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“Tell me when you want me to stop.”
Her heart swelled with elation, filling her to the point of terror. She did not speak her answer. She breathed it, from somewhere deep within.
“Never.”
He hesitated for a moment—just the briefest of moments—his eyes probing hers for any sign of doubt. Are you sure you want this? they seemed to ask.
She arched up into him, and her fingers knotted themselves in his hair. She wanted this. This may have been the only thing she had actually ever wanted, really and truly. Wanted on an elemental level, an animal level, as insistent and undeniable as the most painful hunger or thirst.
She had only the vaguest idea of where this driving need was taking her. She had never been here before. Never seen it. Never tasted it. She did not even have a name for it, only knew that she wanted.
She wanted.
The longing in her gaze was his undoing. His mouth captured hers, and it was only when she felt the suddenly urgent pressure of his lips that she realized he had been holding himself back until just that moment. He sank his full body weight onto her, pressing her more deeply into the mattress, and the feeling of heaviness, of being pinned beneath him by her own desire, was delicious.
His hands had been cupping her face, drawing her closer to him, but now one of them worked its way into her hair, the fingertips massaging her scalp as they threaded through the heavy tresses. Gathering a fistful of her long locks, he tugged—gently but insistently—tilting her head and forcing her to offer up the vulnerable skin along her neck. His hot, demanding kisses sliced across her cheek and blazed a trail of fire all the way to the hollow between her collarbones that left her panting for breath.
“Are you all right?” he asked, and his voice was low and husky in a way that she had never quite heard before.
She could only nod her head yes. She did not trust herself to speak.
In response he took her firmly by the wrists and hauled her upright, using one arm to encircle her waist and keep her melded tightly against him. With his unoccupied hand, he gently brushed back the whisper-thin material of the short, diaphanous robe she wore over her nightgown, revealing the pale skin of her left shoulder. His lips followed immediately behind, searing every inch of her exposed flesh, and she could do nothing but shiver, wrap her arms around him, and cling on for dear life while he nipped at her skin and wrung gasps from her lungs. He repeated the process with her right shoulder, his movements teasing and agonizingly slow, before he finally pulled her arms free of the garment and impatiently tossed it aside. He then broke her hold on him, and—loose-limbed and gulping for air—she toppled back onto the mattress, her head thumping against the pillows and sending a small spray of feathers flying. As she giggled at him through the floating cascade, he lifted her hand to his face, pressed a kiss into her palm, and once again uttered the words that had simultaneously shattered and stitched her up again moments earlier:
“I love you.”
Reaching up for the collar of his shirt, she pulled him hungrily down to her, balling the fabric up in her fists as she opened her mouth against his and felt the glide of his tongue on her lips. Her hands slid down along his sides, searching for a way in, and finally brushed against the embroidered hem before diving underneath so that she might run her palms along the bare expanse of his back and abdomen.
It was not enough, though. Not nearly enough. Once more taking the material in her hands, she yanked upwards, desperately needing it removed. She wanted nothing between them; she longed to be as close to him as was earthly possible. The shirt bunched up and snagged around his neck, breaking their kiss and caused them both to laugh. He reached back for it just as she did, and she nearly pulled his ears off in her haste to rip him free.
Then, quite suddenly, he was.
He sat up and rested on his haunches as he carelessly dropped the shirt to the floor, giving her a clear view of him as he sat outlined in gold and all aglow in the pale morning light.
She had never seen him bare-chested before. This was new. New and startlingly intimate.
The frailty of his early years was reflected in his thin frame, but she could also see an emerging strength, the man within coming to fruition. But none of that mattered. No matter what stage of his life, no matter what incarnation of Francis with which she was faced, he was hers. Just as he had always been hers, and would always be hers.
He belonged to her, and she to him.
She pushed herself into a sitting position and peered up at him from underneath a fringe of long lashes. Without any idea as to what she was doing, knowing only that she wanted to taste the salt on his skin, she leaned forward and traced the ridge of his breastbone with her tongue, which drew from within him a deep, shuddering breath.
“God, Mary.”
She dragged her mouth upwards, feeling him begin to tremble beneath her lips. She reached the base of his throat and bared her teeth to nibble her way up to his jaw, and he ran his hands underneath the heavy weight of her hair and squeezed great handfuls of it between his fingers as he tried to regain his composure.
Her breath hot against his skin, she murmured, “You’re so beautiful.”
Gripping her hair, he tenderly tilted her head back so that she was forced to gaze into his eyes. He then brought forth his thumb and brushed it softly across her cheek, trailed it along the plump smoothness of her bottom lip, then used it to tip her chin upward as he dipped his head and lowered his mouth to hers in another kiss. “You are—” he brought his knee between hers “—the most—” he guided her back down onto the bed “—beautiful thing—” he pushed aside the thin satin straps of her nightgown “—I have—” his fingers peeled down the fabric, baring the top half of her breasts “—ever seen.”
The desire coursing through her was almost painful. “Francis, please.”
His hands moved across her breasts and then slowly down to her thighs. He spread them wider by insistently pushing them apart with his knee, which ground against her sex with a pressure that was both more than anything she had ever experienced, and yet somehow not enough. Wantonly, she rubbed herself against him, and he rewarded her with a low rumbling groan from deep within his throat. His touch then slid beneath the fabric of her gown, where she soon she felt it tiptoeing across the bare skin of her most intimate places while she writhed beneath him. His eyes bored into hers, searching for any signs of doubt as he cupped his hand against her and slid a finger into her liquid center.
A small cry, sharp and keening, burst from her, prompting him to sigh and drop his forehead against hers, whispering her name like a prayer. She twined her arms around him, one hand clawed into his hair, the other digging nails into the flesh of his back. Through sheer willpower, he held himself still as she trembled and melted and grew accustomed to the new sensation, and he forced himself to inhale and exhale slowly several times before adding his index finger and opening her even further.
It felt better than anything had ever felt, and yet somehow she knew that she still wanted more, needed more, and it was just as she thought this that something perverse within her called forth into her mind the realization that, while this was all so new to her—while his every touch charted unexplored territory—the moment held no such revelations for him. She may have been a novice, but Francis had been here countless times. She was not the first girl to go mindless at his touch, not the first to clutch him close and cry out against his shoulder. He had shared his bed with girls far more experienced that she, and their ghosts seemed suddenly to crowd around her, jeering her and mocking her. An image of Olivia appeared in her mind’s eye, bringing with it the echo of all the pain and heartache of the previous weeks.
You may be here today, her specter hissed, but I was here only yesterday. Which of us do you think will be here tomorrow?
And at those words, imagined though they may have been, Mary flinched.
Like an arrow loosed from a bow, Francis was off her and across the room almost instantly, leaving her feeling bewildered and exposed upon the bed.
“Francis, I’m sorry—”
“Don’t,” he interrupted, his voice strained. “Please don’t. I am the one who should be apologizing. I never should have…” His voice trailed off, and he reached down to scoop her discarded robe off the floor before holding the sheer bundle of material out to her like an offering. “Here. Take this.”
She glanced at it briefly before her eyes flew back to his face. “No,” she said flatly. “I don’t want it. Please. Please come back over here with me.”
He turned away from her and, raising his arm, leaned heavily against the window frame. “I’m sorry. I wasn’t—I should not have let it go this far.”
He thinks this is a mistake. The realization jolted through her, turning her desperate. He is going to ask me to leave. “I want this, Francis.”
“The way you reacted to my touch just now…”
“I didn’t mean—”
“No, please. This isn’t your fault.” He grew quiet for several beats, and when he spoke again his voice was thick with emotion. “It has occurred to me that perhaps you feel pressured into doing this. The way that I carried on with…” He faltered, then spun back around to face her with an expression that was pained in a way that tore savagely at her heart. “I need you to understand that this was never my intention. I didn’t turn to her because I felt there was something lacking between us, or because she could offer me something that you wouldn’t. I was only trying to force myself to forget you, and failing miserably.”
She shook her head and repeated, in a voice filled with a bitter sort wonder, “Only.”
“Only what?”
“You were only trying to forget me.” The air hung heavy with the things she did not say. You only caused us both agony. You only smashed both our hearts.
“Mary, forgive me.”
“Please come back to bed.”
“You don’t have to do this…not to keep me. I’m yours. Despite all my foolish behavior, I have always been yours. But though I have loved you, I know that I have not honored you, and, Mary, I swear—I swear—that from this moment on, I will. I will. God forbid, there may come a day when we both have to promise vows to others, but until it comes I will love you, and cherish you, and honor you, and that isn’t something you have to earn, Mary. As long as there is even a possibility of a future with you, there will never again be anyone else in the world for me.”
She had listened to his impassioned words with tears swimming in her eyes, and she quickly blinked them away as he walked over to her with his hand extended. “Take my hand. I’ll see you back to your rooms.”
“No.”
“Mary—”
She snatched up one of the pillows and held it before her like a shield. “No!”
“I’m trying to do the right thing here, Mary, but don’t overestimate my strength. You aren’t making this easy.”
“I don’t want to make this easy.”
“A moment ago I know that I said we had been doing entirely too much thinking, but right now I’m not sure if you’re doing nearly enough. If we were to continue, and four months from now you are forced to accept another man’s hand in marriage—what then? You are a queen, and when you marry, you will be vulnerable to slander and speculation in ways that I am not.” His eyes, stricken, dropped to the ground. “Don’t make me be the cause of some future punishment for you, Mary. I couldn’t bear it. I won’t see you hurt because of me.”
“Don’t you understand?” she exclaimed, flinging the cushion aside and leaping to her feet.
“Understand what?”
“That’s why I’m here!”
“Please, Mary, you’re upset—”
“Of course I’m upset! I just watched your mother poison a dozen armed men! I saw my friend brutally beaten right before my eyes! I was nearly raped, my future almost destroyed…”
His eyes had grown bright with threatening tears, and he rushed forward to gather her in his arms. “Oh, Mary, Mary, I’m so sorry,” he murmured, caressing her hair and rocking her weightlessly back and forth. “What can I do?”
“I told you what you can do.”
“What?”
“Make love to me.”
“Mary…”
“I know what you’re thinking. I used to feel as you do. Do you remember our evening by the lakeside?”
“Vaguely.” But he leaned back and offered her a small, teasing smile that made it clear his memories were anything but vague.
“I wanted you so desperately, but I was afraid,” she confessed wretchedly. “I was engaged to Tomas…we were set to leave France within a matter of days. It was only when I returned that evening and found him waiting in my rooms that he finally showed me his cruelty.”
Francis’s jaw tightened at the memory, and his blue eyes sharpened to steel.
“It wasn’t until…after…that I allowed myself to think about what might have happened…how my life would have suffered at his hands. The self-restraint you and I had shown by the lakeside would have done nothing to save me, nothing to spare me. I would have married Tomas and submitted to him according to my duty, but his pride and his anger…I know what my wedding night would have been, with him. He would have hurt me. Hurt me for pleasure. Hurt me for sport.”
Francis had remained silent, but now he squeezed her close, buried his face against her neck, and through gritted teeth choked out, “No, he wouldn’t. I would have killed him. One way or another, I would have killed him. He was a dead man from the moment he threatened you.”
She lifted her fingers to his hair, twirling the fair curls into golden rings around them. He was so protective, so brave, and so very, very dear to her. She forced herself to press on, though she knew her words were gutting him. “And then last night, with Count Vincent…I would have been ruined, in an instant. Left with no choice but to marry my rapist. My life in France, with you, would have been over.”
She felt a teardrop hit her shoulder, as soft as summer rain. “You think that I don’t know that?”
“Then why is it so hard for you to understand?”
He stared at her helplessly before releasing her and turning once more back to the window.
She refused to allow him to put distance between them, physical or otherwise. “Look at me,” she commanded, grabbing his arm and forcing him to face her once more. “Don’t you see? We’ve been lucky, so very lucky until now, but what if you aren’t there to save me the next time?”
“I will be.”
She reached out and touched his cheek, a tender caress. “I hope so.” She then lowered her hand, bringing his with it, and held them both clasped against her heart while she gazed up at him with pleading eyes. “But you were right, you’ve always been right, about the uncertainty of our future. And if something happens and tomorrow I am sent away to spend my life with another, or make room for a new dauphine, I want to go knowing what it’s like to be with someone who loves me. To be held…and touched…in that way. Even if it’s just once. Please, Francis. Don’t make me beg.”
He looked so torn, so incredibly torn. “But a moment ago, when I touched you—”
She flushed crimson. “You know I’ve never done this before,” she admitted sheepishly. “I know you have. I couldn’t help but worry about…how I would measure up.”
He shook his head, utterly bemused, but she could see his resolve weakening. Sensing that she had the advantage, she took his arms and wound them tightly about her waist, pressing herself so closely to him that they were breathing the same air.
“Take me back to bed, Francis,” she whispered, bringing her mouth to his ear, nipping it with her teeth. “I want it to be you. I need it to be you.” Then she pulled back to stare deeply into his eyes, so blue and so unlike her own, and finally said what she had yet to say, though it had been in her heart for years:
“I love you.”
His face went soft in a way that was both beautiful and heartbreaking. Closing his eyes, he dropped his forehead against hers and sighed like a man who had been holding his breath for a thousand years. “You don’t know how good it feels to hear you say that,” he told her with a joyous laugh, his beaming smile shining through his every word.
Her hands skimmed up the bare skin of his chest, across his shoulders, then down his back, accompanied by the gentle scrape of her fingernails. His gaze dropped to her lips, his eyes once more darkening with desire.
She grinned and bit her lip as she walked him backwards toward the bed, her flashing eyes both an invitation and a challenge.
“Show me.”
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