Chapter Thirteen
Emily
It had been so long since Emily was kissed that she’d forgotten what an overwhelming pleasure it was. She gasped at the unexpected heat of Jo’s lips and the thrill of a warm hand cupping her cheek. Her mind, usually full to bursting with thoughts, was stunned silent. She pushed into the kiss, her hands feeling antsy by her sides until she rested them on the swell of tweed-covered hips that had haunted her for weeks. It felt like her palms had been carved to fit the spot perfectly.
Jo brought her other hand up, framing Emily’s face with unbearable softness, while her mouth grew rougher, licking Emily’s bottom lip and nipping at it until the room was spinning.
No sooner had Emily decided she’d found a new calling, that she would be happiest if she could forget all about doctoring and just keep on doing this for the rest of her life, than Jo gave one last little nip, brushed their noses together, and pulled back.
“Indulgent enough?” she asked, breathing a little heavier as she pushed an unruly wave from Emily’s forehead.
“Not even close,” Emily whispered. Both of them laughed.
“There’s more where that came from.” Jo ran her thumb over Emily’s bottom lip, making her shiver. “But not yet.”
“Why not?”
“Supper’s ready.”
Emily meant to remove her hands from Jo’s hips, but her fingers dug in tighter the moment she considered it, like they knew playtime was coming to an end, and were setting themselves up to make a dreadful fuss at the final announcement.
“The others will wonder what we’re up to if we don’t come down, I suppose,” she said.
“Oh, don’t worry about that,” Jo laughed, looking at the door but not seeming terribly motivated to make a move for it, either. “Let them wonder. They deserve it. No, no, I meant that if I’m going to teach you decadence, we have to do it right. Decadence must be well-fueled. When I’ve seen people ruined by their appetites—and I’ve worked down on Bookseller’s Row, so I’ve seen it—I’ve noticed that it’s because they tended to only one of the appetites, rather than a good balance.”
“That sounds like poppycock,” Emily accused. “I cannot imagine you have any data to back that up.”
“Who’s the expert in this subject here, eh?” Jo stepped back at last, though she grabbed Emily’s fingers on the way down, pulling them in for a kiss. “Trust me, it would be irresponsible to debauch you on nothing more than a few nibbles and a glass of punch. It will unbalance your humors, and you’ll be hating me again by morning.”
As someone very used to a simple diet and the company of nonconformists who all nonconformed very similarly to one another, the sheer variety of an Orchid and Pearl Society supper was akin to a carnival as far Emily was concerned.
While she hadn’t expected the simple repast of her own community, she still figured they were in for a typical London society sit-down supper. But Miss Withers didn’t retain a staff the size of her dinner parties, so the usual fashion of multiple courses was forgone in favor of French excess, heaped plates and flowing tureens of everything from the soups to the roast, all available at once on the table. So many fruits and side dishes and even cakes and candies were laid out that Emily might not ever have to decide whether to partake of the meat. She probably wouldn’t even get to it before she’d had her fill of everything else.
The company was just as unexpected. It was as ragtag a group as any in creation, with seemingly no set norms regarding dress or manners or mealtime prayers. The dozen or so of them all stacked their own plates with whatever they liked as they carried on conversations with each other, dressed in everything from Tansy Wickersham’s woolen sweater, to Miss Cordelia’s frothy pink frock, to Quinn’s dapper suit and short haircut that made Jo’s own low bun and fitted waistcoat seem very soft and polite in comparison.
While Emily and Jo settled themselves at the dining table with Miss Withers, Margot Levin, and some of those others, not all the guests stayed at the table, a few wandering off with their plates for the drawing room or the parlor.
As Emily watched those wanderers go with her glass halfway to her mouth in surprise, Miss Withers put a hand on her shoulder.
“It’s all comfort here, not rules,” she said, her maternal tone even more of a shock to Emily’s nerves than the rest of it. Emily found a kind smile on the woman’s face, which became scolding as it refocused on Jo. “Whenever I even try to make rules, they end up broken anyway.”
“Excuse me!” said Jo, snatching a roll from the pile in front of her. “I haven’t sneaked one of my sodomites through the doors in at least a month.”
That word had Emily’s hackles up instantly, on alert as she always was for threats to her beloved brother in the one area in which he was so much less free than she was. But Emily got the sense that Jo used the word as David Forester did: with a stubborn pride. She didn’t particularly like it, but she did, at least, understand it enough to let it go.
Odd of her, really, to let it slide. To let anything slide. It wasn’t her usual habit at all. Perhaps it was the punch. Or the small bites of roast she’d had for the first time in ages. Or the way Jo moved their chairs a little bit closer together, not outside the realm of reasonable, but just enough that their arms might brush as they reached for a fork or adjusted a napkin. While Emily spoke with everyone—catching up with Tansy Wickersham and her “real husband,” Quinn, taking in Margot’s stories of the London art world, listening dutifully to the lists and concerns of a high-society spinster like Miss Withers—not a word went by without a warm awareness of Jo beside her.
She had wondered if Jo might reveal more of herself while in the company of her friends, but if anything, she said less than ever. She sprawled comfortably in her chair, trading in jokes and asking questions about everyone else that led to lovely conversations, but the most anyone got out of her was some surprisingly well-considered opinions on a novel she and Margot had both read recently. It was not necessarily surface-level stuff, but whenever depth was reached, Emily noticed that the spade tended to dig in just to the side of Jo herself.
It made her antsy to get Jo alone again. While she liked the others, that kiss in the parlor had seared itself into her mind, making her body ache for a sort of decadence that not even the richest of Miss Withers’s cakes could fill. Maybe, once they were alone again, Jo would sprinkle a few more facts of her soul like sugar over Emily’s awareness. Or maybe not. But a certain sort of depth had been hinted at in their letters already, and Emily couldn’t wait to see where it led them.
As the eating wound down, the bottles of wine dwindled to their last drops, and the conversation had gone from casual and scattered to more focused and considered, Emily felt Jo bump her knee under the table. She chanced a glance to see that Jo was already looking sideways at her, dark eyes smoldering beneath the glowing light of the chandelier above the table, glinting more stunningly than any of the crystal or silver set before them. She held Emily’s gaze for just long enough before nodding along with what Margot was saying.
Heart thumping at the silent suggestion, Emily slid her hand from her own lap to Jo’s knee, which she traced with a finger before giving a squeeze. Though still ostensibly talking through the particulars of illustration printing, Jo covered Emily’s hand with her own and slid it upward a bit. Not much. Not scandalously. Just enough to have Emily appreciate how much more warmth and softness could be accessed through the single layer of a trouser leg than the usual stack of skirts and petticoats.
“You look tired, Emily,” Jo said once a lull had been reached. She released her hold and stretched casually. “Long day of work and travel for you, wasn’t it?”
“Oh yes.” Emily forced a yawn. “Exhausting. I wish I had the energy to have some more coffee and continue our conversation, but I’m afraid if I try, I’ll find myself sleeping in the butter dish in short order.”
“Uh-huh,” said Margot with a skeptical smile over her coffee cup, even as Miss Withers was making all the appropriate noises of agreement and lack of offense. Emily stood and smoothed her skirts, which felt a bit tight after that supper. “And do you remember the way to your room, Dr. Clarke, or should someone come along to show you the way? Jo, perhaps? If she’s not otherwise occupied?”
As Margot waggled her brows, Jo pretended she was going to pitch a dried fig across the table at her. Margot laughed and flinched, spilling a few drops of coffee but otherwise no worse for wear.
“Go on, dears,” Miss Withers said as she wiped up the tiny specks of Margot’s mess with a very automatic air. “We’ll be up chatting for a while yet if you need anything.”
Jo led the way up the stairs, playing on the notion that Emily couldn’t find her way. It was silly, but Emily went along with it too, keeping close on Jo’s heels like she’d get terribly lost if she did not keep track of that lovely cedar scent that hung about her hair and collar.
Though the halls were just as well-lit and even less lonely than before—what with the sound of voices and clinking spoons from downstairs and the laughter and smoke now pouring from the cracked-open door of the parlor—Emily still stepped lightly across the plush runners and winced when Jo’s feet fell too heavily, like she was sneaking through an exceptionally strict library to meet someone she should not be meeting, to do something they shouldn’t be doing.
It got her heart racing, swelling, her sentiments no less heightened than her senses. There was no way around it: following Jo like this, the tryst on both their minds palpable, pleasurable, and anything but perfunctory, was romantic. She’d doubted she would ever feel such a thrill, doubted even whether anyone felt it or if they were just pretending. But she felt it now, with no cheap perfume or silly lights to blame it on. Just raven hair and pinstriped curves and the heat at her own core pulsing and propelling her forward into something she no longer wanted to defend herself against.
When they reached the parlor door, Jo stopped short enough that Emily was faced with the reality of how close she’d been following. She bumped into Jo’s back, nose in line with that full and fragrant knot of hair. It was all Emily could do not to bury her face in it, breathe it in and even taste the tresses that had haunted her imagination for a month. All her effort going toward avoiding that, she couldn’t take a proper step back. Her chin drifted to rest on Jo’s shoulder, a hand wandering down to one of her perfectly formed hips.
Jo peered through the sliver of open doorway into the raucous-sounding parlor. She turned her head so her lips lined up with Emily’s ear.
“They’re playing with your pieces,” she whispered, the indecency of the words solidifying in her smile.
“Excuse me?” said Emily.
Jo nodded toward the gap. Though it required an unfortunate move away from Jo’s warmth, Emily peeked inside to see that the chess set, in addition to cigars and brandies, was being put to use. Not very well, it seemed, and rather drunkenly, with players helped along by the whispering advice of the lovers in their laps, but the sight of the game made Emily smile. She shouldn’t be charmed by that sort of excess. A critical voice in her mind tried to bat her pleasure down, to remind her that their path to equality was not paved in parlor games and bathed in brandy.
But good heavens, she spent so much time in the company of other doctors who didn’t want her there, or patients who eyed her sideways and resented the pain of procedures twice as much as they normally would, that it was lovely to find she’d been providing something so uncomplicated as comradery and joy in this parlor from afar.
She snuggled in a little closer. As she focused on silencing that critical voice in her head, she lacked the resources to keep up the fight with her nose; it nuzzled into the space behind Jo’s ear, warm and woodsy and overwhelmingly soft. “Are you going to join them?” she asked quietly. “Or will you escort me the rest of the way to my room?”
Emily heard Jo swallow.
“That depends,” she said. “Can you find your way on your own?”
Emily was not practiced in the trade of shrouded questions. But she knew that the one Jo had spoken was not really the question she was asking. It didn’t have to be that way; this seemed like a very safe place. Explicit honesty wouldn’t hurt anything.
But there was a thrilling thread in Jo’s voice, a thickness to the silence that followed her question, and she knew without being told that it was part of the fun. Like their letters. Like their banter. Like the dodgy keeping of mysteries that weren’t especially vital. She let that feeling melt into her mind and flow through the rest of her like a warm, rich syrup.
“No, I can’t.” As she shook her head, her lips brushed the skin of Jo’s neck, tickled by downy hairs that were too short to be tamed with the rest. “I shall get terribly lost if I’m left to my own devices.”
“You must have an awful sense of direction.”
“Yes. I’m afraid I hardly know up from down.”
Jo spun around, pressing Emily tight up against the blue-papered wall of the corridor, one of her hands sliding under the cardigan to settle on her waist, the other holding Emily’s chin. Not tight enough to be uncomfortable, but with just enough firmness to utterly thrill.
“Must be all that rich food and decadent company,” said Jo with a grin too wicked to be allowed. “You were right to avoid it for so long, if you hoped to keep your wits.”
Emily panted, tipping her head back against the wall to encourage Jo to come closer, to grip tighter, to continue along this perfect path they’d tiptoed onto at last. “I confess, my humors are all terribly out of alignment now.”
Jo nodded with mock grimness as she brought her lips torturously close to Emily’s mouth, her ear, her neck, breathing and smiling but not quite touching. She clucked her tongue in a scold that Emily felt all the way in the bottom of her belly.
“I did tell you that you must balance out the indulgence of your appetites, Emily.” Her hand slid slowly from Emily’s chin down her throat, slipping around the back of her neck. “But don’t worry. I’ll save you from this path of ruin you’ve wandered down.”
Finally, the kiss. Thank heavens. Emily could not hope to hold back the whimper in her throat as Jo’s lips crushed hard against hers. No longer teasing and nipping, this kiss was open and wet, curious and sinful. Emily was absolutely atomized by the sensation of Jo’s tongue slipping into her mouth, her entire awareness collapsing like an old star until there was nothing left of her but the velvet-wrapped flame that was the feeling of Jo’s body pressed so tight against her own.
By the time they broke apart for a gulp of forgotten air, Emily really did feel like she’d lost track of all directions. But that didn’t matter, because Jo took her hand and led her down the hall to the bedroom. It was very dark once the door was shut and locked behind them. The only light now came from the window, which Emily had left open to allow the healthful movement of air. While the moon behind autumn clouds and tall buildings proved as useless as the unlit candles on the dresser, London’s mist-shrouded streetlamps on the walkway below saw to it that night never really fell the way it did back home.
Emily gave the darkness no more thought before wrapping her arms around Jo’s neck and pulling her in for more kisses. Jo, though, seemed distracted until she’d taken a moment to light a candle and shut the curtains. The warmer glow of the flame danced over her form as she shucked off her jacket and loosened her cuffs and collar, leaving studs on the dresser with a little clacking sound before rolling up her sleeves slowly and sensuously, like she was trying to lure Emily over.
It worked.
A nod from Jo told Emily to conclude her eager journey at the end of the bed, so she sat upon it as directed. Her heart hammered and her body flushed with anticipation as she waited for Jo’s approach.
“Is it true what you said earlier?” Jo whispered as she traced the edge of Emily’s cardigan where it lay across her shoulder. “About your clothes being a one-woman affair?”
Emily nodded, robbed of speech as Jo’s fingers trailed along the hem and indecently over the modest swell of her breast.
“I won’t need any help then,” Jo said, untying the simple bow that held the sweater together and pushing it off Emily’s shoulders. “Glad to hear it.”
Emily had ideas about how these things went, and still expected either the practical release of tension she was used to, or else the wild, untamed kissing and rubbing and losing of all sense that she’d dreamed up as being the way of the decadents. But Jo was neither practical, nor out of control. In fact, as she straddled Emily’s lap on the end of the bed, deftly handling the buttons of Emily’s shirtwaist one-by-one, loosening the drawstring of the chemise below, she seemed exceptionally controlled. Beautifully controlled, like she’d been built to bare the breasts of her lover to cool night air and candlelight. Emily felt like putty in comparison as Jo’s slightly cold, slightly callused hands cupped and teased her, a little smile of power dancing across her features before that sight was lost in favor of a kiss so deep that Emily’s legs started trying to open of their own accord, only to be stopped by the presence of Jo’s on either side of them.
Her squirm and groan of frustration seemed to please Jo, who tightened the vise she’d made of her perfectly curved thighs and doubled her attentions on Emily’s breasts, the slow, full nature of her touch making it seem like it was the hunger of her own palms and mouth and the tips of her fingers she was satisfying. It made everything that much more intense as Jo moved with that same steady assurance from Emily’s lap...
To the floor at her feet.
“What are you doing?” Emily hissed as Jo took one of her boot-clad feet in hand.
Jo looked up sharply from the unlacing she’d started and said, “Hush.”
Hush?Normally, there was nothing Emily hated more than being hushed. It was the syllable that men snapped when one too many opinions had been shared at too high a volume for their sensibilities. But Jo was not one of those sorts. She was the sort that unlaced another woman’s boots like she was polishing a precious piece of silver before sliding her hands up to find garter fastenings so easily that there might have been magnets in her fingertips.
Emily liked this hush in spite of herself. Was tempted to say something else, just to hear it again. But words were difficult to conjure as Jo rolled the stockings down, kissing her way along the skin she exposed and back up again, until her head was vanishing under skirt and petticoat, and Emily was very much not hushing in the slightest.
Apparently, Jo had little concern for whether anyone else might hear evidence that its namesake’s flower and jewel had been successfully found through the slit in Emily’s drawers. No shushing came, perhaps because Jo’s mouth was too busy kissing the insides of Emily’s thighs while her fingers carefully attempted a few different placements and rhythms until she found a configuration that made Emily gasp and buck up off the bed, grasping at whatever she could reach of Jo’s clothes, her hair, the soft curve of her cheek. Apparently encouraged by the response, Jo grew bolder still, moving faster and kissing up, up, until at last she pressed a firm kiss to the apex of Emily’s sex, sliding deeper inside as she did so, and Emily became nothing, truly nothing more than the experience of perfect pleasure.
The addition of a single flick of Jo’s tongue was all it took to bring the crisis crashing and clenching through her, the blinding heights of it far more intense than anything she’d experienced in the name of easing tension or calming hysteria.
As she returned to earth, she could only pant and stare at the disheveled figure of Jo as she came back around to the proper side of Emily’s skirts. Her collar was mussed, a waistcoat button slipped out of place, the heavy fall of her dark hair threatening escape at last. An enthralling vision in the guttering light of the candle, far more captivating than the photograph she’d sent. Less skin, perhaps, but more sex by a hundredfold as she wiped her fingers on a handkerchief she procured from her breast pocket, only to tuck it right back where she’d taken it from, a decidedly filthy move that left Emily breathless in addition to speechless.
Jo kissed her deeply, then went to the pitcher in the corner to pour for both of them, since someone had very cordially provided two glasses in this room that was ostensibly meant for one.
Emily took a sip, but it didn’t cool her in the slightest, her tongue protesting its contact with something so bland when it could be exploring the fascinating person who stood before her.
Jo stroked Emily’s face once she’d drained her own glass, kissing her softly and taking her chin in hand again.
“Are you satisfied, sweetheart?” Jo said softly, a teasing lilt to the pet name that left the seriousness of it a bit ambiguous. “Or shall I carry on?”
“I’ll do the carrying on,” Emily said, stumbling over the words in her eagerness. She must have looked a wanton wreck with her skirts bunched up to the waist and her chemise open wide, but that was alright. It was fitting, in fact, since Jo looked like something out of a pamphlet outlining the depraved dangers one’s daughters could face in the streets of London. At last, Emily gave into the impulse she’d had since she first laid eyes on Jo, sliding a hand into her waistcoat to enjoy the heft of that gorgeous bosom. “Lie down, and I’ll—”
Though Jo had closed her eyes and sighed in pleasure at Emily’s touch, she cut things off with a shake of her head and a move just out of comfortable reach.
“Not tonight,” she said.
Though she softened the rejection with a smile, still it stung. Self-conscious now, Emily pulled her shirtwaist back across her exposed chest. “No? But you were... My heavens, it was... It doesn’t seem very fair, does it?”
Jo’s grin widened. “I don’t care about fair.”
“But...but fair or not, I want to!”
“Oh, I know you do.”
Simultaneously frustrated by this development and growing a bit sleepy and loose-limbed as her body accepted before her mind did that the dalliance was over, she stared up at Jo, wishing she could read that amused yet closed-off look on her face.
“Do you not like it to be done to you?” Emily asked carefully.
Jo laughed now and sat beside her, drawing her own jacket over Emily’s shoulders as the reality of the chilly room began to override the warmth of their prior passion.
“I like it done to me,” Jo said. “But not tonight.”
“If not tonight,” Emily whispered, a bit desperately, “when?”
With a little sigh and another smile, she pulled the jacket tighter and kissed the side of Emily’s head.
“Exactly.”