Chapter 117: You Did Good
Chapter 117: You Did Good
Livia sat up. She’d seen him before. But something about this particular moment made the sight of him feel entirely new.
Curiosity, as it frequently did, got the better of her. Her fingers closed around his erection. She stroked slowly, watching with focused attention as a bead of precum gathered at the head — her thumb moving to spread it in a slow circle that made his jaw go tight.
"Diana—" Her name came out wrecked. His head fell back.
She watched his throat move as he swallowed. Then — she wasn’t entirely sure what possessed her, whether it was Jane’s voice in the back of her head or simple curiosity or the intoxicating discovery that she had this much power over him — she leaned forward and ran her tongue in a slow swirl around the head of him.
Richard jerked like she’d applied a lit match. His head snapped forward immediately, eyes dropping to her — startled, undone, searching, all at once.
She looked up at him. "You don’t like that?" she asked.
The awkwardness in her voice was genuine. She actually wasn’t sure.
"What? No — I mean — yes." Richard’s considerable gift for language had apparently packed its belongings and left the building. "Just. Continue."
She flicked her tongue over him again, watching his face. His hand reached forward and gathered her hair back from her face, drawing it away from her cheeks and holding it there. Wanting to see her. Needing to see her face while she took him apart.
His other hand found her jaw. "Open," he said.
She looked up at him and then she opened. He pushed inside her mouth — slowly, just a little, just the first inch, watching her face the entire time.
"Oh my fuck—" His eyes rolled back. He tried again with words. Failed again with words. "Oh my fucking — fuck—"
There was the vocabulary of Richard Montague under genuine duress. Just profanity, stacked on profanity, delivered to the ceiling in a broken exhale while Livia sucked on him and his entire nervous system lost restraint.
He pushed a little further. Just a little. Then a little more —and then a little more because he was, as he freely acknowledged in the privacy of his own dissolving thoughts, fundamentally an asshole who didn’t understand what the word ’enough’ meant.
Just a little more— Livia’s palm shot out, flat against his thigh. Richard stopped. He pulled back immediately — all the way, completely — and the loss of her mouth was its own specific punishment that he absolutely deserved.
He reached down, cupped her face in both hands, tilted it upward and kissed her. Tasting himself on her lips with a low sound in his throat. His thumbs traced her jaw. "You did good," he muttered, pressing the words against her temple. "You did so good." He laid her back against the pillows.
His hands found the hem of her dress — still bunched at her waist from everything that had preceded this moment — and pushed it up the rest of the way. He settled between her thighs and found his way inside her.
Livia welcomed him with a moan that softened immediately into a sigh. Her arms wrapped around him and she held on as he began to move.
It was a deep, steady push and pull, his lips finding her ear, her temple, the curve of her jaw. He started talking.
A low, continuous murmur against her skin.
You’re incredible.
She felt him push deeper and her breath caught.
I’m going completely mad.
His rhythm remained steady.
I want to stay here for the rest of my life. Right here. Exactly here.
Each confession pressed into her skin, marking her with them, and Livia’s fingers moved up into his hair and held him there, held him close, her own breath coming in quiet unsteady increments.
Then he stilled for just a moment.
His mouth at her ear. His weight warm and present above her. "I don’t want you away from Kingsmere. I don’t want you away from me."
Livia’s arms tightened around him. Her fingers trailed down his back — the long line of his spine, the dimples above his tailbone, the curve of his bare backside — and she pulled him deeper without words, her hands telling him what her voice wasn’t ready to say. Her fingers slid into the cleft of him.
Found the nerve there — sensitive, electric, entirely unexpected — and stroked it. Richard came without warning.
The orgasm hit him — sudden, total, shocking even to him. His whole body seized, a sound tearing from his throat that he had no control over whatsoever.
He shook. The grunt that left him was loud and completely without dignity. He gasped. Cursed. Gasped again. His release tore through him in waves and he jerked with each one — deep, involuntary, burying himself further inside her with every shudder — and Livia felt him in places she hadn’t known existed. Places that made her eyes go wide at the ceiling and her fingers curl and a small, startled sound escape her lips.
He collapsed beside her. His lips were moving very slightly, still producing the occasional fragment of sound that bore no resemblance to the English language.
She started laughing. She couldn’t help it.
"See?" he managed, turning his head toward her. "You turn me into a mumbling mess."
"I will not apologise for it, your grace."
He laughed, his chest shaking with it. "God, no. Don’t apologise. I like being a mumbling mess." He paused, apparently consulting his own feelings on the matter. "I don’t like being a mumbling mess. I like what makes me a mumbling mess. There’s a distinction."
She smiled.
"How am I going to manage tomorrow night?" His voice had shifted. "I’ve gotten so thoroughly used to you, Diana. It’s deeply inconvenient."
Livia turned her head to look at him. "Close your eyes and think of me."
"Take a maid with you," he said.
"Why?" Livia asked.
"You may need someone to run errands for you," Richard said.
Livia turned her head on the pillow, eyes narrowing with immediate suspicion. "Are you already treating me like a duchess?"
(Brought to you by magmagmmg 1/2)
xymnovel