Starlight (7 page)

It was reckless to be coming to Esther’s bedchamber just minutes after she had retired, but Tristan could not stay away from her. She had been distressed yet vacant over dinner as well as when they had been alone with the baby, much to his consternation, and he had been able to think of nothing but coming to her to soothe whatever ill it was causing her pain.

Anton had cornered him over dinner – on the instructions of his wife, Tristan suspected – to bluntly ask if he had done anything to cause Esther the pain she was so openly displaying. It had been all he could do to hold himself back from raging at his friend, instead issuing only a curt denial and affirming that all he wanted to do was take her pain away.

It had seemed that Anton had read far more into the brief words that had been spoken, but before he could press him on them Esther had slipped away from the parlour with a low sob that had seemed to go unnoticed by everyone save Tristan. Caring nothing for the impression it would give, he had hastily made his excuses and strode out of the room in her wake.

Tristan barged into the darkened bedchamber without even a word of greeting, pushing the unlocked door open with his shoulder and not coming to a halt until he was stood directly in front of where Esther was awaiting him with tears still clouding her eyes.

To have the Comte follow her so quickly was a dizzying relief, for tonight she needed him more than she had ever done before, despite her earlier words. Holding the baby had broken down the barriers she had erected against that which she never dared think of, that which hurt her more than anything else. Esther could waste no time tonight, not when he was the only person capable of driving her pain away again.

She pulled him towards her and reached for the nape of his neck to hold him against her as she insistently sought out his lips with her own, already frantically tearing at the buttons of his untucked shirt to expose his smooth chest to her desperately hungry eyes.

To have the woman he loved wordlessly begging for him with such unbound passion was a joy that Tristan could never deprive himself of. Setting aside his tumultuous emotions, he assisted her in tearing away his clothing before gathering her into his embrace and insistently parting her lips with a deep and forceful thrust of his tongue.

Esther cried out into his mouth as she encircled his neck with her arms to cling to him, channelling all of the agitation she felt into her passion for the Comte instead. She broke the kiss to throw her head back and seek out his flashing eyes with her own. “Undress me, Tristan!”

Her heated demand was one he would gladly accede to. Tristan reached behind her to unfasten each of the tiny pearl buttons that ran down the length of her spine. She was trapped in his arms as he did so, crushed against his chest, but there was nowhere she wanted to be more.

With no care for her delicate and ornate clothing, he wrenched the gown down past her hips and then tore apart the fastenings of her corset to expose her breasts before twisting her to face away from him.

Esther bucked against the Comte and tried to turn back around to kiss him again, but when he covered both her breasts with his hands she realised what he was doing. He pinched her nipples sharply and sent a line of fire searing through her body to settle into a throbbing ache in her core that had her moaning in desperation.

Still keeping one hand on her breasts and raking the tips of his neat nails across each nipple in turn, Tristan impatiently tugged away her undergarments, triumph erupting inside him as he saw her stockings neatly folded next to the bed and looked down to see that she too was now entirely naked.

He lowered his head and passionately kissed the side of her throat, deliberately branding the soft skin with his teeth as he did so. The rougher he became with her, the more ardently she seemed to respond to him. He understood precisely what it was that she needed tonight.

Tristan caught her in his arms and swung her off her feet before tossing her onto the bed and climbing up next to her as she gasped in surprise. “You want to do this hard and fast tonight, my Esther, is that so?” His hoarse and heavily accented words were loaded with lust and hunger and they thrilled her deeply.               

“Yes!”

“Then,
chérie
, I am more than ready to oblige you. On all fours, Esther. Now!”

She cried out in elation as he forced her face down onto the bed sheets and roughly yanked her hips back towards his. His hands roaming possessively over her breasts, his knees between her thighs forcing them apart, and hunger – such hunger! Esther craved him, had to have him inside her before she exploded with the force of the desperate desire raging in her blood.

She pushed back against him, lifting her buttocks up into the air and arching her back in a heated, wordless plea that Tristan could not resist. He drove his cock into her with one deep, slick thrust that filled her entirely.      

He lowered his head to kiss his way along the curve of her spine as he took hold of her rounded hips and pulled his cock back before slamming into her again with a shuddering groan that she responded to in like, her rapid little moans of ecstasy urging him on.

“Tristan!” Esther gasped as the force of his deep thrusts drove her up the bed. “Tristan, please...
please
do not hold anything back, not tonight!”

“Hold back,
chérie
?” he echoed hoarsely. “Esther, it is impossible for me hold anything back when I am with you – my guiding star, my angel, you already possess all that I have to give!”

Her breath hitched, but when the Comte reached around to touch her breasts again all capability for rational thought fled from her tormented mind. She rocked against him in time with his thrusts, each stroke of his cock pushing her closer to her climax. Her body was as tense as the tightest of coiled springs, furiously demanding the physical release that she knew could soothe the agony she felt – for now, at least.

Tristan pounded into Esther again and again, making no effort to restrain the orgasm that was already tightening his balls and inflaming his blood. In this moment, she was his and she needed him; if this was how he could take away her pain, then he was hers to command.

Esther tensed and twisted her head to the side, her arms shaking wildly as she fought for breath and hooked her heels behind his broad thighs to pull his cock in ever deeper. Her orgasm was so torturously near, so close...she pushed back against him with a frenzied cry that conveyed all of her desperation and need.

“You want to come now,
ma belle
?” Tristan demanded hotly, their frenzied lovemaking tearing away all of his self-restraint. “You want me to give you your climax?”

“Yes! Oh God, Tristan, please – I need it, I need you!””

Furious tears clouded his vision, making him deeply grateful that Esther was unable to see his moment of weakness – his voice, though, shook and betrayed his emotion when he spoke. “You are so beautiful, Esther, and I love watching you come with my cock inside you! Come for me now,
chérie
, come for me now!”

He shifted angle and thrust deeply into her one more time. Esther shuddered and, with a piercing scream, allowed her orgasm to sweep her away from all of her pain. She collapsed onto the sheets with loud, rasping cries that ripped through her from head to toe as Tristan covered her exhausted body with his own and continued to thrust into her, knowing that he was just moments away from his own climax.

When she twisted her head back to stare up at him with wide, darkened eyes, there was nothing he could do to hold it back. He pulled out with an agonised shout before slumping onto her and allowing his seed to spill over the rounded lines of her buttocks instead, slipping his arms between her body and the sheets before rolling onto his side and pulling her with him.

With his arms wrapped tightly around her and the heat of his skin pressed so firmly and intimately into hers as each wave of his orgasm made him jerk against her afresh, Esther could pretend that there was nothing else in the world but the two of them, nothing to cause her pain and nothing to think of but the Comte and how much she wanted him.

Her fatigue was impossible to defy. Clinging to the thoughts of the Comte and nothing but him, she allowed her eyes to close and her exhaustion to claim her as he leaned over and gently kissed her flushed face.

Tristan rolled onto his back and stared listlessly at the ceiling as his climax finally subsided. Esther’s pain had been tangible, but it had been him she turned to in order to soothe it. How could he rejoice in that, though, when tomorrow was the last day they would spend together before leaving Fleetwood Hall ? To his dismay, every time that he thought of leaving without her at his side he found himself numbed by a breathtaking agony – but if her need for him was only physical, then there could be no alternative.

With a low, pained sigh, he gazed across at Esther. She was already fast asleep, her spiky eyelashes fluttering as her breasts rose and fell in a slow and steady rhythm. She had instinctively sought out the heat of his body in her slumber, curled in a tight ball against him with her head on his chest.

It made his very heart ache.

Tristan knew with utter, breathtaking conviction that he loved her. Seeing her with the little baby in her arms earlier made him want something that had never even come to his mind before; a family. He wanted a life and a family with Esther at his side, impossible though that might be.  

He closed his eyes tightly. Perhaps in the dreams of the life that would not be his, he would find some peace – for when he awoke, Tristan knew that the inevitable moment of their parting would be circling overhead to torment him afresh.

He wrapped his body possessively around hers and buried his face in her loose hair to inhale deeply and commit every last detail of the intimacy of holding her to his memory. The warmth of her bare skin calmed him as his silent tears dried upon his face, and though he had not thought it possible, Tristan found himself lulled into submitting to his exhaustion.

No sooner had he drifted off to sleep, though, than a scream of soul-destroying terror cleaved through the silence and shot a knife through his heart.

“Tristan!”

Tristan’s heart skipped a beat in terror as Esther’s agonised cry rang out and he sat bolt upright to pull her into his lap. “I have you! Esther,
chérie,
whatever is wrong?!”

Esther’s pulse was racing as hot, stinging tears streamed down her face. She could do nothing to prevent herself from desperately accepting the soothing embrace that he offered to her. She buried her face in his shoulder as loud sobs began to rack her body.

“Do you need a doctor, perhaps?” he asked urgently, terrible fear that he had never known before coursing through him. “Are you in pain, Esther?”

“N-nightmare,” she managed to gasp with a choked sob. “A nightmare…a terrible nightmare, Tristan.”

“A nightmare? But that cannot hurt you now,
ma belle
– I have you and nothing can hurt you whilst you are in my arms!”

“If only that were true!” She shuddered violently as the memory that grieved her far beyond anything else took tight hold of her, sending churning waves of nausea to crash through her body as it replayed incessantly in her mind. “Oh, Tristan – it
hurts
, it hurts so very much!”

Tristan swallowed hard when she finally looked up into his eyes and he saw the weight of the agony that was written so clearly in them. He had to know – he had to persuade her to open up to him and take down whatever barrier it was that was holding her back from him. Pressing the softest of kisses against her forehead, he stroked her hair back from her tear-streaked face. “Tell me then, Esther. Share it with me – I want to know what has the power to hurt you so badly, darling girl.”

Her lip trembled as the endearment wrenched at her heart. Esther pushed away from him and brought herself under control enough to tell the Comte the truth, compelled to do so for reasons she could not comprehend. “I once had a child, Tristan; a beautiful little boy. Oh, but my little Max was perfect...”

She trailed off as her emotions overwhelmed her once more. Tristan gathered her back into his arms, holding her tightly as her evident distress struck ice cold pain through his racing heart. “Had,
chérie
?”

His gentle voice was full of tenderness, coaxing the words out of her that she had found it so difficult to speak of with anyone else. “Had,” Esther repeated dully, a tight knot of agony constricting her throat. “He was just three weeks old when he died. The doctors said it was one of those things and that there was nothing I could have done – my husband, though, was not convinced by their words.”

Tristan swore under his breath as he saw a cloud of fear descend upon her tear-filled eyes. Bitter fury raged inside his veins as, with a breathtaking rush of comprehension, he reached across a shaking hand to trace the silver scar running down her forearm. “Your scar?”

“Andrew. Yes.”

Her voice was dulled, but he heard the tremor of pain hiding behind the cool words. It tightened his still pounding heart, stealing a beat from it as he watched her swallow back the bile that had risen inside her throat. “You will tell me, Esther. Tell me what he did to you.”

She could not defy his grim command and neither did she want to. The urge to confide in Tristan was impossible to fight. “We argued after we lost Max; we argued all the time. I bit my tongue before, but losing my little boy made me almost numb to anything else. I did not fear angering Andrew with my rebukes, not when he was so quick to blame me for what happened to our son. It was no more than a fortnight after Max...after he was taken from us. Andrew had had too much whiskey, far too much. I realised it at the time but I could not hold my tongue. After one harsh word too many, he came at me with a knife.”

“
Jésus-Christ
!” Tristan swore loudly.              

Tears fell from Esther’s eyes afresh, for the Comte’s outrage on her behalf touched her deeply. She leaned against his bare chest again and stared into the distance. “Well, yes. He tossed the knife aside as soon as he had struck me with it and swore blind that he had never meant to hurt me, but the damage was done – both physically and in here.”

She rested her hand against her breast and Tristan laid his own on top of it. “Esther,
ma chére
, he must have been a reprehensible bastard to have done such a thing to you. Do not blame yourself for his actions – for I sense that you do,
oui
?”

Esther was amazed by how accurately he had assessed all that she had hidden away for so long. “A – a little, perhaps…”

He cut short her halting words by swooping in to deliver a fierce and possessive kiss to her parted lips, his hand still pressed against her racing heart. When he broke away again, his eyes were burning with passion and emotion. “Esther, listen to me now. You are a beautiful, spirited, wonderful little woman –
no
man has the right to strike you, no matter how many cutting words you spoke in your grief.
Mon dieu, chérie
, to lose a child…I cannot imagine how terrible it must have been then and still is for you. He should have been your rock, your anchor – not your attacker!”

She clung to him and took all that he was offering to her, hiding her face against him until her fresh tears ceased and she felt able to look up at the Comte again, awestruck by the way that his fury on her behalf still seemed to be rising from his bare skin in tangible waves. “Thank you, Tristan.”

“You need not thank me for offering you what scant comfort I can.” Tristan gritted his teeth. “I sense, though, that there is more?”

“Oh, you could say that.”

“Then continue, if it is helping to speak of it. I hope that after he attacked you in so wicked a way, Esther, you did not allow him to share your bed?”

“We barely saw each other after that, Tristan.” Esther choked back another desperate sob. “Just three months later, he died in a duel over the latest paramour he had taken after we lost Max. I needed him, Tristan, desperately so; but all he wanted to do was fuck any other woman he could get his hands upon, any woman but me.”

The uncharacteristic swear word falling from her lips was, somehow, more startling than any of the revelations she had shared with him. “Then he was a fool, Esther! But…” Tristan ran his hands through his hair in agitation as he battled for control of his emotions. “But you say you needed him even after what he did to you?”

She shifted uncomfortably against him. “I needed my husband, Tristan. He had me closeted away in the countryside, alone with my grief – he was the only one I could turn to. It was never a happy marriage between us, though, even when we were newlywed. All he wanted was for me to be in his bed and to adorn his arm, nothing more.”

“Did you desire him?” Tristan’s slow words were underlain by a bitter jealousy he had never known before.

Esther swallowed hard as she sought out Tristan’s hand with her own. “I...I was eighteen when I married Andrew. I idolised him. Yes, I did desire him; he was a handsome man and my first lover. All the hardships of the days with him were soothed by the pleasures he gave me in his arms at night – and when he died less than four months after Max, I tried to seek out similar comfort in the beds of other men.”

Tristan’s face tightened but he did not interrupt her, for he instinctively sensed how cathartic Esther was finding it to confide in him.

“The men who had called themselves my husband’s friends were all too eager to bed his widow. When I was with them, I could forget all that Andrew had done to me – and I could forget Max. The moment it was over, though, the pain always came flooding back. I could not bear it, Tristan, but it was Anton who finally made me see the truth.”

“Anton?” Tristan sucked in a sharp hiss of breath through his clenched teeth as a terrible suspicion took root inside his mind. “You and he – you did not –“

“No!” Esther was astounded by both his halting accusation and the fierce jealousy behind it. “No,” she repeated more calmly, her lower lip trembling as she stared up at him in confusion. “Had he suggested it, I was in such a mess that I would have known no way to decline, but Anton is a good man. He took me aside and made me see that I was doing myself a disservice by behaving in the way that I did – the men who would take advantage of me in my grief did not deserve to have me, he said.”

“He was right.”

“I...thank you.” Wrong-footed, she lowered her gaze as he fought to recompose himself.

“So how long has it been since you were with a man before I came along?” he finally ground out, still afraid of the snarling and enraged jealousy that had taken hold of him at the idea of his friend taking advantage of Esther, even though he knew now that it had not happened.

“A year at least now, Tristan. Anton’s kind words convinced me that I did not need to let myself be used to cope with my grief and that I was far too vulnerable to allow the men who would so coldly fuck me to do so. I shut myself away with my grief and dealt with it alone. Perhaps I took it too far to the other extreme, but once I had shut myself off I could not bring myself to undo it.”

All of Anton’s protective warnings finally made sense to Tristan. He turned away from Esther and swung his legs over the side of the bed as he buried his head in his hands. “And is that why you allowed me in this week - to distract you from your fresh pain in the way you had once resorted to, the pain re-awoken by being around little Catherine?”

Esther’s heart was now pounding so rapidly that she could barely even think straight as she twisted towards him, pressed her bare breasts into his back and rested her aching head on his shoulder. “Why should that even matter, Tristan? You told me to fuck you, not to love you – or do you not remember?”

A shiver rippled through his body as her soft fingers began to trace the thin line of hair that ran down the centre of his toned abdomen. “I remember...I remember everything that has passed between us, Esther. Everything.”

When her hands reached the head of his cock, Tristan turned to the side and pulled her into his lap. His guts twisted and his head pounded when he saw just how much pain was etched into her pale face. “
Merde
, Esther!” he swore. “
Ma belle
, all I want to do is take this agony away from you!”

Esther nodded urgently as she felt his cock surge against her. “But you do, Tristan; every time that you take me in your arms, every moment I spend with you it leaves me!”

“Then I am going to take you again now, Esther. Tell me how you want me.” His words were slow, deliberate – and drenched in pain.

A startled gasp flew from her lips as he forced her back down onto the sheets and seized hold of both of her wrists to pin them above her head. “Tristan –“

“Tell me! However you want it, however will ease your pain – I am yours to command, Esther, all of me is yours. Tell me now how to love you.”

She closed her eyes and shuddered against him. “P-precisely that. I want to feel loved, Tristan. I want...I want to be cherished and adored.”

A solitary tear snaked down Tristan’s flushed face as he readied the head of his cock against her entrance. “That, Esther, I can do for you. Let me love you.”

The double meaning of his words was more than apparent – but she could do nothing but willingly submit to him. Here in the bed alone with the Comte, he was all that mattered. With any other man, the comfort they offered faded away along with her climax, but the Comte – Tristan – was different. The mere touch of his hand or the sound of his laughter was enough to make her feel something she had never dared hope to feel again after losing her son and her husband in so cruel a way.

He watched her face contort and then, to his desperate relief, the acceptance that passed across it. “May I,
chérie
?”

With a quaking sigh, she wrapped her legs around his waist and pulled him down onto her. “Yes, Tristan. I need you, my comte. I need you to make love to me.”

Tristan lowered his head to cover Esther’s lips with his own as he slowly pushed his cock into the tight heat that welcomed him. Their bodies were a perfect fit together, as always – he knew now that he could never get enough of the way that she arched against him and took the full length of his shaft inside her as he eased himself in with a soft groan that she echoed.

Esther was bliss. He was convinced that he could gladly stay locked in his moment of personal heaven for the rest of his life, his cock buried inside her and their bodies joined as one. Her breath was already coming in shallow gasps even before he gently lifted his lips away from hers and transferred them to the side of her throat to kiss his way down along her collarbone and across each of her breasts, teasing his way around the pebbled nipples before finally drawing them into his mouth in turn.

She whimpered as he slowly wrapped his tongue around each nipple, lavishing his attention on her to coax her pleasure ever higher in his attempt to wordlessly convey the strength of his complete and utter adoration of her.

When her low moans were constant and desperate, Tristan pulled back and stilled the thrusts of his cock, waiting for Esther to relax underneath him before he began to move inside her again. He released her wrists to wind his fingers through her tousled hair, took her head in his hands and stared down into her eyes. “Would you ever marry again, Esther? Would you risk your heart again?”

Esther stiffened as he held her gaze. “Why do you ask, Tristan?”