“I do not want a status report, Darius.” She was being cranky, like a teething baby, turning away every attempt at solace.
He pushed her braid back over her shoulder, not a caress, more of a comfort. “What do you want, Vivian?”
She didn’t apologize for the notion. William was gone, and while she had loved him, she’d never loved him the way a wife loved a husband. William—so devoted to his Muriel—was the last person who’d castigate her for her feelings.
“I want to see something in your eyes other than concern, Darius. I don’t want you watching me carefully, as if I might lapse into strong hysterics over my tea.” And damn the catch in her voice that said his concern wasn’t misplaced. If Darius could not silence Thurgood and his threats, strong hysterics were a certainty.
“Your room is chilly, Vivvie. Let’s get you under the covers.” He rose off the bed all too easily.
He was attempting to cosset her. She was going to wallop him. “I’m not getting under these covers without you.”
He paused in the act of lifting her covers. Paused and swallowed, then swung his gaze back to her face, carefully, as if not sure what he’d find there. “You’re bereaved, Vivian. I would not want to take advantage.”
His gaze moved over her, a blink-and-she’d-miss-it inventory that for just two consecutive instants revealed banked longing.
“You’re grieving, too.” That longing—so stark and sincere—had been a balm to Vivian’s soul and restored to her heaps of patience and understanding she hadn’t been able to locate a minute earlier. “All I’m asking is that you hold me, Darius.”
She had the sense that was all she could ask, that if she begged him to take off his clothes, to bring the candles closer to the bed, to make passionate love to her, she would exceed the fragile limits of his self-imposed standards of… something.
Decency? For he was decent.
Or perhaps they were the standards of martyrdom—which thought made her ill on his behalf.
He moved around the room, dousing candles, banking the fire, pouring a glass of water from the pitcher and setting it on the night table while Vivian watched him.
Darius Lindsey was a man like any other, one whom exigencies had forced into indecent bargains, but underneath it all, a highly decent man, a painfully decent man. Maybe that was why she’d given her heart, her happiness, and the well-being of her child into his keeping.
“Come to bed, Darius. I will think you have taken me into dislike now that I am no longer married to another.” The jest fell utterly flat, an occasion when bald truth arrived uninvited to the middle of a conversation.
He paused, two buttons away from removing his waistcoat. “Is that what you think? You think because I attempt to demonstrate my respect for your loss that my regard has changed?”
The idea intrigued him, clearly.
“I think I have lost William, and he was ready to go and deserving of a peaceful end, but I do not want —”
Oh, damn. Damn, and damn, and if she’d known any worse words, she would have thought them too. Bad enough when truth appeared uninvited in a conversation, how much worse when it popped up in the middle of a very sentence.
“Vivvie?” He was there next to her, that fear-of-strong-hysterics look replaced by simple, tender concern. “You can tell me, Vivvie. You can tell me anything.”
She could. She could bear his child; she could put herself under his protection; she could give him her truths. “I do not want to lose you too. Not for anything, and yet Thurgood will ruin Will’s life unless I give you up—unless we give each other up.”
His reply was gratifyingly swift and certain. “You won’t lose me.” He lifted his waistcoat over his head, tossed it toward the clothespress, and started on his shirt buttons. “You will never, ever lose me. Even if you tried, you could not lose me. You shall not lose me.”
Vows. He was spouting vows and tossing his clothing in all directions, both of which reassured Vivian mightily. “You should have a care for your clothing, Darius.”
His stockings went sailing. One caught on a chair; the other landed on her vanity. “Hang the bloody clothing, Vivvie. I can afford new now. That dressing gown can go. Shall I help you with it?”
Would he also remove his breeches? “No, thank you.”
She was out of her dressing gown and sitting on the bed by the time he stood before her, naked, beautiful, and smiling at her. “It’s up to you, Vivvie. The nightgown can go or it can stay, but be assured, what’s under it now is far more dear to me than what lay beneath it last December.”
She looked away, deprived herself of all that masculine pulchritude in the interests of preserving a smidgen of dignity. “You are entirely too knowing, Mr. Lindsey. I have borne a child and am not—”
He stepped closer, close enough that the unique, soothing, spicy scent of him came to her, and close enough that his groin appeared in her line of sight. He was becoming aroused. This reassured too, but it intimidated a trifle as well.
“You’re not,” he said, tipping her chin up. “You’re not that young woman, and I’m not that man. Did you find me attractive all those months ago, Vivian?”
“Yes.”
“Am I more attractive now? You know exactly the manner of person with whom I consorted, you know exactly how I allowed them to use me, you know what I took coin for, though it was arguably criminal of me to do so and certainly stupid. Am I attractive to you now?”
She did as she had once before, sat on the bed and wrapped her arms around his waist so she could press her face to the place beneath his heart. “If I knew more bad words, Darius Lindsey, I would be saying them to make you hush. You are not a criminal. You are not stupid. Yes, you are more attractive to me than ever. I look at you and lose my wits. I look at you and thank God you indulged in all those things you said—with me.”
Confession enough, apparently. His hand landed on her nape. “Then, you ridiculous, lovely woman, do you think my desire for you could ever be less than consuming? You risked your life to bring my child into the world, Vivian. You are beautiful to me, and you always will be.”
He was holding something back, though Vivian was too muddled to parse it out exactly. She let it go, lest he make an inspection tour of her lactating breasts, the slight belly she still sported, the circles of fatigue more prone to show up under her eyes. His argument could be made in the general case rather than example by example.
It was a convincing argument, she realized. He was dear to her in all his imperfections, and he was honest. The erection rising against the slope of her breast was convincing as well.
“Our son will be hounding you for sustenance soon enough, Vivian. Get under the covers.”
“I like it when you talk like that,” she said, doing as he’d bid. “You haven’t acquired much shyness since last we shared a bed.”
He climbed in after her, the feel of him spooned around her comforting, comfortable, and dear. “I have acquired one son, a far better addition to my treasures. Now tell me how long you can stand to have Leah and Nick underfoot.”
He rubbed her back, he petted her hair, he let her talk and talk, and all the while, Vivian was aware of his arousal pressing against her from behind, warm, smooth, and wonderfully, undeniably hard.
Darius told himself he was taking advantage, desperate, reckless advantage by being intimate with Vivian now, and yet, the dear, exasperating woman would not oblige him by falling asleep. She deserved comfort, and by God, he would comfort her.
She’d had time to heal physically from the birth—Darius had consulted both a physician and a midwife on those particulars—but she had dealt with so much.
The mill wheel of anxiety, hope, and gratitude that was his mind of late came to a halt when Vivian’s fingers found his cock.
He could spend, just from having her touch him, he could spend.
