"Golly, what a night!" She'd said, and Robert's face was blank. The cornflower of his eyes shifted to a dull, colorless gray against crimson cheeks. He puffed labored breaths and, for a moment, it looked as though he would say something more. But then he merely told her he would sleep in his dressing room. The fight drained out of him and his broad, proud shoulders slumped in defeat even as he straightened his coat, tugging at the ends fitfully before disappearing.
The hollow click of the connecting door was sharp in the silence of her room and the palms she laid over her eyes did not stem her tears.
Sleep would not come. The bed is too large without his weight beside her. The air too still without his occasional snores and grunts.
Straining her ears she is certain she can hear the creak of his dressing room mattress but there is no light filtering beneath the closed door.
The hearth fire burns low and turns to ash, chill creeping from the shadows to blanket the room.
Sleep would not come.
She feels insubstantial roaming the halls in the early hours of morning, adrift with no true destination in mind. Pale moonlight filters through the tall leaded glass windows and she avoids the silvery spills in her path, following the darkened shadows instead. She's been following shadows for a while now - why bother change her course now?
Minutes into her aimless roaming she realizes the very real possibility of running into Bricker in the empty halls and a dark pleasure suffuses her. She'd like to pop him in the nose as Robert had; smack him senseless. How could he - how could he dare? But her anger is misdirected and the pressing thought that sends her roving in the night is less charitable.
How could I dare?
She's never really developed a taste for whiskey. It is bitter, not like the new cocktails that were becoming all the rage, and it burns a trail down her throat to light a fire in her belly.
She often complained it made her logy and sleepy.
Robert told her it made her loose and sexy.
Regardless, she longs for blessed emptiness of thought and makes a quick turn for the library.. She aches to forget the earlier hours, to erase Simon Bricker's sadly hopeful face and Robert's destroyed one.
A few ounces of escape to scorch the recesses of her mind.
So intent on reaching her destination, it isn't until she holds the heavy crystal glass in her fingertips that she realizes she isn't alone.
He sits in his desk chair, cloaked in shadows. Only his eyes glint in the weak moonlight and when he clears his throat she nearly drops her drink.
"It's you." She says, not sure if she feels relief, rage or fear. Before she decides, she downs her drink in one swallow and her face twists in disgust.
"What do you hope to accomplish with this?" He asks slowly, and in the slur of his words she can tell he has indulged for quite a while. The admonishment is on the tip of her tongue and she swallows it back and chooses to answer him glibly instead.
"Same as you, I suppose."
The sneer is evident in his voice. "Oh, you've a wish to forget your wife's unfaithfulness as well? What a coincidence."
"I seek to forget that my husband is currently behaving like a horse's ass, which I suppose amounts to the same thing." Liquid courage, latent irritation or simple resignation has her immediately poised for battle. It has been years since she last felt backed into a corner and forced to fight her way out.
And her adversary has never, ever been Robert.
Cora contemplates taking her drink back to her room but she believes his earlier retreat to be rooted in cowardice and she isn't about to give in so easily.
Besides there are flames licking low in her belly and all the things she hasn't said to him for weeks and months are rising to the surface, toxic bubbles of repressed emotion.
He holds his glass lazily and watches her with a critical eye. His silent judgement grates and she is tempted to throw the whiskey in his face. Perhaps she isn't smart enough for Simon Bricker to appreciate. Perhaps he was just after her for one thing. But at least he listened when she spoke. At least he cared to hear her opinion. And if he thought it was a stupid opinion, he kept that information to himself.
"You're thinking of him right now!" Robert accuses and she doesn't deny it. How could she deny it?
"Of him. And of you. Rolling together like children in our bedroom. Waking Edith and tempting God knows what scandal."
"I was tempting scandal?" Hollow laughter escapes his twisted lips. "I. Was tempting scandal. Me?"
She pours another drink and ignores him. The chair he's in creaks as he shifts but she keeps her back to him. She cannot look at him; cannot witness the wreckage she has created.
"MY WIFE. MY CORA. MY WIFE." He barks sharply and she jumps and turns to look at him. He is lost somewhere in his own mind and it takes a few seconds for his eyes to focus on hers.
"Yes, I'm YOUR WIFE. After more than thirty years I think I'm aware."
"Then how could you flirt with him? How could you flatter him? How could you invite him here? How could you let him into our room?"
"Because!" Her voice cracks on the jagged edge of her grief, punctuated by the slam of her glass against the oak. "Because you weren't here. You couldn't be bothered to look at me. Because you've made it abundantly clear that my opinion means nothing to you and that I am too daft to hold a conversation with. Because I'm not ready to be the Dowager quite yet and I longed for a friend. You, my best friend, could not be bothered! I needed you to hear me and you couldn't be bothered."
"So that's a reason to let him fuck you?"
She feels his words like a physical blow, the vile curse well-aimed for maximum damage. Her chest crumples a bit at the force of his vehemence. She hadn't thought, hadn't really thought, that he actually believed her to be unfaithful. She believed his wounded ego to be at the base of his behavior. Tears held at bay with the heat of the whiskey begin to fill her throat and, at once, she is last of her belligerence slips away, the fire in her belly burning low and turning to ash.
"I'm sorry."
She is prepared to retreat to her room. To give him the space he so obviously desires. To escape. But his fingers cord around her wrists tightly and when she turns their noses bump. His nearness is unsettling and she squeaks in weak protest as he backs her into his writing desk.
She cannot focus on his eyes. Their noses thump again and he's too close but she can smell the whiskey on his breath and the heat of desire is unmistakable against her hip. The noises he makes against her throat are, at first, mere animal vocalizations until she begins to follow their cadence.
"Mine, mine, mine, mine, mine." He brands her skin with declarations and she lets him.
He is looming over her, a dark angel with a fierce face, lips pressed between her breasts and searing through the cotton nightdress. His hands grope at her thighs and she is balanced precariously on the edge of the writing desk, the corner pressed uncomfortably into the base of her spine. Carelessly he kicks the chair away and it tumbles sideways, impossibly loud in the tomb-like library. The sound does not break his concentration and he continues to paw at her resolutely, fingers hot and hard and searching.
At the apex of her thighs he pushes against her core and she winces. She's not ready, not even a little bit.
His grunt is emotionless but he suddenly drops in front of her. She hasn't the time to gather her thoughts before his lips are pressed to the folds of her sex and his insistent, silken tongue is slipping against her. Her knees buckle and her hands grope at his shoulders, searching for balance and purchase, attempting to make sense of her current position.
"I...yes. Ro-ro-ro-um.." She has lost her words to the rhythm of his tongue. His thumbs press harder into her skin and spread her thighs. His face is buried against her and she cannot stop her hips from jerking against him. The pleasure is hot and hard and tinged with hurt. She cannot see his face, cannot look into his eyes for forgiveness or comfort. He simply draws pleasure from her with masterful and merciless stroking and he pushes impossibly closer. She is thoughtless as she cups his head, grinding herself fiercely against his lips, angry desire flooding between them, warm and sticky and complicated.
"There," He says against her, satisfied, and she feels the word through her core to the top of her head. She is momentarily weightless, suspended in pleasant agony as he lets her go and stands once more. His palms against her stomach turn her fully and she braces herself on the flat of the desk. The coolness of the room creeps up as he pulls her nightdress to her hips and positions himself behind her. His feet slip between hers and brush her legs wider and then he is there at her entrance, poised and waiting.
He hesitates. The fists twisted in the hem of her nightgown go slack and her chest tightens in panic.
"Don't stop." She growls, even as a tear tracks over her cheek. She pushes back against him, desperate for a connection, any connection. He needs no further encouragement and he slides inside her in a single stroke.
"Mine." He growls against the nape of her neck before biting, harder than usual and sure to leave a mark. "Mine."
"Yes." She answers, the warm skin of his thighs slapping against her. His corporeal presence so solid at her back and yet his heart so distant.
"Mine."
"Yes."
His.
(1/3)
