Chapter 19
CHAPTER NINETEEN
He tied the silk gently over her eyes, his fingers lingering at her temple and the world went dark and close, her other senses rising instantly to fill the space with the scent of cedar, old paper, and the musk of his skin. His breath, unsteady, near her ear.
Every sound was magnified. She felt the rhythmic thrum of her own heart, the soft rustle of his linen shirt, and the uneven cadence of his breathing.
As he guided her toward the narrow bed, the touch of his hand on hers felt like a brand. When she felt the mattress dip beneath her, the sudden lack of sight made her feel dangerously exposed yet strangely liberated.
She felt his weight shift, the bed creaking as he knelt between her thighs.
The anticipation was a physical ache, a tightening in her lower belly that made her hips twitch instinctively.
Then, the cool air of the room hit her inner thighs as he slowly pushed her skirts upward, the fabric bunching around her waist.
"Stay still," he whispered, his voice a low vibration that seemed to echo in her very bones.
Amelia gasped as she felt his warm breath ghosting over the sensitive skin of her thighs.
He didn't touch her at first, merely hovering, teasing her with the proximity.
The agony of the wait was exquisite. When his tongue finally made contact, it was a sudden, wet stroke from the crook of her knee upward, leaving a shimmering trail of heat in its wake.
Amelia arched her back, her fingers clawing into the thin mattress. The darkness intensified the sensation and she couldn't see where he was, only feel the precise, devastating pressure of his mouth. He moved higher, his breath hitching as he reached the center of her.
Then he found her.
The first flick of his tongue against her center was a jolt of electricity that shot straight to her core.
Amelia let out a sharp, broken cry, her head tossing back against the pillow.
He was relentless, his tongue swirling and pressing with a focused intensity that left her breathless.
He used his hands to spread her wide, his fingers firm against her hips, anchoring her as he dove deeper.
She felt the wet, sliding friction of his tongue dipping into her, tasting her, while the tip of it continued to tease the swollen bud of her pleasure.
It was a rhythmic, driving assault. Every lap of his tongue felt like a wave crashing over her, building a tension that tightened her muscles and made her toes curl.
"Please," she whimpered, though she didn't know what she was asking for…more, or perhaps for the release that felt so close it was almost painful.
He responded by sucking her deeply into his mouth, the pressure sending a violent shiver through her frame. She could feel the rough texture of his tongue and the warmth of his breath. The world narrowed down to that single point of contact, a blinding white heat in the center of the darkness.
The climax hit her with the force of a gale. Her muscles clamped shut around him in rhythmic spasms, and a long, breathless moan escaped her lips. She felt herself unraveling, the tension snapping as wave after wave of pleasure pulsed through her, leaving her limp and trembling.
For a time, the only sound in the room was their synchronized, heavy breathing.
Slowly, the pressure of his mouth faded.
He didn't pull away abruptly, instead, he pressed a lingering, tender kiss to the inside of her thigh before shifting upward.
Amelia felt the silk being untied, the knot loosening with a gentle tug, her legs still quivering.
As the blindfold fell away, the dim light of the room rushed back in.
He was looking at her, his expression raw and stripped of all pretense. There was no shame in his eyes, only a profound, quiet vulnerability. He didn't speak, he simply leaned forward and gathered her into his arms, pulling her small frame against the broad expanse of his chest.
He wrapped a discarded quilt around them both, shielding them from the evening chill.
He held her with a steady, grounding pressure, his chin resting atop her head.
Sebastian didn't speak, he simply held her to him, his heartbeat steady against her ear, providing a silent sanctuary where the intensity of the moment could slowly settle into a warm, humming peace.
She was still asleep when he woke, sunlight already climbing the narrow window, and Sebastian lay still for a moment simply watching her.
One arm still curled loosely around her shoulders, thinking, with a quiet astonishment that had not yet worn off since the night before, that he had never once expected to wake in this particular bed with anyone at all.
I ought to send word to Ravensmere House.
Hopkins will worry. He thought it, and did not move to act on it, some reckless, unfamiliar part of him unwilling to end the small, private peace of this room a moment sooner than necessary.
He rose and dressed quietly instead, slipped down to the bakery on the corner while she slept, and returned with bread still warm from the oven and a jar of preserves he vaguely remembered favoring, once, in the years before any of this.
She woke to the smell, blinking up at him with sleep-heavy confusion that gave way, slowly, to a smile that undid him considerably more than he was prepared to admit.
"You cook now."
"I fetch, and I would not have you disappointed in me quite so early.
" He set the tray on the small table and drew the single chair round for her, settling himself on the edge of the bed instead, watching her tear into the bread with an unguarded appetite that made something in his chest go warm and unfamiliar.
I have brought a great many women breakfast in my life.
I have never once wanted to continue bringing breakfast to the same woman again and again..
"This apartment," she said, between bites, glancing round the small room properly now in the daylight, "you have kept it how long?"
"Since I was one and twenty. Nearly eight years."
"Eight years is a long investment in a place you claim means nothing."
"I never said it meant nothing." He turned the empty preserve jar between his hands, considering how much of the truth he actually wanted to give her, and found, somewhat to his own surprise, that he wanted to give her all of it.
"I took this place the year I came of age and discovered what had been done to the estate in my absence.
I wanted somewhere no one could reach me.
No advisers. No mother requiring me to manage her grief and her reputation in the same breath.
No expectation whatsoever, of any kind, from anyone. "
"And did it work. Being unreachable."
"For a while." He looked at the small room properly himself now, seeing it, for the first time in years, through someone else's eyes rather than his own.
"I came here whenever London demanded more of me than I felt capable of giving.
I told no one. Not Tristan. Not Nathaniel.
Not Julian, not until very recently. I built an entire second life composed entirely of absence, and told myself that absence was simply prudence, the same lesson I'd learned watching my mother's grief exploited by men who understood her feelings better than she did. "
"You have never let anyone else see this room."
"Never." He met her eyes, something in his chest tightening at the plainness of the admission. "You are the first person I have ever brought here, or who has ever followed me here uninvited, which I suppose amounts to the same violation of the rule either way."
"I am sorry for the violation, then." Her mouth curved, though something gentler moved behind the humor. "Though I confess I am not sorry for what came of it."
"Neither am I." He reached for her hand across the small table, turning it over in his own, tracing the lines of her palm with an idle, wondering attention.
"I do not know how to explain to you what it costs me, letting you see this.
I have spent eight years believing that no one being able to reach me was the same thing as safety.
I am only now beginning to understand that it was simply a different kind of loneliness, dressed up more convincingly than most."
She said nothing to that. She only turned her hand in his so their fingers laced together properly, and Sebastian sat with her a long while in the small, sunlit room, eating bread gone slightly cold, understanding, with a clarity that both frightened and steadied him in equal measure, that he had just handed her the key to the last locked door in his life.
And now some quiet, long-guarded part of him felt, for the first time, considerably lighter for having done it.