Chapter Fourteen
Baldwin burned as she said those words. The ones he knew were coming, the ones that made him come back to life after years of being dead, buried in pain and betrayal and failure.
This ache that he felt for her, it only grew deeper now that he knew her story. Now that he heard her strength.
“You’re asking for an…affair?” he asked, wishing his voice didn’t waver.
Her cheeks brightened with high color, and he shuddered as he recalled the same heat entering them when he brought her to completion the night before. Even slightly wobbly, it was a powerful memory he savored far more than he should.
She wrung her hands and he felt her struggle. Men of their sphere were allowed to explore their desires. Expected to, even. It did not harm their future, assuming one was prudent about it.
He recognized how different desire was for a woman. Ladies were very often taught that desire was a point of shame. That pleasure was not to be expected. And if they were ruined…
Well, Helena’s situation summed up the consequences perfectly. She had been assaulted, but the blame was laid at her feet. Somehow she’d had the strength to pull herself through the trauma of that night, but she had suffered for it.
The idea that she would trust him, gift him, with her reawakening…well, that was the most powerful thing of all.
“An affair,” she repeated softly, as if hearing those words in her own voice would help her decide if that was her path. “Y-yes,” she stammered at last, and looked at him with clear eyes. “I do want that.”
He moved even closer to her on the blanket. Now he felt the delicate warmth of her skin against his. Now he felt the way she trembled ever so slightly. He traced his thumb across her cheek and she shivered with the touch.
“You know what I can and can’t offer you,” he said, hating that he had to say those words. “The idea of taking advantage of you is abhorrent.”
She held his stare. “Everyone else gets what they want, Baldwin. I know the limitations. I understand the reasons why. But if we both agree, if we both understand, then no one will take advantage, will they? And this is that chance to get this one little thing that we want.”
With that statement, she was a siren. He was a sailor, only he saw the rocks, saw the danger. He saw it all and he didn’t care. Because what she offered was so fucking sweet.
He tilted her face up and kissed her once more. She opened to him right away, and her enthusiasm dissolved any remaining hesitance he might have. He wanted her. She was offering him a chance to have her. And with that chance, he would not only take. He would make sure that this affair was only pleasure to her. That it helped to mute her painful memories. That it would create new ones they could both recall after it was…after it was over.
He shoved that future away and laid her back on the blanket. He rolled to cover her and shivered when her arms came around his back in welcome and surrender. He had needs, such powerful needs. But right now he didn’t care about those. He wanted her to enjoy this.
He deepened the kiss and she let out a shuddering sigh against his lips. He drove inside, tasting every inch of her mouth, thrusting with his tongue like he would eventually do with his body. When he felt her relax against him, it was only then that he touched her. He let his hand glide up her side and cupped one breast through her silky gown.
She arched beneath him with a gasp that broke their kiss, and he drew back to watch her in her pleasure. Last night he’d been too tipsy to really gauge all her reactions well. Right now he reveled in the way her eyes widened and her pupils dilated. In the way her breath hitched when his thumb traced the outline of her nipple. In how she lifted her hips to his, and he doubted she even knew she was doing it because she was lost in his touch.
“I want to take you, Helena,” he murmured as he kept circling that nipple over and over again. “You cannot fully understand how much I want that.”
She gave a jerky nod. “I think I understand a little.”
He smiled. “I’m not doing it here.”
Her face fell. “No?”
“I want this affair, I do. But I recognize fully what a gift you are giving me to offer it. After what you’ve experienced, I’m not going to treat you like some scandalous tup that means nothing. It means a great deal.”
He had continued to swirl his thumb around her nipple as he spoke, and she was nodding, but he could see the pleasure was distracting. Good. He wanted her distracted by pleasure every time he touched her. He wanted her trembling with it. Weak with it. She deserved that.
She deserved far more.
“Right now I’m going to make you come,” he promised.
She stared at him. “Come?”
“Like last night,” he whispered. “When the pleasure got so big that it couldn’t be contained. When you coated my fingers with all that slick release.”
Her cheeks darkened again with that wicked description. He was a little surprised at himself for giving it. He was a gentleman. It was left to silver-tongued rogues like Robert to burn a lady’s ears with naughty words.
But Helena inspired him.
“I was…overcome when you touched me,” she admitted softly. “I’ve never felt anything like it.”
“Good,” he said. “You’re about to again.”
He inched down her body, kissing her through her clothing as he did so. He pushed at her skirts, raising them until he could part the opening of her drawers. He caught his breath.
Last night he had not looked at her. Even if he had, he would have been too drunk to appreciate her fully. Today he did. She was slick with desire already, and he couldn’t help himself. He lowered his head and placed a gentle kiss to her.
“Baldwin!” she cried out, half sitting up on the blanket to stare at him.
He looked up at her from between her legs. “I’m going to kiss you here. Lick you. And if you allow me to do that, I promise you that the pleasure of last night will seem muted in comparison.”
Her lips parted and the sweetest expression of innocent shock rolled across her face. Like she couldn’t image that was true. Still, as much as he wanted to dive right into this act, he had to be mindful of what she had endured.
He never wanted to hurt her. Ever.
“Hear me, Helena,” he whispered. “You have all the control when it comes to this. When it comes to any way I touch you. The moment you say no, I will stop. I don’t care how far I’ve gone or what you’ve said yes to in the past. Your no ceases everything.” He chuckled. “Even if it kills me.”
She continued to stare at him. “You would—you would do that?”
“Of course,” he said. “You are not a toy to be used by me and thrown aside. We both know the circumstances, the blockades, the future that we cannot avoid. But I want this to give you pleasure. I want it to be something you look back on with joy. This affair is for you, Helena, as much as it is for me.”
She swallowed hard and then she nodded. “Thank you.”
“Now, may I?” he asked, tilting his head toward her sex.
Her lips parted, her uncertainty still clear. But then she swallowed hard and said, “Yes. I trust you, Baldwin.”
He recognized just how hard that trust was to give and vowed, if only to himself, to never make her regret giving it. Gently, he placed a hand on each of her thighs and pressed her open. He rested on his stomach between her legs, then stroked his fingers over her sex.
She made a garbled sound of pleasure and her legs fell open wider. He smiled as he gently parted the folds of her sex, and leaned in to lick her once more.
Helena jolted at the unexpected and powerful sensation of Baldwin’s tongue tracing her in the most intimate way possible. The idea that he would had been confusing, but now…now that he was actually doing it, she understood. This was magical.
Better still, he seemed to enjoy it just as much, for he dove into the act with great determination and gusto. He was relentless, dragging his tongue across her opening and then swirling it around the same place where he’d touched her last night. And just as she had all those hours ago, she found herself grinding against him in time to his strokes, reaching for that pleasure she had found with him before.
Talented and focused as he was, it didn’t take long to get there. They found a rhythm together, something hard and fast that made her legs shake as she pressed her heels into the blanket. He stroked and stroked with the flat of his tongue, and she couldn’t stop the little keening cries that escaped her lips and drifted away on the soft breezes coming from the lake.
The pressure built, just as it had the night before. A gathering pleasure that was so much like a storm. She wanted it. She needed it more than breath or food or water. She was desperate for it, and just as she reached the peak of that need, he sucked her and she shattered.
He continued to lick her as she thrashed against him, clenching the blanket, twisting to escape the pleasure, grinding to find more. It went on and on, far longer than the previous night. Those ripples multiplied until she was weak from it. Only then did he lift his mouth from her and grant her respite from the powerful, uncontrollable sensation.
He crawled up the length of her body and kissed her. She drank deeply of him, tasting an earthy sweet flavor on his tongue that jolted even more desire through her. It was her flavor from that secret place she’d been taught was dirty and wrong.
It didn’t taste wrong. What he’d done hadn’t felt wrong either. It had felt…wonderful. And he’d been so gentle, so giving and caring that her memories hadn’t plagued her when he touched her. In fact, nothing had troubled her at all in those sweet, sensual moments.
He smoothed her skirts down and rolled to lie beside her, gently resting his hand on her stomach. “That was much better when I am fully sober,” he said with a smile that brightened his somber face considerably.
She laughed. “Sober or drunk, you sweep me away in ways I didn’t know were possible.”
He curled his hand against her. “You deserve that pleasure, Helena. And it is very much my pleasure to give it to you.”
She frowned and looked down his body. Just as she’d seen last night, she was well aware of the swollen reminder that he had not found his pleasure with her either time he had touched her.
“What about you?” she asked.
He arched a brow. “Are you trying to tempt me, Miss Monroe?”
“I hope I do tempt you,” she said.
He caught her hand and gently dragged it down his body until she cupped the hardness of him. “You do,” he promised. “But when I resolve this, I want it to be buried in your body. And I only want to do that when I have the time to do it properly.”
“In the midst of a country party, that could be challenging.”
He shrugged as he released her hand. “I’m very good at challenges.” For a moment they lay like that and then he glanced up behind him, toward the house that was hidden over the hill. “Much as I would like to lie here with you all day, it’s getting later in the morning. Soon the others will rise.”
She moaned as she buried her head in his shoulder. “I don’t want to go back to reality.”
He laughed as he smoothed a hand over her hair. “Neither do I, I promise you. But we must.”
She nodded slowly and then lifted her head with a smile for him. “Thank you for the fantasy, though.”
“Thank you,” he replied before he kissed her once more.
She wanted to sink into it. To surrender to it and to him. But he didn’t allow it. With a groan, he pulled back and then got to his feet. She watched him straighten himself before he offered her a hand to help her up. She took it and did her best to fix her dress. Beneath it her drawers were slightly cockeyed, but she wasn’t about to fix those.
“Walk with me,” he said as they started up the hill to where his horse had gone to graze. He caught the reins as they passed the animal and together they climbed up the hill.
She sighed as the house appeared in the distance. Reality loomed, as it always would. Now she began to think of consequences and futures and loss and everything else.
“You said you got bad news last night,” she said. “Is there anything I can do to help?”
He sent her a side look. “You just did.”
She shook her head. “You pretend with everyone else, Baldwin, please don’t pretend with me.”
She saw the air go out of him, his shoulders slumped, and for a moment the weight he carried was so obvious. “It was just bad news about the debts I told you about.”
She frowned. “The ones you had not been able to discover.”
He nodded. “Yes. Someone has…bought them all.”
They were almost to the house now, and she stopped on the path to face him. “One person bought them all? Who?”
“That was the bad news—I do not know.” He sighed and looked toward the house. “It cannot be for any good reason, though.”
She tended to agree, but saying so would not relieve him. Instead she reached out and touched his arm. “You do not know anything for certain yet. Have faith, Baldwin. You are too good not to have the best of things happen for you.”
He stared down at her, and for a moment she thought he might kiss her. She wanted him to, even though she stole a glance up at the house where anyone could be watching. He did the same and sighed.
“Thank you,” he said. “You were exactly what I needed to clear my mind.”
“If I did so even a little, then I’m glad,” she said. With a sigh, she stepped away. “I must go inside. The morning is getting late, and any moment my cousin will wake and come barreling into the sitting room to demand I assist her.”
His brow wrinkled. “The sitting room?”
Helena shrugged. “She wanted the bed all to herself. I sleep on the settee.”
His jaw set and she saw the flash of anger that crossed his face. Intense and entirely on her behalf. “That little—”
Her eyes widened and she shook her head. “Don’t. It isn’t worth it.”
“I knew I should have given you your own chamber,” he said. “I thought the beautiful view would please you and—”
She tilted her head. “You chose the room with the view for—for me?”
“Of course,” he said with no hesitation. “You did not think it was for Charity, did you?” He snorted his derision.
Her skin grew hot with pleasure and she bent her head. “Oh, well, I…I should go in. Thank you. Good morning.”
He watched her as she turned and scurried into the house away from him. Away from all they’d done together by the lake. She had no idea where this affair was going.
All she knew was that she hoped it would continue.