A Closed Heart by Oster, Camille (acx book reading txt) 📕

weren’t strangers. They were people I knew and respected. Friends. Are you so curious about my past?”

Yes, he was completely curious. “I was just wondering. Perhaps if I knew your past, then I would know what your intentions are.” Another heavy question in his mind.

No answer came from her for a moment. “I haven’t had scores of lovers. I suppose you are my first real lover.”

“Then I’m honored.” It didn’t really answer her question. What did she want out of this? “So how is this different from an encounter?”

“It is a little longer in nature.”

“And then when the duration is over?”

“I return to my life. You return to yours, or rather, you get on with yours.”

Turning his head, he stared up at the ceiling. So that was the intention, they dally, and then when they parted company, it was over. It was sensible, he supposed. It even appealed to the stoic family caretaker in him. Unless, of course, there was a child.

Truthfully, he should rise from his bed, but he’d lingered in his room and let her draw him completely in flagrante—a notion he’d been horrified by not so long ago, but he now found he couldn’t refuse her. He wanted to be seen by her. He wanted to be wanted by her. It fed something very deep in him—something that had been starving.

Obviously, these drawings could never be seen by anyone. Perhaps he needed to ask for them when she eventually left.

Looking back at her, he saw her sitting completely absorbed, sitting with her bare foot on the bed, scratching away. With his hand, he reached for her foot and felt that she was cool. “Enough now,” he said. “You are cold. Come back to bed.”

Leaning over, he pulled the paper pad out of her grip and she argued for a moment before he grabbed her by the wrist and pulled her into bed. She was cold and he wrapped his arms around her. “You need to take better care of yourself,” he said.

“So do you,” she replied and relaxed into his embrace. Maybe that was true. Like her, he relaxed entirely. This was the kind of intimacy he’d always felt was there but had never achieved. Neither of them seemed in any hurry to leave the room. Perhaps they would stay in bed all day. That was entirely unlike him, but there was something utterly absorbing about this. The softness, the stillness, the desire. It felt so perfect.

It felt as if she held nothing back from him—was content with just being there. A part of him asked how they could be so content when this was not intended to be anything more than an affair. Wasn’t this the kind of intimacy that should be between a man and wife? Not that it had ever existed in his.

No, they would have this... togetherness, and then it would pass. She had the rightness of it. It didn’t have to be interrogated. It could just be accepted for what it was—something that was intended to be a fleeting thing. Even as such, it could be meaningful while still intended to be of a limited duration. Not everything had to be durable.

The smell of her was glorious. A scent entirely unique to her. It hadn’t taken her long to warm up again. Leaning her back a little, he sought her lips again, quickly losing himself in the sweetness.

Wasn’t she worried this would become utterly addictive, just like the opium haze it felt like? Unable to think anymore, he was overtaken by the desire, the need to be inside her, to be welcomed by her. Her moan only intensified his urgency. There were no impediments between them, and he shifted to be cradled in her thighs, which may have been the closest thing to heaven he could conceive of.

Chapter 24

WHILE SITTING AT HER mist painting in the bright morning sun, a noise drew her attention and Jane expected to see Julius at her door, but it was a much shorter form. “Atticus, you can come in,” she said and watched as the boy tentatively took a step into the room as if he was doing something forbidden. Jane felt a little ashamed, because she’d been so caught up in Julius that she’d forgotten about him. “I promised to draw you, didn’t I? Are you ready to be drawn now?”

He nodded and moved a little closer, but he looked around as if someone could catch him.

“It’s alright. I’ll say I asked you to be here,” she said and he seemed to relax more. “Does it worry you to be caught here?”

“I ran away from Nursemaid. She fell asleep.”

“Ah. Well, that would entice anyone to wander, I should think.”

“I’m not supposed to.”

“I think your father worries about your safety.”

“Mothers worry less about children’s safety,” he said. An odd statement, and heartbreaking.

“What makes you say so?” she asked carefully.

“My aunt lets her children go anywhere they wish.”

“Ah,” she said, relieved he wasn’t referring to a great sadness about his absent mother. It had to bother him, and probably even confuse him. What had been explained to him? It wasn’t as if Octavia cared less about her children’s safety. More true was that Julius was over restricting the boy. Again, it wasn’t her place to comment. Octavia had done so sufficiently, and Jane had to agree with her assessment. “You have fun with your cousins?”

He nodded.

“I believe you’re going to go visit them over the summer. That should be fun.”

The boy’s smile showed he was very excited about it.

Now she felt guilty for monopolizing his father’s time. How could they have been so utterly absorbed by one another?

“Sit down and I’ll draw you. On that cushion, there,” she said, indicating to one on the floor as she grabbed her pad and charcoal. “Your father