Taking Liberties by Jackie Barbosa

her and pulled her into the shadow of the tree. “I want you more than I have ever wanted any woman. Nothing can change that.”
    Love and fear collided in her chest. “Not even if I don’t think I can swear off all other desserts for the rest of my life?”
    His forehead furrowed in puzzlement, and then let out a soft bark of laughter as comprehension smoothed his features. He dragged her into his arms, the ridge of his cock folding up and pressing, hard and insistent, against her stomach as he brushed his lips to her forehead. “Desserts, my love, or hors d’oeuvres?”
    Now Tish was puzzled. “Hors d’oeuvres?”
    His hands traversed the distance from her shoulders to the small of her back and then down to cup her buttocks, fitting her more closely to him. She moaned softly with contentment at the way their bodies seemed made for each other, every angle and plane of his body having a matching curve or pillow on hers.
    “A little taste before the meal. Something to whet your appetite before the main course,” he clarified. “The main course being, I hope, me.”
    She slid her arms around his neck. “Oh, God, of course, it’s you. Everything comes back to you. Even down there…with him, it was about you. That you were watching.” She buried her face in the sweet tobacco-scented expanse of his waistcoat and took a shuddery breath. “I thought there must be something terribly wrong with me that I could take such pleasure in that.”
    He drew away slightly and shook his head, a rueful grin lighting his features. “And I feared there was something terribly wrong with me that I could take such pleasure in watching it. But I did, and I do. As you can tell,” he added with a roll of his hips.
    The hope that had been fluttering weakly in her chest spread its wings and poised to take flight. “Then you wouldn’t mind if I…well, if I partake of an hors d’ouevres now and then?”
    “To the contrary, my love. As long as you allow me to watch and then fuck you within an inch of your life afterward, I will actively encourage it.”
    Joy and raw lust threatened to overcome her, but she could not quite believe what he was saying. “But…why? Why would you want a faithless wife?”
    He shrugged. “I don’t understand it myself. I thought I would be racked with rage and jealousy when I saw you with Hapsborough, but I wasn’t. At first, I told myself it was because I knew he hadn’t satisfied you and I was certain I would. But today…” He made a low, rumbling sound in his throat and tightened his grip on her backside. “Christ, I’ve never seen anything more erotic you sucking Randley’s cock while he ate your delectable little pussy. And when you came, I damn near spilled in my breeches. It was as if I were a part of you, feeling what you felt…”
    Tish nodded. Strangely she understood exactly what he meant. Because she felt it, too, if in a different way. “And I wouldn’t have come at all if I hadn’t known you were up here in the trees, watching me, experiencing it with me.”
    With a chuckle, he buried his face in her hair, which had been released from the restraints of her bonnet some time earlier. “It would seem we are two sides of the same debauched coin, Leticia Blake. I can’t pretend to understand it, but I do know this--we are plainly meant for one another.”
    “Does this mean you still want to marry me?” she asked.
    “It means I want to fuck you right now and make sure you never have the chance to even think of marrying anyone but me.”
    “Oh.” Tish’s body responded with instant, liquid heat even as the bird of hope took wing inside her. But… “Now?” she asked.
    “Now,” he rumbled, beginning to raise her skirts by gathering them up in his fingers.
    “But what about Randley? I told him I came up here to relieve myself.”
    “And so you did, my love. So you did.” Cool air blew across her bare skin as her skirt cleared her garters.
    “That wasn’t what I meant,”