Sophia reluctantly left James alone upstairs as she went off to take care of the chores. Against every mental resistance she could muster, she still wanted to curl up warm and content next to his body. The very idea that she could be content next to him made her want to wretch.
She also wasn't used to staying up as late as she had. Her body ached from both lack of sleep and the positions he had twisted her into throughout the night as they coupled. Sophie went to her quarters downstairs and put on her bodice and overskirt, laced up her shoes and walked outside.
Birds were just beginning to chirp as she opened the paddock to the barn. She felt sore as she walked, and even worse when she sat on the wooden stool inside the barn and started milking the cows. Her mind flooded with thoughts of James Gardiner. His ravishment of her on the table and the unspoken bargain he had coaxed out of her, as she lay there violated and ashamed; the contract to James when he returned that doomed her to be his wanton acolyte.
She tried shutting out the tenderness he had shown her when he held her from behind, using that tool that had hurt her so badly yesterday morning to stroke gently into her, taking her to unimagined and incomprehensible heights of pleasure. When her mind worked to blot out the feeling of completion and wholeness she felt when she grasped his hand before falling asleep, her eyes brimmed over with tears. She wasn't supposed to feel that way about this man.
She steeled herself. He could make her body respond, that much was true, but she needed to keep her soul separate. She couldn't and wouldn't trust him; to do so would be folly. This person cared about her only insofar as his own cruel pleasure in her bondage allowed. She reminded herself that it was impossible for such a man to feel anything else for her. Besides that, she reminded herself, she was only biding her time. As soon as she found the letter and delivered it to the barrister she would be rid of James forever.
The sun had fully risen when Sophia lowered the market-bound canisters of milk into the millpond to cool before the noonday heat struck. She came back from the barn looking up the slope at her home towering above her on the hilltop and his carriage standing around the corner under the oak tree in front of the house. Sophia peered out to see a lone black clad figure walk around one side and turn to look at her.
James watched Sophia stop in her tracks when he spied her. He had to get back to London and find a way to forget about this girl. Despite visiting several very skilled doxies on Drury Lane back home, he had seen nothing in his past that could compare to the pleasure he felt when he was with her. It wasn't just because she had been a virgin either. He'd had a virgin and maybe another one once before, and neither had even fairly compared to this.
He was angry with himself for getting so deeply involved in what was supposed to be a coupling of convenience. She was supposed to be his private moll when he visited the country town of Ashford so he wouldn't have to deal with toothless whores at the Three Chimneys Inn. He wasn't supposed to feel guilt over her, or feel anything about her except the pleasures of the flesh. This woman was his property and would have been turned out to the crossroads at Ashford if he hadn't arranged this contract with her.
He observed her for a minute. She stood at the bottom of the hill looking up, the breeze blowing her dress against the curve of her thigh. Every fiber of his body told him to run down the hill, sweep her into his arms and carry her upstairs; to never leave this place and loose himself within her. James cursed his foolishness. He had to leave here at once or this woman would triumph again in his weakness for her.
Sophia watched him hop into the chaise and with the crack of the whip he was off, back to London. She listened to the wheels creak and roll over the dry earth and stood there as the hooves faded into the distance. She should have been overjoyed to see him go, but found herself sighing as he left.
She busied herself with work, cleaning the barn, polishing the silver in the house, everything she had let go for the week since she mourned for Mr. Farthing. Now she had to work twice as hard just to put her mind off of James. There was also the matter of the missing letter. She had searched high and low in cleaning and would have torn the house to pieces if not for the imminent threat of James deciding that he wanted to come back to the farm early. If he found papers scattered about then her game would be up and he would surely throw her out before she could find the letter and claim her freedom.
In the several days after James left, she found herself growing restless at night, tossing in bed. The evenings were the worst. All she could envision were his hands moving over her hot skin as she lay in bed alone at night, her only company the crickets calling to each other outside.
After a week without him had passed she could stand it no longer. The heat wave that had struck this week made the house radiate the sun even at night. Sophia had been forced to sleep nude in her bed with no sheets covering her for it to be even remotely bearable.
She thought of James and of his hands kneading her breasts, teasing them to points. The thought made her hairs stand on end and she felt the flesh start to pucker on its own. She cautiously brought a hand up and rubbed her fingers across it, feeling the start of that tingle that James made her feel. Curiously, she ran her hand across again and felt the same spark.
So this is how he does it
, she thought. He hadn't cast a spell on her or turned her into a wicked creature. Although she hated him still, she now knew he was no an agent of the devil. Besides, she told herself as her finger traversed the areola once more, it was the modern age of reason. His methods could be deduced and copied. She brimmed with this newfound knowledge.
Sophia tried to remember the exact motions James had used on her to draw her into his embrace, pitting her desire against her willpower. She rolled her fingers over the nipple, causing her to squirm. Separating her fingers and laying them flat, she let the peak run underneath the digits, bumping and scraping like the ridges of a washboard.
Each time a finger hit the puckered nipple, it sent another spark through her. She tried it faster, delighting in the rapid fire of pleasure coursing through her from that spot. She exhaled a breath she didn't know she had been holding in. A light pinch on the end made her suck air in through her teeth. She cupped her opposite breast underneath from the side, mimicking the motion of his hands on her flesh and felt warmth suddenly emanating from within her belly. Her fingers rolled up once more to pinch the areola as she felt her thighs grinding together, heat building between them.
She recognized that straining heat from when he had touched her... there. Her hands moved to the sides of her breasts to pinch each nipple once more. She brought them up behind her breasts, wrapping over the front and pushing them together in front of her, fantasizing that those were his hands upon her hot skin. She gave her breasts another light squeeze from underneath before she ran them down over the skin of her torso, her knees raising, letting her hips twist from side to side as she thought of the delicious feelings James had brought to her.
The more she tried to force him out of her mind, the deeper she thought about and experienced the pleasure to which he had forced and cajoled her. Sophia finally gave up, letting her mind carry her body forward, the thoughts of his touch sending her higher. When her hands reached her hips, she molded them along to outside of her thighs to her knees, feeling the echo of his caress upon her as he had traced her skin holding her from behind.
She imagined that moment his hand had squeezed the cheek of her ass before lifting her thigh over his legs, pinning her to his body. Her knees separated and she drew one hand slowly inward feeling the tingle of her skin as she stroked up the length of her inner thigh before running across the curls of hair covering her mound.