CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO
“I trust you dealt with the villain appropriately. The instances in which being a ruffian may be considered propitious are few. But this, I daresay, is one of them.” —The Dowager Marchioness of Wallingham to Mr. Elijah Kilbrenner in a letter expressing outrage at the violence present in London’s streets and approval of the violence necessary to answer it.
“She is quite well, Mr. Reaver,” the old physician assured him as he sipped tea in Reaver’s drawing room. “No ill effects. Simply had the wind knocked out of her. I am certain you’ve experienced the sensation a time or two, having been a pugilist of some renown.”
Reaver ran a hand through his hair and paced. He couldn’t settle himself. Visions of Augusta being struck by a fist, then reeling backward to slump against a wall, gasping for breath, repeated in his mind like a devil’s trick. It was torment.
“My, for a man who does not favor tea, yours is always excellent. Are you ready for me to examine your hands?”
Halting, Reaver glared at Dr. Young. “My hands are fine.”
“They are bleeding.”
He glanced at his knuckles and snorted. “Should have been broken. Duff pulled me off that wretched bugger before I could finish him.”
Dr. Young cleared his throat and smiled. “Yes, well. Probably for the best. A coroner’s inquiry might interfere with your schedule.”
“Duff reports the man disappeared shortly after we left.”
“Oh?”
“Some of the older boys saw my work and decided they’d complete the job.”
“Well, now,” said the old man, nodding. “It is heartening when boys show an interest in keeping things tidy.”
Reaver huffed and shook his head. “The man kept dozens of them in that house. Ran them as his own thieving ring, used some of them as sweeps for burgling houses. According to Ash, more than one ended in graves because of that—”
“Yes, yes. He was certainly deserving of his punishment.”
“Aye.” Reaver frowned. “How is Ash faring?”
“Quite well, actually. A few bruises and such. But nothing broken. Made of stout stuff, that one. Last I saw of him, he was wheedling an extra plate of bacon from your housekeeper.”
The boy was impressive. Reaver’s gut had twisted painfully to see Ash clinging to Augusta, tears streaking his face. Until she’d awakened, he’d felt a similar need to touch her, beg her to come back and be his strong, steady Gus. His heart had stopped beating when he’d seen her collapse. It had started again only when those soft, gray eyes had fluttered open. She’d regained her normal breathing shortly after Duff wrestled Reaver away from the fight—or bludgeoning, to be more precise, for the heavy-jowled pig hadn’t even taken a swing.
Although she’d insisted she was capable of walking, he’d scooped her into his arms and carried her out to the coach. Then, he’d climbed inside and cradled her, kissing her temple, forehead, and lips over and over. He’d needed the reassurance. She was warm. She was safe. She breathed and clung to his neck. Laughed about being his valise.
It had not been enough. Even holding her through the night, running his hands over her hair and her face and her body, had not been enough.
His mind, having snapped its tether, still scrambled for purchase. He didn’t know what it would take, only that nothing thus far had worked.
Fear and violence and need coursed through him.
“I think I shall take my leave.” A china cup clinked lightly into its saucer. “Time for my afternoon nap.” The physician slowly got to his feet and gave Reaver an assessing sweep. “Consider having a lie-down, yourself. Might settle you a bit.”
He glanced at the light streaming through the window and snorted. “I can scarcely sleep at full dark.”
The man reached up and patted Reaver’s shoulder as he passed. “I said nothing about sleep, young man.”
*~*~*
Augusta flattened her palms over her bare belly and gazed at her hands in the mirror. She watched them rise and fall with her breaths. She tested the soreness of her abdomen, marveling that it scarcely pained her at all.
She’d been struggling to reconcile the events of the previous day since they’d occurred. No answer had yet appeared. Her hands trembled. Her belly shook. She wondered if she was falling apart or coming together in a new form.
For so long, Phoebe had been everything that mattered. Now, Augusta had Ash. She had Bastian. She had the possibility of a babe of her own. More than one, perhaps.
A smile dawned.
She would like that. Bastian’s babes swelling her belly. Being born. Clinging to her neck. Growing into little giants.
Her life was fuller now. She even had cousins—granted, they were Bastian’s cousins, but they cared whether she was hurt. They’d visited only that morning, Tannenbrook telling her gruffly that she must not place herself in such danger again. Viola had squeezed her hands and sat with her, explaining in her sweet way that Augusta must realize her own importance.
“Do you know why I gave Elijah my list of potential brides?”
Augusta had blinked. “Er, because you wished him to marry?”
“Yes, of course. But I made that list after weeks of meeting his resistance. He refused to discuss marriage—insisted he had no need of a wife. James and I both wanted him to continue the Kilbrenner line, yes, but much more than that, we wished his life to … fill up, I suppose.” Her stunning blue eyes had sheened as she smiled. “They way you filled his empty house.”
She’d explained how, no matter her coaxing or persuasion, Sebastian had resisted with all his considerable will being Elijah Kilbrenner. He’d said again and again that he liked his life precisely as it was, and he’d little interest in changing it.
“Until you,” Viola had continued. “I am most persuasive when I set my heart upon something, but my efforts were in vain. You changed everything. He is happy, Augusta. Filled up entirely. And now, because he wishes to give you a home and a family, he has accepted his place at last. So, you see, you are important. To him. To us. To our family’s future.”
Gently, Augusta had asked why Viola spoke as though there were little chance that Viola might produce an heir apparent.
She had lowered her lashes, her smile turning shaky. “James and I came to London when I was carrying Elizabeth. She is our first child. We—we struggled to conceive her. I struggled to carry her. James found a physician here who specializes in … difficulties of this sort. He helped me deliver our beautiful daughter. But during the birth, I suffered bleeding. He managed to stop it, but he said it is likely I shall not conceive again.”
Viola had explained Tannenbrook’s concern that his estate and the adjacent village pass into capable hands. She’d leaned forward and spoken as though sharing a secret. “He has slept soundly since Elijah asked him for wooing advice. Like a babe after a meal, he’s been. He is convinced you will produce at least a dozen strapping Kilbrenner boys.”
Augusta had glanced at her husband, struck by the thought that she had changed his course—just as he had changed hers. Neither of them were the people they’d been when they met.
Now, as she let her shift fall back into place, she wondered who she was, precisely. No longer a Widmore. No longer simply Phoebe’s sister, standing watch and slaying dragons. She was a wife. A friend. Perhaps soon a mother.
She loved Sebastian with a ferocity that frightened her. Yesterday, when Ash had been in danger, she’d realized how deeply he, too, had anchored himself in her heart. How could she love them all—Ash and Bastian and their children—as much as she’d loved Phoebe without losing herself? How could she stand in the gale and the flood, protecting them as she was driven to do, and come away whole? Loving Phoebe had taken everything she had. And yet, she could not imagine doing anything differently.
Again her eyes drifted to her belly.
“Does it pain you?” His shadow moved into her vision before his wide, heavy shoulders and long, muscular body. He stood behind her, towering in the reflection of her long, gilt-framed mirror.
“No,” she said softly. She loved his face. Every cleft and crag. Every re-routed line and angular hollow. “I have missed you.”
“It has been an hour.”
“Too long.”
His nostrils flared. “Aye.”
Her eyes dropped to his hands. They were vibrating. Not shaking—more of a fine tension. She blinked, noticing the subtle motion along his neck and arms, as well. “Bastian?”
He did not reply, his black gaze fixed upon her abdomen, his jaw flexing.
“Would you like to see?”
His eyes flew to hers. He nodded with a jerk.
She grasped the hem of her shift and removed the garment over her head. Then, she stood naked before her husband.
And felt his eyes burning her alive.
Heat weakened her. Softened her. Beaded her nipples and made her ache.
His hands came to the sides of her waist, his fingertips resting gently against her skin. “Must never do it again, Gus.”
She lost her breath as tingles spread from his hands through her waist, spiraling up and out and down. “Do what?”
“Be hurt.” His tension increased along with the fever in his eyes. “I want to kill him. I want to take you. I want to stop seeing you be hurt.”
She fell back against his solid, powerful, sheltering body. Grasped his hands in hers. Pressed one over her navel and one over her heart. “I shall do everything in my power not to put myself at risk like that again. I promise.”
His sigh shuddered from him. His hands tightened against her. His lips came to her shoulder then nuzzled her neck.
She closed her eyes and stroked his wrists and arms, bared by his shirt’s rolled sleeves. Cool air whispered against her naked breasts and legs, but she was far from cold. No, indeed, as he suckled and kissed, his breath warm, his mouth hot, her flesh burned beneath his touch.
“Open your eyes, love.”
She did. She saw him, so much larger. She saw herself, flushed and ripe and needing.
“You see?”
She shook her head.
“I will keep you safe. I will give you pleasure. But you must let me.”
Her breathing quickened as one of his hands moved to her breast while the other slid down to the thatch between her thighs.
He kissed her ear. Stroked his tongue along the rim and beneath the lobe.
She watched her own belly quivering as his fingers began their work. One set delicately rimmed her nipple, drawing circles round and round. The other set mimicked the motion, circling the ripe nub at her center.
It was almost too much. Him, fully dressed, pleasuring her naked body with slow circles. While she watched.
“Now you see, eh?” His voice rumbled against her ear. “You see how well I can manage your pleasure.”
Her breath hitched on a moan. Her head fell back against his chest. “Bastian.”
He circled and stroked. Over and over. “Do you know what I should like to do to ye right this moment, Gus?”
She shook her head, pressing her hips and breast forward into his hands.
“I should like to take you. Hands and knees. Hard and rough and deep. But I don’t, ye see? Because I love you. I bloody love you. Your pleasure means more to me. Your heart means more to me. Your life means more to me than mine.”
Whatever part of her heart she’d thought to reserve was lost. Claimed fully. It did not matter if loving him meant bearing up under gale and flood. It didn’t matter if it consumed her. Because loving him was inevitable. Inexorable. Fire and tide. Time and rain. It was a force of its own.
She reached up behind her to stroke his jaw. “Do you know what I should like you to do to me, Bastian?”
His teeth gently stroked her shoulder as his hands pressed and circled. Pressed and circled.
“I should like you to … oh, God.” She writhed against him as pulsating waves washed in circles out from her breasts to her core like rippling rings on water. “Take me. Hands and knees. Hard and deep. Because I love you, my rough man. I love you. And having you inside me, bringing you pleasure, is the only thing that satiates my hunger.”
His hands pressed harder between her wet folds, sliding his fingers alongside the nexus of all those rippling rings of beauty. He pinched her firm, red nipple between his fingers, squeezing until the sensations were like lightning—nearly too much. She arched and cried out for him, the tension in her belly coiling tighter, undulating in perfect time.
Her eyes met his in the mirror. His cheeks were flushed, his lips swollen. Against her back, his staff swelled thick and impossibly long. “Be certain, Gus,” he said, his rumble a rasp. “I’ll not hurt ye. Ever. But I need ye very badly.”
One day, she would explain how much she loved his roughness, how it excited and thrilled and aroused her like nothing else. For now, she could do little more than moan and pant, “I am certain. Now, Bastian. Now.”
He went to his knees. Kissed the small of her back like a supplicant at an altar. Stroked her buttocks then banded her waist and drew her down. She went forward onto her hands of her own accord, needing him to hurry.
Feeling his knuckles brush against her womanly core, she jerked then groaned as he slid his longest finger inside. Stroking. Pleasuring. She watched him in the mirror. His eyes were upon her. Riveted and blazing.
He released his fall. Withdrew his finger. Slid it inside his mouth.
Dear heaven, she was going to … right then. Before he even…
“Not yet,” he growled, frowning. He came over her. The blunt, hot tip of him parted her folds. Slid slowly inside. She clawed the carpet beneath her as he stretched her sheath impossibly wide.
It had been like this the first time, only more painful. Now, there was little pain, just a great deal of pressure. He was already deep, yet going deeper.
His hips thrust sharply as his hand braced beside hers, forging inches deeper. His mouth dropped to her nape. His teeth scraped and pleasured. He filled her until she was certain there could not be any more. But there was.
More. And more.
“Take me, Gus. Ah, God. All of me.”
She was willing, but in this position, he felt even bigger than before.
He grasped her thighs and pulled them wider. It helped, but just then he thrust deeper. She grunted at the force of it. The dual sensations of pressure and pleasure. They melded and became one. At last, she felt the root of him, the burning at her opening making her quiver. Her arms trembled as she fought to remain still and let him take her.
Her sheath squeezed him tight, pulsing around his root.
“Do ye feel me, love?”
“Yes. You are … so much.”
“But you’ve taken me, deep and true.” His chest heaved against her back, the linen of his shirt soft against her skin, his muscles hard. Unyielding. “Now, I shall take you.”
She felt him slide out by inches. Return with a hard forge. Again. Again. Soon, his withdrawals were longer, his thrusts harder. She wanted to watch him in the mirror, but everything was their joining. Everything. She could not think, only feel.
His length. His heat. His staff battering inside her, stoking a deeper fire than she’d thought possible. Dragging against hidden nerves. Pleasuring her in a way she’d never contemplated. He touched her only at her waist and neck and sheath. Not her breasts. Not the place he’d stroked earlier.
Everything was their joining.
She did not know if she could reach her peak this way. The pressure was hard and growing harder with every hammering thrust.
“Look at us,” he growled. “Look.”
She did. And her body was seized by lightning. It came so suddenly, she screamed through gritted teeth. Her back arched. She flexed around him hard enough that the friction of their joining burned. He kept thrusting. She seized again, sobbing his name. Clawing the hand on the carpet beside hers.
The pleasure was too much. He was too much. She turned her head and opened her mouth against the muscles of his arm, tasting salt and Bastian. She seized again, the ripples jagged now as his rhythm quickened. Pounding. Pounding. Pounding.
She was pleading, pleading, pleading.
He thrust deep. She seized again, squeezing him hard. Then she felt it, the warmth of his release inside her. Heard his shouts, hoarse and rumbling. Heard her name echoing. Augusta. Augusta. Love you. Love you.
As the shivering pulses of her ecstasy slowed and eased, she kissed his arm. Laced her fingers atop his. Met his beautiful onyx eyes in the mirror. “And I love you,” she whispered. “More than I ever imagined possible.”
*~*~*