Out with Lanterns, page 27
She twisted a finger in the volume of her skirts.
“It seems my father has gambled away a good deal of what was valuable. I’ve had letters from Mr. Bone in the last day or two laying out a way forward. It seems I am to inherit the estate, well the house and the grounds, at least, and he thinks that selling some parcels of land will be enough to cover the cost to get the house going again.”
“Ah, Jesus, Fee. I’m sorry about the way your father left things.”
“Me, too,” she said. “Makes me feel uncertain all over, perhaps I’m not equal to what I’ve chosen to do? Taking on the estate was not what I envisioned when I left.”
It was hard to admit that she wasn’t sure she could live independently as she hoped, to admit she was glad of his help, his company.
Silas squeezed her hand and spreading her fingers out over his thigh, threaded her fingers with his, making a fist. “You are living independently, have already been doing it. A death is no small thing to face on one’s own, nor is resolving a will, especially one that has what I imagine are tangled legal dealings, but you will handle it with grace, as you do all things. And,” he said more slowly, “if you want, I will be here with you.”
“Yes,” she said, then more firmly, “I thought I needed to do this alone to prove that I am independent, but I was wrong. I do want your support and I’m finally realizing those things aren’t mutually exclusive. I don’t feel much love for my father, but closing up the house, selling the few belongings my mother collected, that feels lonely. I’m so glad you’ve come.”
He nodded and squeezed her hand again. She pressed her thigh closer to his, wanting to feel the warm strength of him, the steadiness of his presence. She could count on him, he had told her so much with words and deeds.
“What you said before, about loving me . . . do you think you might still feel that way in the future? What I mean to say is . . .” He was watching her with those deep green eyes, golden at the edges, somehow soft and sharp all at the same time. She forged on. “I mean, could you love me, stay with me knowing that I may never want to be married? That I might always want to work on a farm or at some other vocation?”
To her surprise, Silas came to his knees in front of her, hands resting splayed over the fabric pulled tight across his thighs. For a breathless second, he knelt with head bowed, wheaten strands falling forward, then he looked up at her. His green eyes were anguished and she felt herself falling into their stormy depths, felt her fingers itch to caress the pale skin taut over his high cheekbones. Ophelia watched Silas’s mouth work for a moment, forming and then abandoning words. He blew out a long breath.
“My love, my Fee. I have been wrong about so many things, worrying about my place in the world after war and in suffrage, not able to see the truth you’ve found in it, afraid to imagine a different way of seeing the world, afraid of what I might lose.” His hands flexed on his thighs and he sat back, shaking his head. “I thought this place, this land was important, was the thing that made my parents work, made their marriage a thing of joy, but living at the farm with you and seeing you working with the WLA, Mrs. Darling, the horses even . . . it’s not the land, but the people who make a place whole. You could be in the Arctic or a desert and if I were with you, it would be home. You are my home, I don’t want to be anywhere you are not . . . ever.” He paused and she pressed her fingers to her lips to keep from breaking the spell he cast. “Whatever future you want to build, I want to help. It doesn’t matter to me if it means marriage or not, something others recognise or not . . . I want you, Fee, and I’ll take you anyway you come. To hell with everything else.”
A robin swept down from the stone wall at the far end of the garden and Ophelia blinked, her vision marbled with tears. She slithered off the bench and landed awkwardly in Silas’s lap, straddling his knees. He cupped her face in his hands. They were warm and rough against her cheeks, along the line of her jaw, and she felt the damp of her tears gathering in his palms. Stroking his thumbs across her cheekbones, he regarded her seriously, waiting.
“To hell with everything else . . .” she echoed, Silas’s words still spinning around her head. Another stroke of his thumbs across her cheeks, the gentle pressure of his firm, blunt fingertips at the back of her head. “I want . . .” She paused and ran her hands up Silas’s chest, hooking her fingers under the lapels of his waistcoat, possibility and hope igniting within her. “I want us . . . I don’t know what to ask for yet, I only know I want to try to be equals, going forward together, side by side. Could you want that, too?”
“Yes,” he breathed, his forehead sinking to rest against hers. “Yes.” He angled her chin with his hands to press a kiss to her lips, soft and chaste. “Yes.”
Ophelia pressed her lips together, relishing the taste of Silas that lingered there. Lifting her chin, she pressed a kiss of her own to his mouth. Watching his eyelids flutter closed, she said, “I’ve been thinking over Bone’s letters the last few days, trying to see a way forward and I keep wondering what if we didn’t leave here, but we did something different, made something better with the estate, with the land? Something of our own.”
The words hung for a moment between them, then Silas kissed each of her eyelids whispering, “Yes.”
“Silas?” Ophelia said.
“Hmm?”
“Make love to me?”
He didn’t answer, just hauled her farther up onto his thighs, one large hand possessively spread over her backside, the other threading through her hair, loosening it from its chignon. Having freed most of the dark hair from its pins, he lifted a handful and ran it across his lips and cheek. “Like satin,” he growled. “God, I’ve missed you.”
Ophelia laughed. “It feels like we’ve been apart a year.”
“True,” he said, his voice rough as gravel. “And every moment hellish.”
She squeezed her thighs together, giddy with surprise and desire, drunk on the possibility of she and Silas for real, and felt a slow heat kindle as the muscles of her legs contracted around Silas’s. He growled again and dropping his handful of hair, dipped his head to cover her mouth with his. His fingers flexed against the curve of her bottom, each fingertip a point of fire through her layers of skirts and petticoats. Ophelia scooted closer to him, settling herself on what she could feel was an already firm erection. The rasp of Silas’s woollen trousers against the skin of her inner thighs sent a flood of warmth to her centre, and she sighed at the press of his lips against hers. His tongue flickered against the seam of her mouth, teasing at the corner, and Ophelia opened, sliding her own tongue against his, slick and warm. Silas’s arm tightened across her back and he deepened the kiss, teeth and lips sliding over each other in a desperate bid to come closer. Ophelia rocked against him, her hands skimming up his back to wrap around his neck, one sliding into the silk of his hair. His hand had begun to fiddle at the buttons down the side of her neck.
“Fee,” Silas hissed, pulling back from the kiss to the press his face into her neck. “Ah, God, I love you.”
“Mhmm,” she murmured letting her head fall back so that Silas could work his way along her now exposed neck, teeth careful against her skin. Everywhere he nipped, he soothed with a soft kiss, raising the tiny hairs all over her body and drawing her nipples to aching points. He peeled back the sides of her blouse as far as they would go, revealing her right collarbone, and ran the tip of his tongue along the ridge, licking into the hollow at the base of her throat and pressing an open-mouthed kiss there. A hot, white star burst in Ophelia’s chest sending tendrils of light and heat along her limbs. She wanted Silas’s mouth everywhere at once, wanted to press herself as close as possible to his quiet strength, which she could feel vibrating like an animal at the end of its leash. She gently closed the fingers of the hand in his hair at the nape of his neck, pulling just enough to elicit a grunt of pleasure from him. He raised his head from her chest, eyes all dark pupil, lips damp and swollen.
“Too many clothes,” Ophelia said, breath choppy, letting go of Silas’s hair to pull her blouse loose from her waistband. She raised her hands so that he could release the buttons at her wrists, then lifted the shirt over her head, laughing out a screech when a button tangled in her hair, pulling sharply at her scalp.
“Sorry, love, just a moment,” Silas soothed, his large hands delicately undoing the tangle and tossing the blouse onto the bench behind her.
Ophelia flexed her shoulders and reached for Silas, who ran a hand up the outside of her arms, then placed a firm kiss to the ball of each shoulder. “I love this,” he said, lips against the muscles of her shoulder. “And this.” He ran his tongue down the line of her bicep, lifting up her hand so he could press his lips to the sensitive flesh on the inside of her arm. Ophelia sucked in a breath and began to pull her arm back. “Don’t ever hide this strength, Fee,” he said. “You’re glowing with it, a glorious goddess.”
The words ran like warm honey through her and she relaxed her arm, allowing him to kiss his way back up to her shoulder. With her free hand, she began loosening the buttons on his waistcoat, desperate for the feel of his skin.
“I don’t love this,” he growled running his finger along the line of her corset, hooking one into the laces. “Makes it hard to touch you.” His eyes were hooded and dark, and anticipation shivered through Ophelia.
“Well, sir,” she said, smiling at his playful frown, “you’ll need to help me with that,” and began to turn in his arms. Before the words were entirely out, Silas had shifted her to her knees in front of him, and his broad chest against her back, placed her hands on the bench in front of them.
“Silas,” she said on a reedy breath, lust and excitement careening through her body. Everything she touched felt electric, the rough wood under her hands, the band of her corset now cutting into the flesh of her breasts as they rose and fell, the fabric of her skirts bunched around her legs and under her knees, the scratchy heat of Silas’s trousers moving against the backs of her calves as he knelt between her legs. His breath at her ear moved the hair against her neck and she shivered.
“May I continue?” he rasped out, his voice catching on every nerve ending in her body. It was all she could do to nod. “Say it aloud, Fee, so I know.”
“Continue . . .” she whispered, “please . . . Silas.”
His name seemed to unlock him and he moved quickly, hands undoing the knotted cord, his fingers dancing along the length of her spine, pulling at the laces until she felt the corset loosen. Silas pressed a kiss between her shoulder blades and pulled her upright.
“You’re the most beautiful package I’ve ever opened,” he murmured against her back. “I can’t wait to see what’s inside.” Then he reached around her with both arms and gently unhooked the metal clasps holding the top of the corset closed. Ophelia leaned back against him and arched her back, enjoying the brush of her chemise against her unbound breasts. Silas slipped a hand inside the open corset and peeled it away from her body, laying it on top of her blouse. Then he cupped one breast in each hand, testing their weight, rubbing a thumb across each nipple.
“Oh, I—” Ophelia began, then lost her train of thought when Silas rolled each nipple between thumb and forefinger with surprising expertise. Pain and pleasure collided, stealing through her body to pool low in her belly, hot and sweet.
“Sweet, strong girl,” Silas rumbled, lips brushing along her shoulders to the soft spot where her neck met her shoulder. “My strong girl,” he said sucking gently at the crook of her neck. Ophelia shivered at the possessive, wondering if she liked it entirely too much. But then Silas whispered “strong” again as he ran his hands down her back to the bulk of her skirts and she knew she liked that part even more.
Silas couldn’t seem to pull enough air into his lungs, every breath came fast and hard, and he felt a twinge of hysteria flickering at the edge of his awareness. He focused on his hands, watched their tanned backs move to fan over the curves of Ophelia’s waist, watched his fingers curl into the firm flesh of her hips through the fabric of her skirts. This isn’t helping, he thought, as desire threatened to swamp him. His cock and his heart seem to pulse in time and it was all he could do to stop himself from rushing to bury himself in Ophelia’s wet heat. Be a bloody gentleman. But he wasn’t, couldn’t be when this woman was involved. Her back flexed in front of him, the sinews of muscle along her spine and shoulders bunching and releasing as she swayed, pressing her arse into his groin, her hands grasping at the wooden bench in front of her, a soft moan on what he imagined were parted lips.
“Christ above,” he muttered. “Fee . . .”
Silas reached down, sliding his hands under the pinstriped fabric, skimmed up the outside of her legs, the mass of her skirts bunching up at his elbows. He felt the soft cotton of her stockings at her ankles, the wrinkle of fabric at Ophelia’s bent knees, then, under the legs of her pantaloons, the warm satin of her bare thigh. “Jesus,” he growled and sat back on his heels.
Ophelia panted and whimpered in front of him, her bottom swaying, back arching in a criminally tempting manner. She turned to look over her shoulder and Silas feared he would come in his trousers at the haze of desire and anticipation he saw in her eyes. She reached behind her and under her skirts to squeeze one of his hands currently tracing lazy circles on her downy thigh.
“I want—” he began. “Need to see you, love.”
Watcing him over her shoulder, she nodded eagerly. “I wish you would,” she whispered and pushed backward against his hands.
His mind scrambled and the hysteria threatened again, so he flexed his palms against Ophelia’s warm skin and felt her muscular thighs tense as she widened their stance. Silas pushed her skirts up to her waist, making sure they didn’t crowd her, and then he wanted to pinch himself because he was rewarded with the most lust-addling image he could have ever conjured. Demure pantaloons, rucked up her legs, exposing stockings straining at the clasp of her garters, the garters themselves pulled snug against the curve of her arse, the split in the pantaloons revealing the high, hard moons of her backside and between them, a slice of her dark curls and wet sex.
“Silas?” Her voice wavered between desire and uncertainty and he answered quickly.
“Yes, love, I’m here.” He ran a finger over the curve of one buttock, gentle, reverent. “Just cannot think for your beauty at the moment. . .”
She laughed, low and throaty, and he wanted to hear it every day for the rest of his life. He thought about all the things he had always considered important; duty, land, family, and knew he would burn them all to the ground to keep this woman. He leaned forward to kiss her behind the ear, ran his tongue around the tip of the soft lobe.
“My glorious, glorious, Fee. I’m going to lose my mind if I don’t touch you . . . May I?”
She nodded, and he felt her back under his chest, rising and falling with shuddering breaths. Sitting back on his heels again, he swept a hand up the back of her thigh, sliding his fingers along the slit of her drawers, tracing the curve of her bottom, feeling a shiver of anticipation rise across her skin.
“Please,” Ophelia mumbled, dropping her head between her outstretched arms. “Please.”
Grasping the curve of her hip, Silas ran a finger along the seam of her vulva, the lips slippery and soft, so bloody soft. Ophelia’s back sagged and he tightened his grip on her hip to hold her. Front to back, he ran one, then two fingers along her sex, slowly pressing against her hot flesh.
“Talk to me, Fee,” he gasped, his cock impossibly hard at Ophelia’s writhing and gasping. “I want to hear your voice, love.”
“That’s good,” she ground out. “Your fingers, it feels so good.”
And then she was pushing back into his hand so that his fingers parted her lips and on the next swipe he sank a finger inside her. Just like the previous times, it was nothing he could ever describe and his mind reeled. He never wanted to not be surrounded by Ophelia, the wet heat of her body, her hoarse cry wavering in the quiet of the garden. However she imagined their future, he wanted to be there beside her when she made her mark on the world, celebrating her every chance he had.
CHAPTER 39
Birdsong lingered in the air, damp seeped from the ground up into the fabric pleated under her knees, and Silas muttered beautiful, filthy praise behind her, half curse, half song. She gave herself over entirely to sensation, let his voice, stone-rough, lick over her skin like she hoped his tongue would soon enough. His fingers were thick and blunt inside her, stroking, coaxing her toward a familiar peak, and she found herself grinding back into him, seeking purchase, the apex of her thighs already slippery with desire. His hand on her hip was almost painful, fingers flexing with each caress.
Looking over her shoulder, she watched Silas. His neck was taut, the corded muscles standing out along the tanned column, and his hair, thrown into disarray when they kissed, hung in loose golden tendrils over his brow. But it was his eyes that she could not look away from. Pupils dark as pitch, they were wild and hungry, focused entirely on her reactions as he explored her. She whimpered at the intensity of his attention and his eyes snapped to hers. If she hadn’t trusted him implicitly, the ferocity of his stare might have frightened her. As it was, she felt a flood of desire between her legs and an answering groan from Silas.
“My God, woman, you’ll kill me with your beauty . . . sweet, Fee.” His smile was crooked and lupine, his voice low, eyes softening. “And I’ll not utter a word of complaint.”
Ophelia suddenly couldn’t stand the distance between them a moment longer. She wanted Silas’s warm skin under her hands, wanted him inside her, filling the aching void that grew with every stroke of his fingers. She had spent so long feeling wrong, that there was no place for her. Too much, too awkward, all wrong for her world, but in this moment, with Silas, she felt just right, fit perfectly. She knew, for perhaps the first time, that she could call this pleasure to herself, revel in a man whose own fulfilment was predicated on hers. And she found she didn’t want to wait any longer, had put off claiming herself for too long. So she said out loud what she had only imagined in her head.
