Chapter 36: He Made Me Swear
He stepped forward, and she stepped back. It happened so naturally it might have been a dance. Henry advanced with terrible calm, and Livia retreated in equal silence. The night wind pulled at the loose sleeves of her robe and sent strands of hair across her face, but she did not dare lift a hand to brush them away. She was too busy watching him.
One step. Then another. Until the backs of her legs struck the low ledge of the roof and she stopped with a startled breath. There was nowhere else to go.
Henry stood close enough now that she could see the tension in his jaw. "How many men has there been?" he finally asked.
Livia shook her head quickly. "Just one....Please, you cannot tell Nicholas I told you. Please." She swallowed hard. "He made me swear. He made me promise."
His gaze moved over her trying to read every hour of the days he had missed. His eyes lifted back to hers. "Was he inside you? Did he fuck you?"
"No," she said quickly. Then, because she knew half-truths would only worsen this, she added, "No—but he said next month, I would be his."
"I need to get you out of here," he said, more to himself than to her, the words escaping on a rough breath. Then, more sharply, with a flash of anger not aimed at her but no less fierce for it: "Fuck." Henry looked at her, seeing the whole cruel machinery surrounding her—the bargains made over her head, the money passed hand to hand, the future being arranged without her consent.
He could not bear the thought of her belonging to anyone else. He did not understand it, did not understand why it struck him with such violence, why every instinct in him was urging him toward the same mad solution.
To take her from this place. To carry her away. To bring her to his palace.
"Where did he touch you?"
Livia’s gaze dropped to the floor.
"Where?"
Slowly, her fingers rose — trembling — and pointed at her chest. He stepped closer. His hands moved, parting her robe, fingers curling around the edge of her nightdress. The fabric gave way. Cool air rushed over her skin as he drew it down, exposing her breasts.
He pulled a handkerchief from his pocket, drew her closer — her body flush against his — and began to dab at her breasts.
"What are you doing?" Livia breathed. Her nipples were already hardening beneath the soft cloth.
"His touch shouldn’t exist on your skin. Mine should be the only one you remember. Every time someone gets close to you, every time hands reach for what’s mine — it’s my touch that should crowd everything else out. Always mine."
He tucked the handkerchief away. Then his fingers moved, grazing her left nipple before drifting to the right. Back and forth. Tracing. Testing. He watched her face as much as he watched his own hands.
They weren’t what he was used to. He’d always preferred more — fuller, heavier. But something about Livia dismantled his preferences entirely. The curve of her. The way she responded to the lightest graze. The softness that gave way under his fingertips.
He couldn’t look away. Everything about her was flawless. Livia wasn’t small. She was a perfect handful — soft, squeezable, filled his palm completely. But when her nipples hardened like this, rising to stiff peaks, it was as though they were reaching for him specifically. Asking for something only he could give.
"I will get you out of here," he whispered.
The words were barely out before he bent his head and drew one pink nipple into his mouth.
The sound that left him was a grunt pulled from somewhere deep in his chest as his tongue circled her hungrily.
How had he forgotten this? How had he walked away from this, stayed away, convinced himself he didn’t need it — didn’t need her — when the truth was sitting right here on his tongue?
He hadn’t known he missed it until this exact moment. Hadn’t known how much he wanted it until his mouth closed around her. He wanted more. He wanted everything. His hand found her other breast, palming it, fingers squeezing until the pressure pulled a sweet moan from her lips. It made him want to draw out a dozen more.
His mouth left her nipple. He dragged his lips across her chest instead, kissing every inch — the swell, the curve, the soft skin between. Leaving wetness across every mound. Marking her in the only way he’d allow himself tonight. He wanted her to remember this. Not cold hands. Not the smell of whiskey. Not some drunk who took without asking.
Him. Only him. He lifted his head slowly, finding her eyes in the low light. She was flushed, lips parted, chest rising and falling in unsteady rhythms.
Then he leaned in and kissed her. When he finally pulled back, Livia saw the reluctance in the way he lingered.
He didn’t want to stop.
"If you want me so, why do you hold back?" she asked, her breath still uneven from everything that had just passed between them.
"It is not her face alone that binds me," he said, his gaze fixed on hers, "but what her presence does to my soul."
A smile began at the corner of her mouth, amused and soft and a little triumphant. "A Petrarch fan now, are you?"
That startled a laugh out of him. "Always have been."
She noticed the way his eyes drifted to her again. That pleased her far more than it should have. There was a kind of delicious power in being wanted by a man determined not to be ruled by want.
Henry drew a steadying breath and, with a care that made her chest tighten, adjusted the fabric at her shoulders so it sat properly again, covering her chest from the danger of his own wandering attention.
"I will send for you tomorrow," he said. "I hear one more piece of news about the flu, and I will burn this place down."