He was never going back to her.
He'd left in a bit of a blur and told her something about the property he'd inherited from his uncle needing serious repair work. While technically true, he'd sold those buildings nearly a year ago; their filthy, rotting walls were someone else's problem now. Good riddance. Some mouldy old houses, which would take more money to renovate than they could ever dream of making, or enough whisky, opium and women to last a lifetime? Captain Wood knew which he would choose every time – and he had remarkably few regrets.
He was sitting on the balcony of the penthouse he'd been renting for the past three weeks, enjoying the sun setting over the London horizon with a generous glass of Scotch. He'd only been awake for an hour, after a long night drinking, playing cards, and allowing himself to be ravaged by an exquisitely tipsy Miss Weston. (Or was it Walton?)
He'd been invited to dine with his good friend Peter in two hours' time, but was in no state to be thinking about getting ready just yet. The Scotch was just beginning to work its way into his swirling thoughts. There was a low hum of melancholy coming from somewhere around his chest, but he couldn't quite put his finger on it.
A snapshot of an unsettling memory flickered across his eyes as his mind drifted back to the sex last night. He'd closed his eyes momentarily, forgetting where he was as he bathed in the pleasure of Miss Weston's tongue, only to wake up confused, aching for something he wasn't getting. Miss Weston was an accomplished woman in many ways – she played the piano like a virtuoso, spoke four languages fluently and knew her way perfectly around a cunt – but somehow he couldn't bring himself to want her as much as he felt he should.
There was only one woman he could ever remember feeling at home with.
Miss Brunswick had been something of an awakening for him. He'd been with countless women before, and rather more men than he felt comfortable admitting, but there was something different about her. The way she carried herself, her tenacious spirit, her assets (the land, of course)... She was far more than the sum of her not-unimpressive parts. As much as he'd tried to keep her at a distance, she'd seeped in through his every pore and taken him hostage.
The first night he'd noticed her was at a ball two towns across from his childhood home. She was dancing with her fiancé, but he hadn't noticed that; he noticed the way her red curls fell so effortlessly over her cheeks and the way her smiling eyes reflected the candlelight. He made hundreds of strange, tiny observations about the intricate details of her face, but barely remembered to ask her name. They shared uncountably many shy glances, just enough dances not to seem scandalous, and a fiery embrace in the cloakroom. She gave him an address to write to, but he never dared put pen to paper.
Two months later, they met again at another ball, but this time there was no holding either of them back; Miss Brunswick broke off her engagement that evening after one too many glasses of wine, and the two of them passed most of the night blissfully ignoring the raised eyebrows and disapproving glares as they allowed themselves to truly connect.
At the end of the night, she'd brought him home and blown his naïve little mind.
Sweet memories of that very night still gave him a disconcerting thrill. He found himself on the edge of his seat as he remembered the first time her finger had slipped inside him and dragged its way up to his clit. The phantom sensation of the memory was driving him wild; if only it could be more substantial. He briefly considered sliding his hand under the soft cotton of his underwear just to feel something real, but his table and chair were in full view of the neighbours' balconies. Dreams and ghosts would have to do for now.
