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He suggests they stay in today.
The phrase is innocuous enough, but she knows better than to argue his will. The odd light is back in his smile, pale eyes sparkling with that strange satisfaction. She purses her lips, following him back to the study. Sometimes he shared his thoughts, sometimes he refused.
It leaves her in a precarious position, tense with energy.
She tells herself it doesn’t matter. The weather is dreadful anyway. There’d have been no place for them to go. A poor justification but a justification none the less. Wargrave settles himself in one of the wingback chairs (he moves in a second piece for her convenience shortly after they arrive home), pours them each a glass of brandy. Her pride still rankles somewhat, scratching at the invisible barrier erected between them.
She’d had a very different vision in mind when he spared her. They would return as partners. If not equals then something quite like it…
Not this odd sort of limbo, not drifting, listless. She shakes her head, clearing the thought away.
Life goes on, as they say, and Vera knows it better than most. The woman stands by the window, surveying the grounds beneath. His estate is not particularly large but it is well maintained, elegant, immaculate. A striking reflection of the man itself. She smoothes her fingertip across the glass, drawing lines in its foggy surface. Thoughtless patterns to distract herself from a pressing truth.
The better part of the last three months she’s slept in his bed. The nightmares didn’t dare pursue her there. There are times when she awakens to him pressed behind her, arm draped heavily about her waist. Offering his warmth, his comfort. It isn’t conscious thought, she knows. She stays very still, his morning erection wedged so deliciously against her ass, knowing that the smallest shift will shake him from his shallow slumber. He’ll apologize and move away and the feeling of loss, the insufferable ache between her thighs will prove too much to stomach.
She’s come to…desire him in a way she should not.
It’s the proximity, she’s certain, and the air of him. A strength, a presence, she finds herself unable to properly brace against. She is, as he is so fond of reminding her, still relatively young. Impressionable and young, both words she hears in his voice, echoing through her head. As the days wear on she finds she’s come to hate the label. Young seems a mark of derision more than anything else, a justification for a choice he deemed poor.
There’s a small crash from behind her, a muffled exclamation, more of surprise, irritation, than pain. Frowning, she turns, moving towards him. His condition had worsened over the past few months. Not much, but enough to prove noticeable. At times his muscles proved...uncooperative or a spike of pain might lay him low. His glass is neatly shattered near his feet, most of the remaining brandy on his hand, up his sleeve. Not a terrible mess at all.
“My apologies,” she can trace the underlying level of irritation beneath his smooth tones, feels her lips quirk up in answer. Vera shakes her head, kneeling to collect the pieces of glass. There are only four or so. Ten might have been more poetic.
“We all have our mishaps, Justice. There is nothing to apologize for. As for the mess,” she shrugs, setting the glass aside, “Somehow we’ll manage, hmm?”
He doesn’t resist when she asks for his arm, towelling the forearm clean. It’s only when she gets to his hands that she stops, a now familiar wanting settling in her chest. He has beautiful hands, really, the fingers long, slender. A pianist's hands, he’d said once, his smile distant. The terminology no doubt owed to another’s observation. The heaviness that plagues him in such moments says the memory is not a happy one. Just as well. She isn’t in the mood for such sharing. It’s far easier to press her lips to those fingers she loves so well, flicking her tongue over the sensitive skin, clearing the brandy away.
Vera feels a rush of pride when his eyes lull shut, his tongue smoothing over his lower lip. He’s so rarely affected, her Lawrence. So stoic. She sucks one finger between her lips, the long, exaggerated, pull leaving him hissing in air.
Wargrave’s lips quirk up, a sort of fond indulgence flitting across his expression. An understanding, at the very least. He brushes the backs of his knuckles across her cheek, “No one could fault your persistence, Miss Claythorne.”
She glances up, knows her expression hides little, “I’m afraid I miss your point.”
“Do you, now?” He chuckles, reaching for her untouched drink, “How many lovers have you taken, my dear?” She feels color flush in her cheek, going to duck her head before he stops her, a finger curled beneath her chin. “None of that. We both know better. How many?”
She sighs, forcing herself to hold his gaze. She is no wilting flower, “Two.”
“Young men?”
Lombard had been her senior by some years. Even still, she cannot bring herself to call him old. He had been young. He’d made love not unlike a youth. “Yes. I suppose. The first, at least, was quite young.”
There’s a breathiness to her voice she doesn’t recognize, distracted by the feel of him. The heat of his touch, licking down the column of her throat as he traces featherlight touches across her skin. The indistinct contact leaves her needing to shiver, to move into or away from him. It’s the point, perhaps. He smiles again, “I am not a young man. As for my health.” he purses his lips. Poor. Even for a man of his not inconsiderable age, his health was poor. His fingers dipped lower, thumb brushing the underside of her clavicle. “You are a pretty girl. I dare say you would have little difficulty finding a companion.” He lingered on the last world, distasteful.
The ache was back, starting low in her belly and licking outwards. Vera stood, settling his hands on her hips instead. It was crass, she knew, not at all in line with his tastes. The young woman hitched her skirts up enough to straddle his lap, letting out a relieved little sigh at the feel of him beneath her. Not hard, not yet, but finally with her. She brushed fingers through his hair, rolling her hips, revelling in the look of him. Hungry. That was the word for her Judge. Some great hunter, so capable of wickedness. “I have one, Judge. Right here, with me.”
“It will not be as you are accustomed.”
The words sent a shiver chasing down her spine, “I’m not afraid.” After everything else, how could she feel fear?
___
It isn’t as she’s accustomed and she means it without a hint of irony, regret, anything. She’s freed in the most delicious way imaginable, her body singing, burning, alive. Her lips are kiss swollen and full, her breasts much the same. She cups her hands over them, sucking her lower lip between her teeth to hide her smile. It’s sin, she knows, but she’s too far gone to care.
Because it is different, isn’t it? Not a rush to the finish line at all, nothing clumsy, nothing sloppy. It’s a slow burn that leaves her aching and moaning into the evening air, arching and desperate and eager to take him inside her. She needs it more than she wishes to say.
A smirk is the only answer to her pleas. A dip of his head back down between her thighs. Vera should feel embarrassed, she knows, laid out before him like a common whore, her legs draped over his shoulders. It’s too hard to care. She lets out a sharp cry, her hands clawing at the sheets as his tongue dips inside her, drinking, tasting, learning. Sweat kisses at her skin, leaves her nearly glowing.
Beautiful, he calls her, and the singular word seems to reverberate within her, around them.
Beautiful, is what he whispers, though she thinks he means the wild light in her eyes more than anything else. He stretches out beside her, one finger turning her head to look at him, the other hand cupping her heat. It takes all her strength not to buck against the touch, rutting like some base animal. She spreads her legs, giving him room, inviting him. It earns her a smile, too many teeth. Hungry.
Those long, elegant fingers are better still buried deep within her. She whines, turning her head to kiss him before he can move away, control her. He doesn’t. Without thinking, she slips a hand between them, fumbling with the front of his slacks a moment before she cups a hand over his cock. Even half hard she can tell he’s a large man, more so than either of her previous lovers. It thrills her. To imagine stretching for him, to be so deliciously full. She sucks his lower lip, “I want you.”
Heat flashes in his eyes, fingers twisting within her. She jerks, unable to keep from rolling her hips in time with his strokes, “In time, my dear.”
She’s so close now. The muscles in her abdomen feel as though they’re spasming, pulling tight. She squeezes him, careful to remain gentle, smoothing her thumb over his head, “Please. You cannot,” her eyes screw shut, a hint of light flashing across her vision. She lets out a hiss of breath, her intended argument flying from her along with cognizant thought, “Oh, please!”
His hand stops, holding its position. Vera’s eyes open, she readies a protest, only to find him already staring down at her. Smirking, in control. He withdraws his fingers, uses one to trace her entrance, the tip only just dipping inside her. The low rumble of his voice chases across her body, “Look at me.” A command, not a request. She wonders, absently, if she could defy him. The blue of his eyes is painfully stark, burning, daring her to fight.
Oh, it’s sordid. She forces herself to hold his gaze, pale and devouring, as his fingers sink back within her. Her mouth opens, ready to let out a desperate yelp but she doesn’t look away, the pressure building and building until it hurts. Until she wants to beg him to fuck her.
Perhaps he knows. Those fingers curl a final time and release washes over her. She shakes, convulses in his arms but refuses to look away, just as full of challenge. The reason, perhaps, he’s achingly hard beneath her hand.
The smirk is still there, the note of challenge as he brushes his lips across her forehead, “It’s only fair you choose how we proceed.”
At a later date, she’ll take him in her mouth, repay the favor. For now, she rises on still shaking limbs, fumbling his trousers down his legs. With an audible groan of relief, she guides him inside her. Filling, stretching, perfect.
It’s different, he’s not wrong. He isn’t like the others, not half so beautiful as they had been.
But as his hands settle on her hips, she finds it impossible to call those brief, frenzied encounters to mind. There’s only this, them. The feel of him between her legs a sensation she’d never trade.