The Bound Heart Read Free Page B

you, Olive? You’re very light.”
    She tugged her chin out of his hold.
    “As much as most.” Her cheeks heated, and she looked at the bench behind him rather than his face.
    She didn’t want to talk about the world outside, the realities of low wages and crowded living. How cold the winter had been, how some nights she’d slept in her coat with her stockings and boots still on.
    She was sure shivering the fat off her body was what kept her warm enough to crawl out of that corner of hell, one day after the next, and work for more hours than there was daylight.
    The alternative was worse; to stand on the street and to be taken against alley walls, to fall on her knees and suck at a man for enough coin to buy just enough food to have the energy to do it again.
    That would have been the death of her. Too soft, her sisters always said. Airs and graces, her mother said. They’d all gone out into that hell when their family needed them to. She’d just taken on more sewing and did her best to help that way.
    “I don’t think you really want to see my brace.”
    She had been much too slow to cotton on to him when he mentioned it as she walked in.
    There was that half smile again.
    “Well, you’d be wrong, Olive.”
    She felt herself half smile back.
    He didn’t really, he wanted to lift her skirt but he was also playing with her, drawing it out. Men didn’t usually take their time like this. Draw out all the tension; savor the tight pull between actions.
    He did.
    He was enjoying this very much.
    Everything about him said he was paying the utmost attention to everything about her. It was heady, made her feel special, as well as frustrated.
    Mr. Edwards moved a chair from nearby to next to her right leg, the one she wore the brace on, and placed her foot on its seat.
    “Does that feel all right, Olive?”
    Her right leg was shorter than her left.
    She and her older brother, Billie, had both gotten sick with infantile paralysis, he worse than she. They’d made it; she’d leaned on Billie all the way, relied on his determination that they both would recover. And in the obvious way, they both had.
    “Yes. It never hurts.”
    “Good.”
    He took another chair from the other side and placed her other leg on that. It effectively opened her legs.
    Her face burst into heat.
    She lifted her leg to move it to the other chair to put her legs together.
    He stepped between them. The warm hardness of his thighs touched hers.
    Her heart hammered in her chest and her face burned.
    She’d waited two years for him to be interested in her, to reach out and take what she offered. Now that it was all unfolding, she felt nervous, jumpy.
    “Is Mr. Johns really gone?”
    She looked back over her shoulder at the door. Jamie had locked it. She looked at the door into the side room.
    Mr. Edwards lifted her chin again to look at him.
    “We’re alone.”
    His fingers moved from her chin to her shirt, trailed down between her breasts and stopped. His knuckle rubbed at the swell of them making them ache for more.
    “Just say the word and we’ll stop.”
    “No.” A huskiness came into her voice.
    With agonizingly slow speed he lifted the hem of her skirt.
    They both watched as the first bit of black woolen stocking appeared above her walking boot. A little higher and the brace wrapped around the stocking came into view.
    Mr. Edwards looked up, met her gaze, and she licked her lips. She had to leave them open as she was unable to draw in enough air.
    Her arms trembled as he lay the fabric over her thigh.
    His palm and fingers closed around her just above the knee and squeezed a little. He slid his fingertips higher under her loose pantaloons and came to the edge of the stocking.
    She sucked her breath in, leaned forward just fractionally, and closed her eyes. All her focus was on the touch of his fingers, skin to skin, above the stocking.
    She wanted him to move higher, forget about the brace and move faster, move faster and touch her; touch