Chapter 17
Chapter Seventeen
Sebastian kissed her.
Who could refrain?
He had only tasted Phoebe’s lips once before, but he knew that this second go round would be just as wholesome and thrilling.
So, Sebastian plunged with reckless abandon and kissed the lovely lady.
Phoebe met his caress with great fervency. Her mouth was soft and pliable, and when his lips touched hers, he tasted all the things that she was: honest, true, and full of curiosity.
Sebastian allowed himself to explore Phoebe’s full lips, to touch and taste her. When she moaned his name, he gloried in the sound. When she lifted her hands and ran them through his hair, he leaned into her touch, urging her to take what she wanted from him…anything she wanted.
He was so aroused by every giggle, every sound that popped from the innocent Phoebe’s lips that Sebastian’s cock sprang to life and strained against his breeches.
As the wind whipped around them through the garden, rustling the nearby field of daisies and filling his senses with overwhelmingly sweet fragrances, he felt the pleasure that could be had by innocently discovering a woman, touching her in new ways that she had never before experienced, and being the man who could give her such immense pleasures.
While his tongue traced the cusp of her lower lips, he allowed his hands to caress her body in a way he had not dared before.
He slicked his palms down the curves of her hips, feeling the silk fabric floating underneath his fingertips as she wriggled. When his hands reached her round backside, Sebastian gave her a gentle squeeze and delighted in the giggling sound that burst from her lips.
“Phoebe,” he whispered. “Tell me how this makes you feel.”
“What?” she squawked. “You want me to speak to you now?”
He kissed her gently, drinking in the scent of her perfume and reveling in the glazed look that made her eyes sparkle.
“When we were in the small library together, you told me how my reading made you feel. I want to know what my kisses do to you.”
“I feel dry,” she croaked hoarsely, which made him laugh.
“Your mouth is dry? Your throat too?” He lowered his lips and nibbled on her neck.
She hummed in approval. “Yes.”
“And when I do this?” His lips worked upward so that he could stuck out his tongue slightly and trace a slow, hot trail along the curve of her jawline.
“Now I feel… I feel…” He flicked his tongue out and tickled her earlobe.
“Wet,” she murmured. He performed the movement again, causing her to giggle. “And silly.”
“Wet,” he purred. “Tell me more about that.”
“I… I…” She removed her hands from his hair, and he could feel how she groped for the pillar at her back.
Obligingly, he moved with her so that her shoulder blades were pressed flat against the stone, and she could feel more supported. Once she was repositioned, Phoebe lifted one of her hands and skimmed it down the length of her body.
Tantalizing, she pressed it low against her abdomen. Sebastian could not stop a low hum from escaping his lips. He was intrigued.
“What do you feel, Phoebe?”
“When we first met,” she began, “you said that your words… the words from the book, might make me feel a low, curling sensation in my stomach… here.”
He could tell that she was pressing gently on the spot because she emitted a soft, pleasurable moan.
“And you feel that now?” he whispered as he lowered his hand and covered hers.
“I feel heat pooling here… it’s coiling… it feels…”
“Yes?” he breathed just before pressing his lips to hers once more. He wanted to hear what she had to say, but more than that he wanted to make her feel the way he did.
Sebastian had spent years playing a role, donning a mask, but with Phoebe, he did not need to hide anything.
She was the missing part of his life that he had searched for and now that she was within his reach, he could not stop himself from forming his body to hers and feeling truly and finally complete.
“Sebastian,” she panted when he moved his mouth away from hers and planted soft smooches down the base of her throat.
His lips tripped over the silver necklace, but then, inspired by the slipperiness of the metal, he dropped his mouth lower and kissed her breastbone.
When his tongue darted out and he licked the soft silken fabric near the neckline of her dress, Phoebe squeaked.
“Your tongue?”
“Yes,” he drawled lazily as he used the rough end of it to trace her collar a second time.
“It is… it is tickling me.” Her shoulders shimmied as she tipped her head back and laughed.
“Do you like it?” Slowly, he used the tips of his fingers to peel the collar of her dress off her shoulders.
The fabric slid down willingly, baring her creamy white coloring. The moon skimmed over Phoebe’s soft, supple skin, making those fine shoulders look like a sculpted bit of alabaster.
She did not answer him immediately, perhaps could not, and so he continued whispering as he worked. “Would you prefer that I use my teeth?”
Phoebe gasped as he clamped hold of the front of her dress with his tongue and dragged the fabric downward. He only pulled the material down a slight way, enough to reveal a flimsy bit of her undergarments.
“What about my lips?” Sebastian sank his head into her heaving bosom, nuzzling with his lips, teeth, and tongue so that he could move aside the chemise and seek his coveted prize.
He succeeded in freeing her nipple, one small pink bud, from its confines and instantly, compulsively flicked his tongue over the peak.
“Ah!” Phoebe made a noise that was half-gasp, half-groan of pleasure.
“Do you want more?” he teased as his tongue circled her flesh in lazy circles.
“Yes, oh, Sebastian. Yes!” Her hands were in his hair again, pulling him closer.
There was no space left between them, yet he felt the urgency in her movements. She wanted him there, right with her, experiencing this soaring high, and he would not deny her.
Sebastian lowered his head further and suckled at her nipple. All the while, Phoebe squeaked, squealed, and bucked her hips. Then, as he traced one hand upward and began cupping and massaging her other breast, her breathing changed. It grew shallow and labored.
“That is it, my sweet. Feel it. Allow yourself to have this pleasure.”
Phoebe clutched at him. She pulled on his hair. Her hands scrambled over his shoulders and tore at his jacket. He knew that she was not experiencing a real, true climax, but her body was spasming in the most blissful of ways and for now…that was more than satisfactory.
All at once, Phoebe cried out a string of indistinguishable nonsense words.
As she reached her pinnacle of emotions, Sebastian pulled his mouth away from her breast and swooped in once more to capture her lips.
He swallowed her soft pants and ecstasy.
Then, when her body stopped writhing, he wrapped his arms around her and held her close to his chest.
His own heart thrummed frantically and even though he could not hear hers, he was sure that her rhythm matched his own.
She was his Phoebe… his fox… his Thisbe. And every interaction they had experienced before had led them straight to this union tonight.
When Sebastian gazed down at her and saw that Phoebe was looking up at him, staring at him with those sparkling blue eyes, he knew, with certainty, that life would never get better, it would never feel better than it was at that moment.
“Phoebe,” he whispered, keeping his voice quiet and low, not wanting to break the new bond that had formed between them. “I need to ask you something.”
“Anything,” she murmured as an exhausted, yet pleased sigh escaped her lips. “I will do anything to please you now, Sebastian.”
He cleared his throat, knowing that the words he meant to say next were important. They ought not be muddled or incoherent. Not when his question had the power to change the course of their entire lives. And he needed Phoebe to hear him clearly.
“Will you, Lady Phoebe Tripleton, do me the great honor or becoming my wife?”
“I…” She stilled in his arms. Her eyes, which had been locked on his a second before, darted frantically. “You want me to marry you?”
“Is that not what you want?”
Her eyes flitted back and forth as her lashes fluttered. “Are you… are you giving me a choice?”
“Of course,” he breathed as he lifted a hand and used his fingertips to wind a lock of her ash-blonde hair around his pinky. “You always have a choice with me, Phoebe. You may accept my proposal and be my wife or…”
He honestly meant to present Phoebe with another option, but Sebastian could not conjure a single suitable alternative.
For him, there was only the woman he held in his arms. She was the answer to all his quandaries.
He wanted her stories to be his, too. He could not see a future that did not involve the two of them spending all their days and nights locked in each other’s embrace, sharing warmth and laughter and love.
Silence hung heavily in the garden. It lasted for so long that Sebastian felt a twinge of discomfort twisted low in his stomach.
“Phoebe,” he whispered after waiting a beat. “What do you think, my dear? Would you like to marry me? Will you choose to be my wife?”