She drew on him, strongly, and when he would have pulled her away at the last moment, she held her ground and kept him in her mouth, where she could force pleasure upon him more, longer, deeper, than he’d intended to allow. His body had its revenge for all his discipline, and his release had him groaning as he bowed up, shook, and bucked against Vivian’s mouth and hand.

When he finally lay quiet on the mattress, breathing harshly, his hand loosely tangled in her hair, Vivian was still unwilling to relinquish him.

“God, Vivvie…” He sounded bewildered and spent. “Why?”

She closed her lips around his softening length, so he’d feel himself being drawn gently from her mouth, and got off the bed to fetch the wash cloth. As she tidied him up and offered him first crack at the water glass, she considered his question.

She’d done this because, in some regard, she’d come to love him. She’d wanted him to have something of her that was unique, something she’d never share with another. She had a need to give to him she couldn’t question at that moment, and it had felt right to do this with him.

But that answer would hardly serve, not with him already in full retreat. When she bundled in beside him, he obligingly wrapped an arm around her, but his touch was cautious and… withholding.

“Why?” He reiterated the question, sounding more in possession of himself and not particularly happy.

“I wanted to know I could,” she said, thinking it was a version of the truth. “I wanted to know what it was like.”

“Don’t do it again.” He kissed her temple; his tone was relieved. “Not with me. We’re supposed to be getting you a baby, if you’ll recall.”

She nodded, knowing if she didn’t do it with him, she wasn’t going to do it with anybody else. Not ever. Not because it was vulgar and base, as he no doubt thought, but because with Darius, it was sweet and lovely and unbearably intimate. She’d given this to him, but to demand one iota more would be more than his damaged image of himself could sustain.

Darius lay awake, his arms around Vivian, the weight of a thousand regrets on his heart.

Why on earth had he permitted this? None of them, not the laughing barmaids at Oxford, not the good-hearted ladies in Italy, not the scheming bitches he consorted with now—not one of them had been allowed what he’d just permitted with Vivian. Bad enough he was her stud, worse yet that he’d taken a hand in her wardrobe and appearance, worse still, he’d admitted to himself it was going to be hard to send her back to her William, but this…

He told himself he didn’t trust Lucy or Blanche not to harm him, did he allow them to French kiss him. Putting his cock between a woman’s teeth was an act of trust, no matter what else a man might say or boast or brag regarding the experience. With those two, it was unthinkable.

With Vivian, it had been impossible to deny her.

So she’d been curious, and he’d obliged her. That’s all it was. A small erotic experiment, quickly concluded and not to be repeated.

He dropped off into sleep on that thought, but when he woke and Vivian wasn’t with him, he was almost relieved.

Or so he told himself.

“So the smallest one, who could climb higher than any of the other kittens, went way, way, way up into the tree, until his brothers could see only his tail twitching among the branches, and from there he could tell them exactly in which direction the castle lay. All four kittens made it home by dark, and every other cat in the castle envied them their great adventure.”

“Did they live happily ever after?” John stifled a yawn, and it was clear he’d kept his eyes open by sheer determination.

“They did,” Vivian said, “although the smallest one grew up to become a great, lazy black tomcat who spent his time protecting his favorite little boy from mice.”

John smiled sleepily and scooted farther down under his covers. “Wags does that. Will you stay until I fall asleep?”

“Of course.” Vivian tucked the covers in more closely around the boy, kissed his forehead, and resumed her seat at the foot of his bed.

“Darius sings to me sometimes, when I’ve had a nightmare,” John said, eyes drifting closed. “I like the one about the lady with the green dress.”

Vivian took a moment to translate, but then she started in on a quiet version of the folk song “Greensleeves,” switching to a soft hum as John fell back to sleep. When she looked up, Darius was standing in the shadows by the door, arms crossed, regarding her from across the room. She rose, and he held out a hand. “Nightmare?”

Vivian tucked herself under his arm. “Gracie came to get you, but I heard her knocking, so I let you sleep. Does he get them often?”

“Yes.” Darius ran a free hand through his hair. “I think he dreams of his mother, of the few months of his life when she was extant, and then wakes up, and she’s not here, not anywhere.”

“But you’re here.” Vivian leaned up and kissed his cheek. “And he goes right back to sleep, the same as any child.”

“You think so?”

“I have two nephews and a niece. The boys are eight and five, and I can assure you they have had their share of nightmares, and their mother has never been farther away than the next hallway.”

He looked relieved, which made her realize how deeply he fretted for the boy.

“You’re doing a good job, Darius. John is a delight, and he loves you.”

Something shadowed crossed his features, but they’d reached Darius’s bedroom, and Vivian let him tug off her nightgown and bathrobe, then wrap himself around her in the middle of the bed.

“You love that child,” she said softly.

“I do.” Vivian couldn’t see his face in the dark, but she knew the admission cost him. “He wouldn’t love me, did he know all the circumstances of his situation here.”

“Yes, he would.” She laced her fingers through his where they splayed over her midriff. “Children can be very forgiving, and you’re doing the best you can for him.”

He gathered her closer and began to make excruciatingly tender love to her without saying a word.

That night marked the turning point in their dealings, with the date of Vivian’s scheduled departure drawing inexorably closer. They teased less, spoke less, and loved with a quiet desperation neither acknowledged. On the final night, Darius left her in peace to take her bath and tuck herself up in bed.

Near midnight, after much useless gazing into the fire in his study, he found her asleep in his bed for the last time and decided not to wake her. She’d become subdued these past few days, but so had he. When he’d found her tucking John in after a nightmare, something inside him had broken. Of all the burdens he carried, the burden of raising that child alone was the heaviest and the lightest. John was goodness, innocence, and all the hope and potential in the world.

John deserved to be loved and protected, and Darius died a thousand deaths every time Blanche tooled out in her coach and the servants hustled John up to the third floor, there to remain until Lady Cowell took herself off hours later, lighter in the pocket and none the wiser about the composition of Darius’s household.

He hated—hated—entertaining her under his roof and insisted on using a guest room at the back of the house to see her. Lucy, thank God, wasn’t inclined to stir so far from Town in search of her pleasures, but rather, delighted in demanding that Darius go always to her at the hour of her choosing.

“Darius?”

“Here.” He curled around Vivian’s back, fitting his groin to her derriere and snugging his arm around her waist. “Go back to sleep, love.”

“Where were you?”

“Making sure you’re packed.” He kissed her nape. In truth, he’d been sitting among her things, touching them, lifting them to his nose and wishing. Pathetic, but after tomorrow, the opportunity to be pathetic wouldn’t be within reach, so he allowed it.