Chapter 3 #2
Her lips parted beneath his the moment they touched and then she gripped his lapels with both hands, lifting into him with a muffled groan of relief and pleasure.
One of his hands stole down her backside, cupping the shape of her, lifting her tighter against him as their tongues collided and clashed and yet somehow still welcomed and soothed.
She tilted her head to change the angle and somehow everything got deeper, the exploration even more intimate as the world spun around them and they locked it out entirely.
He had no idea how long that lasted. When they surfaced at last, lips shining, panting breaths matched, eyes locked on each other in shock and wonder and desire unlike anything he’d felt in a very long time, the song the orchestra had been playing was just ending.
Their dance was done. At least this one.
She looked as staggered as he felt for a brief moment and then she reached out and took his hand.
He saw the knowing distance of an experienced courtesan slide back over that lovely face before she turned her back to him and began guiding him through the crowd toward the back rooms where members could take their pleasure together in slightly more private settings.
“Let’s play,” she said over her shoulder, and in his weak-kneed condition all he could was nod and know that this night would do everything he’d wanted when he came here. It was going to sear a new memory in him that would certainly erase something old and less pleasant.
* * *
A rabella had been trained in a great many things as a courtesan.
She knew how to give pleasure and to pretend her own when it didn’t come with the help of a lover.
She knew how to compliment, how to make a man feel like what she wanted was actually their idea.
She knew how to maximize her impact and gain the most from every arrangement.
She knew how to comfort without losing herself in the process.
The skill she appreciated most though, as she guided the Silas Windham through the writhing halls of the Donville Masquerade, was that she could look unbothered when she was truly spinning inside.
She’d imagined kissing this man a great many times over the years.
Sometimes it was the way she lulled herself to sleep, or brought herself to completion.
But the reality of it was…different. Better because it was real and he tasted of a hint of whisky and smoky pleasure.
Worse because in that moment he’d touched his lips to hers, she had forgotten every way she maintained distance from men who wanted to keep her.
She’d lost herself in that kiss, drowning in the pleasure, the sensation, the reality that this was the man who had starred in every single fantasy she’d concocted for herself over six years. And he was everything she’d ever hoped for.
But Arabella Comerford hadn’t had her knees shake after a kiss in a very long time.
The fact that she could barely stay upright as she reached the backrooms was…
shocking. Still, she managed to nod to the servant keeping watch beside the dim hallway and drew Silas toward the room number the man indicated with his fingers.
They entered the chamber together and she broke away from him, all but willing her heart to stop pounding.
He would hear it when he came close enough and she didn’t want to hand over the power by letting him know that she was shaken.
“Do you like to be watched, Windham?” she asked, then shook her head with a laugh. “A rather silly question considering our beginnings."
“I do like to be watched,” he admitted. “And to watch in turn. But tonight…” He trailed off and then moved to the portrait mounted next to the fireplace warming the room. He slid the viewing area shut so that those standing behind it, the ones who liked to ogle, couldn’t see.
She smiled. “Good. I think after waiting so long, it’s best to let this be between you and me.”
“I admit I hardly know what to do with you now that you’re here before me.”
She arched a brow. “You? After all the stories I’ve heard about you over the years, I can’t believe that. But perhaps it been a long time. Do they not have willing women in America?”
“You do know a great deal,” he mused softly. “And yes, they do have very obliging women in the former colony. But…it’s been a while.”
She cocked her head. That was a surprising admission. Every bit of research she’d obsessively done about this man said he was a love and leave kind of person. A charming rogue who gave pleasure and sought it with equal fervor and never connected anything deeper to either act.
“How long?” she asked.
He studied her a moment—reading her, she realized. The way people like them had to read people. Those who didn’t belong, those who had something to lose if they chose wrong. How did she fare, she wondered, with this man who had been her fascination for so long.
“About a year,” he admitted. “I got bored of the game.”
“Perhaps you weren’t playing it right,” she whispered, and then reached to the front of her gown.
Her seamstress made all of them so they were easy for her to remove and put on herself.
She flicked a few buttons, unwrapped a little fabric, pulled a ribbon tie and the entire contraption fell around her feet in an artful pool of silk.
She was naked beneath, just as she always was. She couldn’t even remember what it was like to wrap herself in layer upon layer of propriety as if a few scraps of fabric could protect her from the real demons out in the world.
She blinked away those thoughts, ones that were odd to find given the circumstances and smiled at the man who was staring at her, slightly slack jawed.
He was truly beautiful, even more than she had recalled.
Of course her memories were shrouded in half-shadow and furtive glances.
Now she could truly look at him. He was so tall and broad shouldered, with dark brown hair that was unruly around his forehead.
He had green eyes, those eyes she knew so well, and they were focused and reflected all his desire.
Up close he had an intensity and a wildness that seemed to come from every pore of his being.
It called to her own. She wasn’t going to refuse it.
“Are you going to stare all night?” she asked.
He laughed, a low, rough chuckle laced with more of that heady desire. “I think a man could make a study of you for a few days and be rejuvenated, but I’m not patient enough not to touch.” He took a long step toward her and then stopped short. “Assuming you’d like me to do so.”
He was asking for her consent, despite the circumstances. She blinked at him in wonder and then crooked her finger. “If you don’t touch me, I’ll combust and we’ll burn the place down around us. Not very fair to the proprietor of this place and all he’s built.”
He laughed again at the mention of the man who owned the masquerade. “Well, considering Marcus Rivers is a good friend of mine, I couldn’t have that.”
He stepped to her, staring down at her in the dreamy firelight and candlelight of the chamber, and as he bent his head to take her lips again he whispered, “Oh, this is going to be worth the wait.”