AllFreeNovel
Share Us
“Were they? I didn’t notice.” His smile grew wider, turning and drawing the curtain back.
“Why on earth did you come here tonight, Will?”
“John made me.”
“Why?”
“He thinks you and I have things to discuss, and it was a good business opportunity. Having the patronage of the Duke of Norfolk would be a huge fillip for my company. So you see, you are not the only one out for the main chance.”
Rose was taken aback by the sudden return of resentment in Will’s tone. His anger at her seemed to always be just below the surface of his emotions. It was always deliberately targeted to make her feel as bad about herself as possible.
“People are leaving,” he said then.
“Already?” Rose wondered how long they had been sequestered in her chamber.
“Just one. I can’t see who it is clearly.” He was squinting at the window. “Ha. It’s old widow Pennyworth. Do you remember her?”
Rose looked confused, but Will held out his arm to beckon her to him. “Come here. Look. Do you recognize her?”
Rose stood by the window but pulled the curtain across in front of them to hide them both from view. Down below, an old lady was walking towards her waiting carriage.
“Is that the woman who caned you?” Rose gasped in recognition. “Is it really her? Do you think she recognized you—us—downstairs?”
“I have no idea.” He was laughing. “But I remember she was a demon with that stick.”
Rose had escaped a beating only because Will had put himself between her and the old woman when they were caught stuffing apples into their pockets in her orchard.
“You were bruised everywhere,” Rose recalled. “And you had to pretend to your father there was nothing wrong all the way home.”
“It was torture,” he nodded. His shoulders were shaking with laughter, and Rose sneaked a sideways look at him, marveling at how young he looked.
“It was bad,” she remembered.
“Not all bad,” he contradicted her softly. “Not when we used to go down the river, and you would rub your mother’s potion on my welts and bruises.”
Rose remembered that too. Will was looking at her as they stood, half-wrapped together in the heavy velvet curtain. His laughter faded to a warm smile. “You were the perfect nurse.”
“I don’t think that potion did any good at all,” Rose smiled.
“Probably not. But you can’t know how much I looked forward to your ministrations. It hurt like bloody hell but your fingers were every so angelic.”
“You used to take off your shirt and lay full-length on the grass,” Rose said softly. She could still feel him beneath her fingertips as she stroked his back and shoulders. He wasn't as broad as he is now, but his skin was as smooth as silk. She remembered moving her fingers up into the curls at the base of his neck, despite the fact that he had no bruises there. She enjoyed touching his soft locks and hearing his pleasure when she did.
“For weeks, I made you rub that cream into my skin. I was perfectly fine within days. It didn’t hurt anymore, but I never told you that, so you wouldn’t stop.” She laughed then and shoved him hard in the chest. He fell back into the curtain but grabbed her hand and pulled her with him, trapping it against his chest.
“These were the hands of an angel,” he said, still holding her hand so tightly she couldn’t pull it free. He was laughing, and so was she, but she was also intensely aware of the warmth of his palm against the back of her hand. He began to stroke her fingers with his thumb, pulling her even closer toward him in the fabric folds.
“I never forgot how it felt,” he assured her, pulling her so close she could almost feel his heartbeat through the bodice of her dress. The firelight was dancing off the golden highlights in his hair, and he looked as if he had a halo around his head. “That was the first time we kissed. Do you remember?”
“I remember every second of those afternoons,” she said, staring straight into his eyes as he pulled her flush against him, sparking a sudden riot of sensation inside her.
“You remember how, when you had finished caressing me, I would touch you in return,” he whispered, squeezing her. “I would lay you down on the grass, splay your beautiful hair out around your shoulders, and run my fingers down the side of your neck like this.” He kept one arm around her, but with the other, he traced a semi-circle around the bottom of her throat, as if tracing a string of pearls. Everywhere his finger touched her skin tingled and burned. It was exquisite. He chuckled as he began to draw tiny circles all the way from the bottom of her throat to the top of her bodice as she raised her chin to expose her neck for him. She knew she should stop him. She knew how dangerous this situation was, but it felt so good to be touched; caressed. She did not want him to stop. She raised her chin even higher, and that very movement caused her to push her hips forward, pressing herself more tightly against the material of his breeches. The hardness she found there as his finger dipped into the tiny bit of exposed cleavage in the middle of the sequins and pearls.
“I remember the first time I touched you here,” he whispered against her ear. “I pushed my finger down between your breasts.” He moved his finger in exactly the same way as he described. “I remember feeling the warmth of those beautiful round orbs, so full, the skin soft as velvet, and then sliding my finger first left, and then right, back and forth, across the side of your breasts.” He was recreating the sensation in her now, and she squirmed. She felt warmth gathering in her loins as if he was touching her there too. “I so wanted to touch your nipple. I was desperate,” he breathed, sucking at her earlobe. She groaned, and he laughed softly.
“I could feel your nipples through your dress, but I wanted to touch one. Bare.” He slid his finger across her breast now, determinedly, towards the puckered skin. She could feel her nipples hardening to the combination of the timbre of his voice, his words, the feel of his finger, and his lips. They were becoming so taut, rubbing uncomfortably against the fabric of her undergarments, as he came closer and closer to his prize.
He moved his other hand lower, down from the small of her back to the top of her bottom, and then even lower, pressing against the rounded mounds beneath her dress. She could feel his finger caressing her beneath the silk of her bodice and his large flat hand pressing against one of her most private parts. He pressed harder on her bottom, molding her to him, his hand sliding into the gap between her cheeks as his finger finally found her nipple. She was helpless in his embrace, held so tightly that she couldn't escape as he lazily and leisurely explored that one solid, desperate nipple.
