He would be gone from the island in a matter of days, his duty as envoy for the Prince Regency at an end, and Olivia was to remain here with the Fitzgeralds for another few months at least.

  It would be pointless on Olivia’s part to think beyond that.

  In other words, there was no future for them, only the here and now to be enjoyed to its fullest.

  Chapter Seven

  Olivia had no idea how long the two of them danced together, their gazes locked as they twirled and spun about the gallery in time to a waltz that paid little regard to the muted music they could hear coming down the hallway from the governor’s crowded salon.

  They danced and danced, Magnus’s arm about Olivia’s waist keeping their bodies pressed tightly together, his grip inflexible on one of her gloved hands.

  “I would very much like to kiss and make love to you again.”

  Olivia’s heart leapt, and she was sure she stopped breathing altogether for several seconds after hearing Magnus’s husky declaration.

  He stopped dancing to stare down at her intently. “Will you allow it?”

  She moistened the dryness of her lips with the tip of her tongue. Knowing she should say no.

  Knowing she had to say no.

  But also knowing she had no intention of doing any such thing.

  She could barely breathe for the excitement rising within her. “What if someone else should discover this gallery?”

  “We will not be in this gallery,” Magnus assured as he took her hand in his to lead her to the very end of the long room. “I was shown this yesterday evening when I took a stroll with the governor and his wife after dinner.” He opened a door to reveal a large conservatory.

  Not one merely for show, Olivia discovered as she stepped inside, as was the case with the one her mother had insisted upon having built adjoining the family home in London. This conservatory was full of fragrant herbs and towering plants, some of which reached almost to the roof of the glass structure.

  Magnus entered behind her, a lit candle in one hand as he used the other to lock the door behind them. “No doubt it is a security risk to have an unlocked door leading straight into the house,” he dismissed with a shrug. “Follow me,” he added gently as he led the way through the foliage.

  At the very center of the room, there was an old couch covered in a floral material. A Manx tartan blanket was folded and thrown over the back of it, although the conservatory was warm this evening, seeming to have trapped the heat of the day within its glass walls.

  “I believe this might be where the governor’s wife comes whenever she is in need of sanctuary,” Magnus murmured as he placed the lit candle on the table beside the couch.

  Olivia nodded. “I can see, with how busy the lives of the governor and his wife always seem to be, how that need to retreat for peace and being alone for a few minutes might occasionally be necessary for that poor lady. It is no wonder that—”

  “Olivia.”

  “—she escapes here whenever…” Olivia’s chatter trailed off. Because that was exactly what this was: meaningless chatter.

  And that was because now that she and Magnus were alone together, completely separate from the rest of the house filled with the governor’s guests, Olivia felt overcome with a shyness she had not suffered the previous day aboard Magnus’s ship.

  Possibly because yesterday she had not gone to his cabin with the intention of kissing or being kissed.

  Hadn’t she?

  Well…perhaps, in the recesses of her mind, Olivia had thought that might be a possibility.

  But this, having left the salon where the other guests were, the two of them dancing together privately before she stepped into a locked conservatory with Magnus, was a deliberate decision and an invitation to intimacy.

  “Olivia, please look at me.”

  Something Olivia instantly realized she had been avoiding doing for the past few minutes. Because of that uncharacteristic shyness she felt now that they were alone together?

  Undoubtedly.

  Well, it simply would not do. She was made of much sterner stuff than this. Had needed to be these past few years, when her mother’s vitriol toward her had become so much more severe.

  Could that be because Olivia looked so much like her mother’s sister who, if she had not died so prematurely, might have succeeded in bringing shame and scandal to her sister the Countess of Aldrich’s comfortable life?

  No doubt.

  Oh, damn what her mother thought or why she did.

  Damn any who might frown upon the attraction between Olivia and Magnus.

  She wanted this. Wanted Magnus to make love with her. And if she did not take up his offer now, he would soon be gone and she would never see him again—

  “You are thinking far too hard on the subject,” Magnus murmured, gently taking both her hands in his. “We can just sit on the couch together, without speaking or touching, if that is what you wish.”

  Olivia didn’t wish for that at all. She wanted Magnus’s lips and hands upon her again. Pleasuring her, taking her to those heights of ecstasy she had never imagined, let alone felt, with anyone else before him.

  She had read, in one of her father’s ornithology books, of how swans mated for life. When she had mentioned how romantic that was to her father, he had gently informed her that infidelity was not unheard of in the species, but, upon seeing her disappointed expression, no doubt, said he believed it was not a common occurrence and that swans did usually remain mated until one of them died.

  Perhaps Olivia was like one of those swans in that she would only ever want one gentleman for all her life.

  Only love one gentleman for all her life.

  She raised startled lids to find Magnus looking back at her with obvious concern.

  Did she love him?

  If they made love again, then it was more than a possibility she would if she did not already.

  Magnus admitted to an inner nervousness he could not remember having felt since he was a much younger man. His years as admiral did not allow for the least sign of indecision on his part.

  Olivia’s continued silence was shaking his usual decisiveness.

  Had he gone too far in bringing her into the conservatory with the obvious intention of wanting to make love to her?

  Her uncharacteristic silence said that he had.

  And rightly so.

  Olivia was young and innocent, despite that no-nonsense attitude which seemed to place her as being older and more experienced than one and twenty. She had her whole life ahead of her.

  Whereas Magnus…

  He was sixteen years older, far from innocent, and was about to resign from His Majesty’s navy and embark on the life as the Earl of Rockborne he had, as yet, only been playing at. God knows if he would actually enjoy such a life.

  He also had the misfortune to have once been involved with Olivia’s aunt.

  All of them reasons why Olivia might not wish to continue their relationship.

  “No, I do not wish to do either of those things.” She gave a shake of her head as she made the firm statement. “What I wish is for you…for you to make love to me again as you did yesterday.”

  “Are you sure?” he hesitated. “I’m so much older—”

  “And wiser and more experienced,” she added.

  Magnus reserved judgment on his being wiser, considering their current situation, and he was only physically more experienced because he was allowed to be as a man and being so much older.

  “I expect you to share that experience with me,” Olivia stated determinedly as she kept a firm grasp of one of Magnus’s much larger hands to pull him with her toward the couch.

  Magnus remained standing beside it as he lifted a hand to cradle the warmth of one of Olivia’s cheeks. “I will gladly do whatever you ask,” he assured softly. “But first I want you to know how much I truly admire you. I have never met anyone like you before. Never.” He ran the soft pad of his thumb across the plumpness of her lips when she eyed him uncertainly. “I like you in spite of who your relative was, not because of,” he told her firmly. “You are unique and so very beautiful and desirable, I can barely control myself whenever we are alone together. This has never happened to me before,” he added ruefully.

  “Are you absolutely sure that it is not because I look—”

  “I will not hear another word on that subject, Olivia,” he cut in harshly. “We will discuss it again later if you still wish to do so, but not now.” He deliberately smoothed the harshness from his expression before smiling at her. “Here and now, I wish there to be only you and me. Alone together. Desiring each other. Giving and taking pleasure.”

  His words echoed exactly how Olivia felt.

  Instead of answering him verbally, she watched his gaze darken as she stroked the moist tip of her tongue across the caressing pad of his thumb.

  She really knew very little about how to make love to a man, but the way Magnus’s eyes turned a deep and stormy blue and his breathing became shallow and uneven told her how much he enjoyed having the caress of her tongue upon his flesh.

  Guided by the evidence of his response, Olivia curled her tongue about his thumb more confidently, stroking along its length several times before parting her lips further and sucking that digit fully into her mouth.

  “Dear God…” Magnus’s eyelids closed. “The pleasure is so intense, it feels almost as if you are sucking my cock rather than my thumb.”

  Olivia’s eyes widened. Was that something a man liked a woman to do?

  A glance downward revealed a large and telling bulge in the front of Magnus’s breeches.

  Would releasing that engorged flesh and sucking on Magnus’s cock be anywhere near as intensely pleasurable for him as it had been for Olivia to have her nipples bared and sucked by him yesterday?

  There was only one way for her to find out.

  Magnus gave a groan of disappointment when Olivia released his thumb from her mouth with a moist popping sound. His expression turned from puzzlement to shock when Olivia first pushed him down onto the sofa before kneeling between his parted thighs to begin unfastening the buttons on his breeches.

  One of his hands clamped down on both of hers. “Olivia, no—”

  “Olivia, yes,” she corrected firmly as she placed his hand upon his own thigh before continuing to unbutton his breeches. “Allow me to do this, Magnus. Please.”

  Her breath caught in her throat when she at last gazed upon that telling outline of the bulge now hidden only by the cotton material of his drawers. Even so, she could see his member was very long and thick, and it seemed to grow even longer and thicker as she stared at it.

  Olivia could contain her curiosity no longer. She untied Magnus’s drawers to pull the material aside and bare him completely to her avid gaze.

  She knew roughly how a man’s or woman’s body should look, from glancing curiously through the books in her father’s library. But nothing, not those books or her imagination, had prepared her for how deliciously enticing she would find merely staring at Magnus’s bared cock.

  It was indeed very long, and so wide around, Olivia doubted her fingers would be able to encircle it. A thick vein ran along its length, and what she had read was the foreskin, was pulled down beneath the mushroomed top, the skin there a glistening red.

  Even as Olivia stared, a bead of moisture appeared and then escaped the slit at the top. Thick and viscous, it was too enticing for her to resist bending forward and…

  “Olivia!” Magnus’s hands on her arms stopped her quest to lick that moisture into her mouth. “That is a step beyond which there is no going back,” he warned when she looked up at him.

  Did she want to go back to being that too-serious and slightly ignorant girl she had been before meeting Magnus?

  Most assuredly no!

  She wanted to be a strong and confident woman.

  More importantly, she wanted to be the only woman Magnus desired.

  Chapter Eight

  Magnus easily recognized that glint of determination in Olivia’s expressive eyes for exactly what it was. Every thought this young woman had, every emotion she felt, was revealed in those violet eyes, and currently, she had decided she was going to make love to him.

  While Magnus had no argument with that plan, he first wished to kiss and caress her.

  He bent down to place his arms beneath hers to pull her up and onto the couch before, taking most of his weight on his elbows, he lay down between her parted thighs.

  She frowned up at him. “I was about to enjoy sucking your cock.”

  Magnus chuckled, both at her disgruntled expression and at the candidness of language. “And, knowing you, you will no doubt do exactly as you please before we are finished. But first I want to kiss you.” He lowered his head and claimed her lips with his own, very aware of the way the heat between her thighs was pressing against the hardness of his released cock.

  Dear Lord, how hot and succulent her lips and mouth tasted. A feast of heated nectar Magnus reveled in as he kissed her more and more deeply. A heat of desire Olivia returned without a single hesitation.

  Magnus had no idea if the soft moans came from Olivia or himself, only that they were becoming increasingly more urgent as their kisses deepened to a devouring hunger where it seemed they couldn’t get close enough to each other.

  They couldn’t, because layers of clothes still separated them, his own as well as hers.

  Magnus shifted slightly and attempted to shrug out of his jacket as he continued to kiss Olivia. Unfortunately, the garment was tailored so perfectly to his wide shoulders and chest, it refused to move any farther than the tops of his arms, trapping him rather than freeing him.

  Olivia, seeing his dilemma, began to giggle.

  It was such an unexpected sound from this usually composed and serious young woman that Magnus couldn’t help but smile himself. “I would appreciate,” he finally drawled, “once you have ceased laughing at my predicament, of course, if you would help me off with my jacket?”

  “Of course, my lord.” She sat up, but after assisting with the removal of his jacket, she pressed her hand against his chest to push him onto his back on the couch. She then slid down his body until she was on her knees between his parted thighs. “But first I wish to finish what I have already started,” she murmured huskily, the fingers of one hand moving about the girth of his rigidly aroused cock, before she lowered her head to take the flared head into her mouth.

  Searing heat.

  Overwhelming pleasure.

  A laving rasp of a hot tongue.

  A nip of teeth.

  Creating such an intensity of emotions, they had Magnus’s fingers clawing into the couch beneath him as his body arched so that he could thrust his cock up harder and deeper.

  All those feelings and emotions were being given to him by the woman currently sucking his cock into the cavernous heat of her mouth, her tongue licking and lashing his sensitive flesh as her fingers stroked along that length of his cock she wasn’t able to fit into her mouth.

  Magnus felt the increase of pre-cum escaping from his cockhead as Olivia’s other hand moved to cup beneath his balls. His pleasure intensified as she began to gently roll and squeeze them in the same rhythm as she sucked his length deeper and deeper into her mouth. The pleasure was so intense, Magnus had no idea how much longer he could continue to hold back his release.

  “I am going to come if you continue to do that,” he warned gruffly, never wishing to do anything that might shock or alarm Olivia.

  She looked up at him from beneath dark lashes and gave him a nonverbal reply by deliberately sucking his cock even farther into her mouth. So deep the mushroomed top breached and then slid downward into her throat to be squeezed remorselessly by the tightening muscles there.

  Magnus gasped as his cum released in spurt after heated spurt down that slender throat. His pleasure intensified as Olivia greedily swallowed every drop until she had drained him dry.

  She released him to sit back on her heels and lick her lips. “Delicious.”

  Magnus was almost too depleted to move, but finally managed to regain enough strength to reach out and touch the tousled beauty of her hair as several curls fell down onto her shoulders. “My…arousal and release did not frighten or upset you?”

  Had Olivia been frightened by the size of Magnus’s aroused cock, his loss of control, and then being privileged to watch as this often distant and severe gentleman came completely undone by releasing into her mouth?

  “Absolutely not,” she answered firmly. “Indeed, I cannot wait to do it again.”

  His smile was self-derisive. “I am no longer a youth who can produce another cockstand within minutes of coming the first time.” He sat up to straighten his clothing. “Give me an hour or two. In the meantime, I would very much like to taste you.”

  By taste her, did he mean…?

  Olivia drew in a ragged breath. “I believe I should like that very much.”

  Magnus gently turned her so that he could unfasten the buttons at the back of her gown, allowing the silk material to fall down to her waist as he turned her round to face him.

  Olivia glanced down to where her red and plump nipples were now visible through the thin material of her chemise. In anticipation of having Magnus’s mouth on them again? No doubt.

  “What…?” She broke off with a gasp as Magnus easily lifted her onto her feet to remove her gown altogether, leaving her wearing only a thin chemise and cotton drawers edged with pink ribbon.

  Olivia had never felt so exposed.

  But not vulnerable, she realized. Instead, she felt empowered as she saw the way in which Magnus’s cheeks were flushed and his eyes had darkened almost to black as he stared at her. There was also, despite what he had said, the return of a noticeable bulge in his breeches.

  Between Olivia’s thighs became warm and slick as she returned his increasingly heated gaze, the perfume of her arousal intensifying with each second that passed.