, until his knuckles tapped against her folds.

“Tell me you want me,” he panted above her.

His fingers left her and she turned to peer at him over her
shoulder. His gaze was hot on her naked bottom while he tore at the buttons of
his trousers.

Olivia felt the head of his shaft prodding her and dropped
her cheek back to the tabletop, anticipation humming along her limbs.

“Tell me you want me.” He grasped her hips firmly, pushed
into her cunny, barely breaching her before retreating to circle around her
channel.

Olivia gave up protesting, both with her words and her body.
She arched her back, lifting her hips, chasing the head of his cock, desperate
to have him fill her. “Yes.”

“Say it,” he ordered, bringing the tip back to torment her,
to probe but not penetrate. “Say you want me.”

“I want you!”

With one strong thrust Jack drove into her, his cock filling
her, stretching her.

“Damn…Livy…love,” he gasped, his hands flexing on her hips,
his fingers digging into her flesh. “Not want you?”

Then he was moving, withdrawing only to thrust into her hard
and deep again. Over and over, he slammed into her body, the slap of flesh on
flesh mingling with his rasping groans and her desperate moans.

“I. Want. You.” He paced his words to each thrust as if he
might somehow force her to believe them even as he forced her to submit to his
possession. “I. Have. Always. Wanted. You.”

Jack released her hips, leaned over her to press his open
mouth to her nape, and forged his hand beneath her. His palm dragged over her
curls, his fingers finding her clitoris.