Not this sweetness.
She couldn’t move. She stood enchanted, dissolving, while kisses fell like slow summer rain on her face. She remained so, putting up no fight at all, while he trailed kisses down her neck and along her shoulders and while everything melted, and she didn’t know whether she was standing or falling.
She stood, lost, while he took his hands from the wall to cup her face then move downward slowly over her shoulders, over her breasts, while she had to teach herself another way to breathe, above or below or through the great onrush of feelings.
Longing and pleasure tangled together and somewhere among them, below them, and driving them, seethed a craving beyond anything she had words for.
His voice, husky and deep, was at her ear. “Tell me to stop.”
“I won’t,” she said.
“Don’t leave it to me,” he said. Between words he was kissing her neck.
“I will,” she said. If he wanted to stop, let him. He knew what he was doing. She was a novice, and weak in the morals department besides. Let him make up his mind.
“Leonie.”
The sound of her name, the way he said it, tied knots in her heart. It wasn’t fair that he could do this to her. What did he want? Why wouldn’t he take what was so obviously his for the taking?
She reached up and grasped a fistful of neckcloth. “Go,” she said. “Who prevents you? Why do you keep coming back? Do I beg you? Do I hold you here?”
“You don’t make me stop,” he said.
He left it to her—the one who’d fallen in love and whose heart he was going to break, the one who knew nothing of lovemaking after all, only the mechanics—and that knowledge was useless.
“Very well,” she said. “Stop playing with me.” She let go of his neckcloth, summoned what stray bits of willpower she could find, and pushed him away, as hard as she could. Then she stalked away and started up the stairs, pushing her tumbled hair out of her face.
He was a man. He was supposed to want One Thing.
How difficult was this supposed to be?
Marcelline should have—
“Aren’t you going to bolt the door?” came his voice from behind her.
“When I’m sure you’re gone,” she said.
“It isn’t safe.”
She kept walking.
Not safe. What was the matter with him?
As she left the landing, she heard the bolt slide home, with force.
Her heart thudded.
She walked faster, up the remaining stairs and into the consulting room. She repositioned a mannequin and straightened the pattern books. It didn’t matter if he came back and left again. She’d survived devastation in Paris and a catastrophe in London. She’d survived her sisters’ marrying aristocrats. At some point he’d make up his mind. And she’d survive that, whatever happened.
Meanwhile, she’d go through the entire establishment, if necessary, putting everything into perfect order until she was in perfect order.
She heard his footsteps in the passage and sensed his pausing on the threshold. She didn’t turn around.
“You know I can’t leave when there’s no one to bar the door after me,” he said.
“That’s a good excuse,” she said.
“Come here,” he said.
Her blood boiled. For a moment, the world turned red. She wanted a weapon. A rusty ax would do admirably.
She turned. “ ‘Come here’?” she said. “ ‘Come here’? What is wrong with you?”
“I tried to go,” he said. “But I can’t leave you like this.” He gestured vaguely about him.
“You can’t leave me in my own house?”
“I don’t want to . . . I didn’t realize . . .” He trailed off, his brow knitting. “You’re angry, and it isn’t safe—”
“You don’t know anything about me,” she said.
“If you’re trying to tell me you can take care of yourself, I know that isn’t true,” he said. “You should have slapped me or kicked me or stabbed me with a hatpin. You didn’t do anything!”
She hadn’t thought it possible to get any hotter without erupting into flames, but she felt her cheeks take fire, and the fire spread everywhere: embarrassment and frustration and an immense, chaotic rage.
“I didn’t want to stop you!” she burst out. “And how dare you blame me when you know exactly what you’re doing when it comes to women. Do not pretend you haven’t been working on seducing me since the minute we met. You and your ridiculous wager. It doesn’t matter to you whether you win or lose our bet, because you mean to win the thing you really wanted. When it comes to seduction, you surpass any other man I’ve ever met—and possibly ever will meet, though I reserve judgment. Well, you’ve succeeded. And you’re surprised? Indignant? You object?”
“That isn’t what I meant.”
“Do you know what you meant?” she said. “Because I suspect not. I think you’re like other men, especially aristocratic men, who grow bored more quickly than most. You want what you can’t have, then when you get it, you lose interest. Very well. You’ve lost interest.”
“I have not. That isn’t—”
“Funny thing,” she said. “I have. I’m bored now. I want you out of my house. I wish I could tell you to get out of my life, but that would be impractical, and I’m nothing if not practical and hardheaded and orderly. You’ve made anarchy of my work, my responsibilities, my life—you and your fool of a cousin, who can’t remember impregnating a young woman, though he notices every wilting daisy and every sparrow that may or may not be suffering from a fatal c-catarrh.” To her horror, she burst into tears.
He started toward her. She picked up the nearest object—a pincushion—and threw it at him.
“Leonie.”
She hurried toward the door, trying to stifle the sobs that wanted to tear her chest apart.
He caught her before she reached the door and swept her off her feet and into his arms.
“No!” She struck his chest and kicked wildly. “Put me down! Go away! I’m done with you!”
He carried her to the chaise longue, as though she were one of her ladies, about to faint from an excess of sensibility or delicacy, when it was the opposite, and she wanted to do something violent. He didn’t lay her down but sat holding her in his lap while she fought him and the grief that threatened to suffocate her.
“I hate you,” she choked out. “I hate you and your idiot cousin. You’ve ruined everyth-thing!”
Her head sank onto his shoulder and she gave up and wept. She was miserable—embarrassed, disheartened, angry. She had reason to weep. The life she’d so laboriously constructed was falling apart. She’d fallen in love with a Roman god, and everyone knew where that sort of thing led.
Lisburne couldn’t leave her here, alone, crying.
He couldn’t leave her in any event, could he?
Now she was in his lap and she was warm and weeping and disheveled, her hair coming undone, literally, the false braids slipping from their moorings. And so, to give himself something to do while he tried to decide what to do, he set about disassembling her coiffure.
He unpinned flowers and carefully detached a false braid wound with ribbons. He unpinned the Apollo knots at the top of her head, and gently loosened her hair, there and at the sides. The clusters of curls at her ears softened and loosened as well, tumbling to her shoulders.
While he worked, she quieted. By the time he’d removed the last pins, she’d lifted her head from his shoulder to sit, her eyes closed, her head turned away from him.
He looked at her smooth neck and he knew he wouldn’t be leaving anytime soon.
You’ve succeeded, she’d said, and he hadn’t known how to explain, because he wasn’t at all sure what had made him behave as he’d done. If he hadn’t taken her in his arms, he might have made sense of it. But he’d
lost control and kissed her and held her close. Then, every time he tried to leave, it was far too difficult, and it seemed as though leaving made no sense whatsoever.
He couldn’t possibly think now. All the turbulence—the passion and anger and whatnot—seemed to be with them still, throbbing under the surface, and the turmoil kept his mind from clearing.
He held a beautiful woman in his arms, and she smelled so good and she was warm and shapely and he’d wanted her for what seemed an eternity and he’d undone her hair and it fell in glossy waves over her shoulders and down her back.
He wanted to see those garnet curls against her naked back.
He found the hook and eye at the back of the dress’s neckline and began unfastening the dress. She took in a quick breath and let it out, but said nothing. She sat so very still, waiting.
He said nothing, either. He couldn’t think well. The risk was too great of saying the wrong thing.
Concentrating on the hooks and eyes, he made his way down the back of the dress. He was aware of his breath coming faster as the dress’s two sides slid apart, and he could see the beautiful stitchery of her stays, the lines and swirls of thread cording the satiny cotton. Her fine linen chemise peeped out between the corset’s back lacing and at the very edge of the neckline.
He kissed the back of her neck above the necklace, then below it, and continued downward, making a path of soft kisses to the teasing bit of chemise.
He heard her draw in a breath and let it out, the exhale shaky.
He wasn’t altogether steady, either, as he unfastened the two larger hooks at the back of her waist. The dress fell open, well below the waist where a long slit had lain hidden under a fold of the skirt. Even with the extended opening, getting the dress’s upper half down was a complicated business, especially the sleeve puffs he needed to untie and extract. Yet he did it efficiently enough, considering that a man rarely took the time to deal with such details, or needed to. Experienced women found ways to arrange matters beforehand. More usually, one simply didn’t bother with shedding much clothing.
This was different, though he couldn’t have said why or how.
He simply made a plan, as he usually did. He had a general idea of how the parts went together. Moreover, he’d been studying her clothing and planning how to disassemble it this age.
He told her to stand, which she did without looking at him. He knelt and untied her shoe ribbons and slid her feet out of the shoes. He rose, taking the hem of her dress with him. He reached under the dress and untied the corded petticoat that kept it puffed out. He slid the petticoat down and away. He lifted the dress over her head and dropped it onto the floor, where it subsided with a faint hiss.
He said, “I’ve been wanting to do that forever.”
She looked down at herself.
Layers remained. Corset, chemise, drawers, garters, stockings.
Then skin. The soft parts and pink parts.
He was growing very impatient.
He turned her so her back was to him, and reached under the chemise and untied her drawers. They slid to the floor. She closed her eyes and swallowed and stepped out of them.
His heart beat frantically, like a boy’s heart, the first time.
He drew her close again and bent his head and kissed her neck along the arc of her shoulder. She trembled. He trembled, too, his pulse at a gallop, his hands not as steady as they ought to be as he started on the corset strings. The ties lay over the slope of her beautifully shaped bottom. For all the artificiality of her dress, her shape was real, sweetly curved.
Perfect.
Her scent floated everywhere now. Lavender and Leonie imbued her undergarments, the fragrance so much richer because they lay so close to her skin. His heart drummed, fast and uneven.
He wanted to go fast, too. He made himself unlace her corset as steadily and soberly as he’d undone her hair and her dress. He wasn’t a boy but a man of the world, and he knew one didn’t hurry women unless they made it clear they wanted to be hurried.
The corset was falling open, and her hands came up, to hold it over her breasts. The gesture, so innocent, made his throat tighten.
He started kissing her back while he loosened the strings of her chemise. Still she held the corset, covering herself. He made paths of kisses along her upper arms, her naked arms, which he’d never seen before. He grasped them, his palms curving round warm, silky skin, while he kissed behind her ears, first one, then the other. She made a little sound, a laugh or a sob, he wasn’t sure.
He covered her hands with his, and lifted hers away from the corset. It slid downward. When she reached for it, he brought his hands over her breasts. She gasped. The fine linen was warm with the warmth of her skin. He cupped her breasts and squeezed them and “Oh,” she said.
He kissed her neck and her ears while he caressed her, and she let go of the stays, and let them fall. She was trembling again, her breath hitching.
If he had been thinking, he might have hesitated. He might have considered what her reactions meant. But he was beyond putting two and two together. The closest he came to thinking was pondering her clothing and skin and what he needed to do to get what he wanted. The difference between a girl of limited experience and a girl with none didn’t occur to him.
He turned her around and kissed her full on the mouth, and wrapped his arms about her, and this time there was no indecision or doubt. The armor was gone and she was so soft and warm and perfectly shaped in his arms, his Venus. There was no more deciding what was right or wrong or best or worst.
Deep kisses made him drunk. Her skin was velvet under his hands. He pulled off the chemise and threw it aside. He cupped her breasts and kissed and suckled them. He caressed her belly, and slid his hand down, to the feathery copper curls between her legs. When he touched her there, she gasped.
He paused. “Am I hurting you?”
“No.” She opened her eyes, so blue. “My stockings,” she said, her voice thick.
The sound sent heat surging through him, threatening to blast the last particles of his self-control. He managed to say, “I want to leave them on.”
She shivered. “And you?”
“I’ll take off my coat.”
She looked up at him, eyes wide and dark. “More,” she said. She lifted her hands to his neckcloth and clumsily untied it, her hands as unsteady as his. She unraveled it from his neck and let it drop to the floor. She hurriedly unbuttoned his waistcoat, then undid the button of his shirt. It fell open.
“There,” she whispered. And she kissed him, at the base of his throat. And more kisses, moving lower, the way he’d done to her.
If he didn’t act quickly, he’d disgrace himself.
He pushed her down onto the chaise longue.
He’d planned to take his time, but he’d done that, the endless time of undressing her, of caressing so gently, as though she were a bird he needed to tame. He’d reckoned without her voice and her eyes and her touch.
He shed the rest of his lower clothing—shoes, stockings, trousers—in a flurry, as though he hadn’t a moment to lose, as though the bird would fly away. His shirt concealed his breeding parts, but not his arousal, and he was dimly aware of her drawing back slightly, her eyes wide.
If anything could have alerted him to the truth, that would have done it, but he was past that level of thinking.
He pulled the shirt over his head and threw it aside.
“Mon Dieu,” she said.
The blood was pounding in his ears but he paused at that small, shocked sound. She was studying him, her wide-eyed gaze going up and down, lingering on his swollen cock.
Then she drew in a long breath and let it out, saying in French, her voice shaky, “You are very handsome. Come here.” And she put her arms up and he went to the chaise longue and into them.
Leonie was terrified, but she woul
dn’t stop.
Marcelline hadn’t explained a fraction of it: what a touch could do . . . the feel of his mouth on her skin . . . the shocking pleasure when he took her breasts in his hands and caressed them . . . and now, his long beautiful body arched over hers, his unruly curls tickling her chin as he showered kisses over her neck and downward . . . the shock of his lips closing over her nipples and suckling, and the way heat raced from there to the pit of her belly and made her squirm and arch her back and utter sounds she’d never made before.
There was no explaining this in words: the way one couldn’t keep still, couldn’t stop touching . . . the way she had to bury her face against his skin, because she couldn’t get enough of the way he felt, the way he smelled, the way he tasted.
No one could explain the need, the force that carried one along, like a raging current.
No one needed to explain anymore.
He slid his hand down over her belly and downward, to the place between her legs where he’d touched her before. She’d known he would, but it had surprised her all the same. Now he moved downward altogether, and then his mouth was where his hands had been, and he was kissing her there. Her body arched and twisted, and he added his thumb, and the pleasure was beyond anything. It built and built until she couldn’t bear it, yet she did, somehow, because she couldn’t stop, and if he stopped she’d die.
Then she lost any sense of what he was doing, because her body had taken charge. She could feel her blood rushing in her veins and pounding in her head. Everything was vibrating, her legs, too, until all the feelings shot upward, like an explosion inside, and she let out a little shriek, and dug her fingers into him, to hold on, to keep from flying into the ceiling.
Then she felt him rise, and in the instant she opened her eyes to see what he was doing, he pushed into her.
Ouch.
She’d known it would hurt, at least a little, but that was when she had a brain and now she hadn’t, and she was surprised and unhappy and uncomfortable.
He said, “Dammit, Leonie.”
She looked up at him. The godlike being was sweating like a mortal, and looking dazed and wild.