Chapter 6: Desire
His hand lingered at her cheek, the pad of his thumb tracing the delicate arch just below her eye. Her skin was softer than anything he’d ever touched. The scent of her, lavender and night air, wrapped around him, pulling him closer to a ledge he knew he couldn’t step back from. He closed his eyes, resting his forehead against hers. He couldn’t look at her. Not dressed like that, standing so close in the secret dark.
The image was already seared behind his lids: the fall of her hair, the silhouette of her body beneath the cream silk. His desire was a physical ache, a heat coiling low in his stomach, urging him forward. His other hand found the curve of her waist, the silk whisper-thin over the warmth of her.
“Joseph,” she breathed, his name a confession on her lips. The sound of it, intimate and raw, almost undid him.
He breathed out. He forced his eyes to stay shut. If he opened them now, if he saw her looking up at him like that, he would be lost. The rational part of his mind, the gentleman he was raised to be, screamed a warning over the roaring in his blood. That warning was the only thread holding him back.
“We can’t,” he whispered, the words scraping his throat. His forehead still pressed to hers, a point of grounding heat. “You know we can’t.”
“I know what I’m supposed to do,” she murmured back. Her hand came up, her fingers threading into the hair at the nape of his neck. A shiver raced down his spine, immediate and unbidden. “I’m so tired of what I’m supposed to do.”
He opened his eyes looking at her, his eyes betraying him. He looked down at her nightgown, the thin silk hanging from her frame, and breathed out hard. The sound was sharp, a release of strained control.Then he looked back up at her face, his own etched with a pained conflict. “I’m sorry, ma’am,” he said, the formal title a desperate anchor. He was apologizing for his eyes, for the wanting they so plainly showed.
A soft, sad smile touched her lips. “Don’t be sorry for seeing me,” she whispered. Her hand left his neck and came to rest lightly on his chest, feeling the frantic beat of his heart beneath the wool of his coat.
He covered her hand with his own, pressing it flat against his pounding heart. “Anastasia” he said, her name finally spoken aloud between them. It felt like unlocking a door.
She heard it for the first time, her name from his lips.It did something to her. A current seemed to pass through her, dissolving the last shred of hesitation. She rose to her toes, wrapping her hands around his neck to pull him down. She kissed him. The kiss wasn’t gentle like the other one. This was raw and urgent, a desperate point of contact.
Her mouth moved against his with a hungry certainty, and he met her with equal force, his arms crushing her to him, the coarse wool of his coat rough against the thin silk.
The world narrowed to the taste of her, the soft sound she made in her throat, the dizzying warmth of her body fitted against his.
He broke the kiss, breathing hard, but only far enough to press his forehead to hers again. “Anastasia,” he said again, a rough whisper.
“Don’t stop saying it,” she pleaded, her voice trembling. Her hands were fists in his hair now, holding him to her as if he might vanish. “I’ve been a title for so long.”
She kisses him again, her hands still fisted in his hair. His arms go around her back, his palms sprawled out, pulling her closer until not even the night air could slip between them. The kiss deepened, a language of hunger and relief that needed no translation.
He could feel every contour of her through the thin silk, the heat of her burning against his chest. His hands moved over her back, learning the map of her spine through the fabric. The world had shrunk to the shared warmth of their mouths and the frantic beat where their bodies pressed together.
A soft, involuntary sound escaped her throat. It wasn’t a moan, but something quieter, more devastating. It was the sound of a wall inside her finally crumbling. He heard it and kissed her harder, his own control fraying at the edges like a rope under too much strain.
The heat between them was a living thing, a pulse that seemed to shake the very air in the walled garden. His hands moved on their own.
They slid from her back, over the gentle swell of her hips. His fingers caught the hem of her silk nightgown, lifting it slightly. They snaked underneath, coming into direct contact with the warm, bare skin of her hips. The touch was electric, a shocking jolt of reality.
He broke the kiss with a sharp intake of breath, going to pull his hands. “I’m sorry,” he gasped, his voice ragged with a shame that fought a losing battle with his desire. He couldn’t look at her. Anastasia didn’t let him retreat. She caught his wrists, her grip surprisingly strong, and held his hands firmly against her skin.
“Don’t you dare apologise for that,” she whispered, her voice low and fierce. Her hazel eyes captured his, wide and unblinking in the lantern light.
The rawness in her tone paralyzed him. His palms remained flat against the curve of her hips, the sensation of her skin beneath his a truth he couldn’t deny. He swallowed hard, his throat dry. “It’s… It’s all I can think about,” he admitted, the confession torn from him. “The shed,” she said, reading his mind. “Your hand on my stomach. Holding me still. It’s all I’ve thought about, too.” She guided one of his hands to the small of her back, pressing it there. The other she kept anchored on her hip.
He was trembling, a fine vibration she could feel through her palms. She looked at his mouth, her own lips parted. He looked at hers, seeing the faint sheen from their last kiss. The world held its breath. They kissed gently.
It was a profound shift from the hungry force of moments before. This was soft, exploring, a slow savoring of a new and terrifying truth. His hand on her back moved up, his fingers spreading over the delicate architecture of her shoulder blade through the silk.
His other hand squeezed her hip gently, a quiet, possessive punctuation. She sighed into his mouth, the sound one of deep relief. Her hands slid from his wrists to tangle in the soft hair at the nape of his neck.
The kiss deepened again, a slow-burning fire stoked by shared breath and the silent confession trembling between them. He could feel the tension in her, a wire strung taut, matching the ache in his own body.
His resolve, that carefully constructed wall of propriety, crumbled into dust. It was swept away by the feel of her mouth and the silent permission in her touch. His hands moved again, driven by a need too vast to name.
They slid from her back and her hip, down over the curves he’d only just begun to explore. His palms traveled the length of her silk-covered thighs before finding the hem once more. This time, he didn’t stop.
His fingers slipped underneath, meeting the incredible warmth of her bare skin. They traced a path up the backs of her thighs, a slow, deliberate caress that made her gasp against his lips. He felt her legs tremble. Without breaking the kiss, his hands settled firmly beneath her. He lifted her up, gently, the motion effortless.
She instinctively wrapped her legs around his waist, her arms tightening around his neck, anchoring herself to him. He held her there for a moment, suspended, feeling the perfect, shocking weight of her. Then he turned, carrying her. He walked them away from the lantern’s revealing pool of light, into the deeper shadows where the garden wall met a stand of untrimmed laurel. The darkness here was velvet, smelling of damp stone and rich earth.
He found the cold, rough surface of the stone wall. He pressed her back against it softly, cushioning her with his own body. The chill of the stone seeped through her silk gown, a stark contrast to the feverish heat radiating between them. He kissed her harder then. The gentleness was gone, replaced by the raw, consuming hunger. It was a kiss of possession and surrender all at once, a frantic, silent conversation.
Her fingers dug into his shoulders, pulling him closer. There was only the taste of her, the scent of her skin, the solid feel of the wall at her back and his body against hers.
A soft, breathy sound escaped her, a whimper that was halfway to a moan. It was the most honest sound he had ever heard. He trailed kisses from her mouth to her jaw, then down the column of her throat, feeling her pulse hammer against his lips.
“Joseph,” she breathed, his name a prayer and a claim. The sound of it in the dark, wrapped in her desire, was more intoxicating than any wine. He pulled back just enough to look at her face, shadowed and beautiful.
Her breath hitched as his gaze traveled from her eyes to her lips, swollen from kissing. The cool night air whispered across the damp skin of his throat.
Her legs were still locked around his waist, a silent plea he felt in his very bones. Her hazel eyes searched his, wide and unguarded. He saw the same war he felt raging inside himself. Every second they remained like this was a theft from a life that wasn't theirs. His hands, still holding her beneath her thighs, tensed.
He could feel the heat of her through the silk. The rough stone wall was a stark contrast to the softness of her. It was a line, and he was poised directly over it, one gust of wind away from falling. “Tell me you want me to stop.” He says looking at her. His voice was low, graveled with a desire he no longer fought, but laced with a final, desperate hope for absolution.
He needed her to say it, to choose this, to share the burden of the choice.He needed the words. She didn’t speak. Instead, she moved one hand from his neck. She brought it slowly to his mouth, her fingers tracing his bottom lip with a tenderness that shattered him.
Then she leaned forward, closing the scant inch between them. She pressed her forehead to his, her eyes closing. When she finally spoke, her voice was a whisper against his lips, meant for him alone.
“I can’t,” she breathed. “I don’t want you to stop.”
Her words were the only permission he needed, the last thread of his restraint snapping. He kissed her hard. His mouth captured hers with a desperation that erased every past and future, leaving only the aching present. She kissed him back with equal force, her fingers clutching at his hair, pulling him closer.
His mouth moved from hers, a trail of fire across her skin. He tasted the salt of her neck, felt the frantic pulse there beneath his lips. He continued down to the curve of her shoulder, the silk of her gown slipping further under his touch. A sharp, quiet gasp escaped her as his teeth grazed her collarbone.
He carefully put her down on the ground, her back still against the cool stone wall. The transition was smooth, but the solid earth beneath them felt like a new, more dangerous level of reality. He kept his hands on her waist, holding her gaze in the deep shadows.
Her chest rose and fell with quick, shallow breaths, her eyes wide and dark. Then, he slowly sank to his knees before her.
The dark garden air seemed to thicken, charged and silent except for the rustle of leaves. From this vantage, looking up at her, she was a silhouette against the older darkness of the wall. The hem of her cream gown pooled around his knees. He placed his hands on her thighs, feeling her tremble beneath his palms.
In the faint, scattered light, her expression was one of awestruck fear, a beautiful vulnerability that made his heart clench. He held her gaze as he slowly pushed the silk of her nightgown up past her knees, his hands warm against her skin.
The air was cool on her newly exposed legs. She shuddered, but not from cold. One of her hands left the wall and touched his hair, a gentle, anchoring weight. He turned his head, pressing a soft kiss to the inside of her knee. The intimacy of the act, so much more profound than what had come before, made her breath catch. “Joseph,” she whispered, his name a question and an answer.
He didn’t reply with words. He leaned forward, his focus absolute. His mouth continued its journey, a slow, devastating exploration that made her knees buckle. Her back scraped against the rough stone as her head fell back with a stifled cry, her fingers curling tightly in his hair.
The world narrowed to sensation: the chill of the wall, the heat of his mouth, the overwhelming proof of her own desire.
This was a different kind of secret, one written on her skin. His hands held her steady as her legs trembled. A low, broken sound came from her throat, swallowed by the night. She was falling apart, and he was the only thing tethering her to the earth. She was, for the first time in years, completely and utterly seen.
He continued, his mouth trailing up her lower thigh to her upper thigh, a slow, deliberate path of heat on her cool skin. He stopped when he was there, his breath a warm contrast to the night air. He brought his hand up, ghosting over the delicate fabric of her panties, the touch so faint it was barely a suggestion.
He looked up, his blue eyes finding hers in the deep shadow. Her face was a study in shattered composure, her lips parted, her chest rising and falling rapidly. “May I?” he asked, his voice low, a rough scrape of sound that held the weight of the world and their shared secret within it.
It was the last formality, a bridge between the gentleman he was raised to be and the man she was unraveling. She didn’t hesitate. Her hand, which had been gripping his hair, relaxed. She smoothed his dark curls back from his forehead, her touch tender and sure. “Yes,” she said, the word simple, solid, and final.It wasn’t a whisper. It was a decree.
His fingers hooked into the lace. He drew the fabric down, the movement slow and careful. The cool air touched her, a shocking intimacy that made her gasp. He discarded the delicate garment, a pale wisp lost in the darkness of the garden.
She felt exposed, utterly, but the reverence in his gaze was a blanket. Then he leaned forward, and his mouth found her. The shock of it was absolute, a bolt of pure sensation that stripped her of every thought that wasn’t him.
A sharp, fractured cry escaped her, immediately swallowed by her own hand clapping over her mouth. Her other hand flew back against the rough stone, scraping skin. Her head thudded against the wall. The world dissolved into feeling—the unforgiving cold of the stone, the devastating warmth of his mouth, the coiled tension in her own thighs.“Oh, god, Joseph,” she choked out, the words muffled by her palm.
He didn’t stop. His hands held her hips, anchoring her to the wall and to him. The rhythm he set was relentless, a language older than words. She was unraveling, coming apart at the seams he hadn’t known were stitched so tightly.
The sound she made was half-strangled, absorbed by the dark velvet of the garden. He slowed his tongue, applying a different, consistent pressure.
Then he began to slowly rock her hips back and forth against his mouth, a gentle prompting. It was an encouragement, a silent instruction to find her own pace, to use him. For a moment, she was frozen, overwhelmed by the sheer vulnerability of it. Then, tentatively, she moved. He guided her at first, a slow and steady metronome, then gradually sped up the pace.
He removed his hands from her hips, letting them fall to her thighs in a light caress. She continued to move, slowly at first, then with growing confidence, driven by a need that now had a direction.
A deep, resonant groan vibrated through him, into her, the sound one of profound satisfaction. He could feel her, every shift and tremble, taking what she needed. His own desire was a sharp, white-hot counterpoint, held in check by the sheer privilege of witnessing her come undone.
Her movements became less tentative, more urgent. Her hand dropped, gripping his shoulder, her nails biting through the wool of his coat. Her breathing became a ragged series of gasps, punctuating the quiet night. "Don't stop," she pleaded, her voice raw and fragmented. "Please, Joseph."
He didn't. He focused entirely on the language of her body, the cues in her tension, the hitch in her breath. He matched her, met her, his own world reduced to the scent of her, the taste, the sound of her falling apart above him.
He slowed his tongue’s pace, now slow circling her clit.He groaned into her once again.
The vibration of that sound, low and reverent, was the final thread to snap. Her entire body arched, pulling away from the cold stone wall only to be held firmly in place by his hands and mouth. A choked, silent scream tightened her throat as the world whited out into pure, shattering sensation. It wasn’t a wave but a sudden, total collapse, a silent detonation that left her limbs weak and her mind blissfully empty.
He gentled his touch, softening the pressure to a series of light, fluttering licks as she shuddered through the aftershocks. Her grip on his shoulders went slack. He rested his forehead against the inside of her thigh, breathing hard, his own body alight with a need he forcibly banked. The only sounds were the distant rustle of leaves and their ragged breathing slowly finding a shared rhythm in the dark.
He pressed a final, soft kiss to the inside of her thigh. The scent of her, intimate and warm, clung to him. Slowly, he raised his head.
Her body was a pale column against the dark stone, silhouetted by the faint lantern glow from across the garden. Her head was still back, eyes closed, one hand flat against the wall as if for support. The other rested on her stomach, rising and falling with her deep, slowing breaths. He watched her, a profound ache swelling in his chest.
It was more than desire. It was a staggering wave of tenderness, sharp and dangerous. He shifted, his knees protesting against the hard ground. He began to rise, the muscles in his legs taut. As he stood up, she moved.
Her eyes opened, finding his in the shadows. Before he could speak, she grabbed the rough wool of his coat, fisting the fabric in her hands. She pulled him in, kissing him with a hungry, desperate gratitude.
This kiss tasted different. It was deep, searching, and flavoured with the taste of her and his own surrender. Her hands released his coat to cup his face, her thumbs stroking his cheekbones. He could feel the slight tremble in her fingers. He broke the kiss, resting his forehead against hers.
He gathered her against him, his coat rough against her thin gown. She nestled her face into his neck. They stood like that for a long moment, wrapped in the quiet and the lingering heat. The reality of the cold stone wall, the damp garden, the nearby house, began to seep back in. “We can’t stay out here,” he murmured into her hair, stating the obvious. “You’ll freeze.”
“I don’t care.” Her voice was muffled against his collar. “I do.” He said it simply. He reluctantly stepped back.
The night air rushed between them, a cold shock on skin that had been all warmth. He looked at her, really looked, the faint tremor in her hands. The magnitude of what had just happened settled over them both, heavy and silent.He reached out slowly. He cupped her cheeks, his thumbs brushing the high bones there. He kissed her softly, a seal on everything that had passed. It was a punctuation mark, tender and final.
She kissed him back, her mouth soft and spent against his. When he pulled away, he shrugged out of his rough wool coat. He wrapped it around her shoulders, the weight of it immediately engulfing her slender frame. The residual warmth from his body was a profound comfort.
“You were shivering,” he said, his voice low. She pulled the coat tighter, burying her nose in the collar. It smelled like sawdust, oiled tools, and him. “It’s not from the cold,” she whispered. She looked impossibly small wrapped in his oversized coat, her beauty sharper now that it was unguarded.