Chapter Fifteen #2
“She thinks you can help her with something.”
“I know how to handle a crush. Besides,” he muttered a little grumpily, “I don’t flirt with mean girls.”
“You flirt with everyone,” Amelia said, her hand hovering over a knight before withdrawing again. “By the way, have you double-checked that the Hereford teaspoon is secure?”
“Of course,” he answered at once. And when she gave him an Amelia Look?, he rolled his eyes and repeated firmly, “Of course.”
“Hm.” Returning her attention to the chessboard, she trailed her smallest finger back and forth across her lower lip as she debated which piece to employ.
“Fuck.” Caleb abruptly straightened, downing the entirety of his drink. Amelia stared at him with surprise. He almost never swore.
“I didn’t mean to offend you,” she said.
He gave a curt, rather bitter laugh. “I’m not offended.”
“Sorry,” she said, just in case. “You aren’t a flirt, you’re just friendly—is that better? And Miss Tunnicliffe is not mean. She’s—”
“Excitable. Yes, I remember. So excitable she didn’t hesitate to be rude to you.”
“That was ages ago, Caleb. It doesn’t matter.”
“It always matters.”
“But—”
“I don’t want to talk about Vanity, of all things, when I’m finally alone with you,” he interrupted grouchily.
They stared at each other yet again, the air becoming so charged that Amelia wondered if a thaumaturgic antique were inside the room after all. But Caleb was looking a little flushed, almost defensive. He muttered something under his breath.
“I beg your pardon?” Amelia inquired.
“Friendship,” he grumbled.
She blinked, unsure how to take this statement. “Yes?”
“It is a serious affection,” he explained. “The most sublime of all affections, because—”
“It is founded on principle, and cemented by time,” Amelia said, her voice overlapping his, completing the quote. Inside her stomach, the flutters grew stronger. “Mary Wollstonecraft. You’ve been reading my book.”
He shrugged, a silent, insouciant confession that did not quite match the shadows in his eyes as he watched her for a reaction. “Nothing better to do in this blasted house at night.”
Amelia swallowed dryly. Somehow it felt deeply intimate that he’d read the same pages she had, touched them, while lying in his bed…
“It was most thought-provoking,” he said, the way another man might have said, it made me dream of you in your underwear.
He drank again, apparently not registering that his glass was in fact empty.
His gaze remained locked on hers, and Amelia thought that if he did not at least blink soon, she might just faint.
“You’re trying to distract me from my strategy,” she concluded. Forcing herself to focus once more on the game, she bit her fingertip, thinking…
Clunk. Caleb’s glass hit the table so hard, the chess pieces trembled. “Let’s make a bet,” he said, reaching for the bottle.
“Don’t bother,” Amelia told him. “You won’t win it.”
“We’ll see, clever girl.”
“Woman,” she corrected him automatically.
“Hm,” Caleb murmured with a dark eloquence. He poured whiskey into his glass, then replaced the little Amelia had sipped from hers. “So, since you are indeed a woman—since we are both adults—let’s play like it. Here’s the bet: whoever wins at chess gets to kiss the loser anywhere on their body.”
Amelia felt her eyes grow wide. Caleb smiled, almost belligerent. Now the air was not so much “charged” as “on the verge of nuclear fission.” The Ghost of Kissing Past arose to dance a tango with the Ghost of Kissing Future.
“How many times?” she asked.
Caleb shrugged his mouth. “Three? Like in a fairy tale.”
“And when you say anywhere, you mean—”
“Anywhere.”
Amelia’s pulse began to run around madly, throwing off its clothes and hauling on lacy lingerie. Reaching out without looking, she picked up her glass and took a long, slow mouthful of whiskey before setting it down again.
“It’s your turn,” Caleb prompted her, gesturing with his own glass at the board, then drinking as if he anticipated a tedious wait while she chose between one pawn and another next to it, never mind actually providing an answer to his suggestion.
Not taking her gaze from his, Amelia removed her king from the line of pieces and laid it down in surrender at the center of the board.
—
Caleb almost spat out his mouthful of alcohol.
He had expected Amelia to have come to her good senses after their long-ago conversation about experimenting, and to lecture him on the limits of friendship (a good night kiss, albeit lingering) and the sanctity of chess (never to be discounted) and moreover that he should sit up straighter.
He’d been half-drunk when he’d spoken—forget the whiskey; to have Amelia all to himself after an interminable week of not being able to smile at her, let alone touch her, was intoxicating.
Now he had to hastily assemble a plan to match the wild proposal he’d made.
Swallowing back whiskey and fear, he said rather huskily, “Stand up.”
She did so at once, not evidencing even the slightest hesitation. Oh God. “Come here,” he instructed.
Walking as if she had a book balanced atop her head, Amelia rounded the table to stand before him.
Caleb took her left hand in both of his, using all the care he would when handling a porcelain figurine that might explode with deadly magic at any moment.
Then he turned it over and gently set a kiss on the pale, blue-threaded skin of her exposed wrist.
Amelia drew in a breath. He did not hear her release it. Looking up through a wayward lock of hair, he smiled.
“One.”
It was rather impressive, if he did say so himself, the way he mixed softness and seductive huskiness within that single syllable.
All the elocution lessons of his youth were worth it, just for this moment.
It must have impressed Amelia too, considering how her face flooded with pink and her breath, finally exhaling, shook just a little.
Caleb let go of her hand so he could relax back into the chair, setting his forearms on the wide armrests.
“Sit on my lap.”
Now Amelia seemed uncertain, angling this way, then that, apparently at a loss as to how to undertake the maneuver.
Caleb couldn’t blame her. Dressed as she was in proper, ladylike fashion with petticoats and a long heavy skirt, it was a wonder she could scale anything—a man’s lap…
a ladder to reach some interesting artifact…
Oxford University’s male-dominated professional ranks.
Even climbing the steps of the Ashmolean, which he himself ran up in seconds, must have been a trial.
Leaning forward again, he placed his hands on her hips and arranged her to face him.
He could feel that she was trembling, but it did not seem to be in fear, so he continued.
“Lift up your skirt and sit astride.”
She did so. She did so. Caleb begged himself not to panic. The soft cotton of her drawers felt like angel wings, even through his trousers’ heavier fabric. Did they have an open seam? Should he ask her to move forward, to where his arousal was beginning to strain against his own pants’ seam?
No, that was crude, and he wanted every moment of this experience to be exquisite for her, so that later she could remember it like a string of tiny, glimmering stars, each electrifying her in the most delicate and perfect way.
For the sake of friendship, of course.
Looking carefully into her eyes, he checked for any sign of anxiety. But she was all Amelia: calm and composed, despite the unorthodox seating arrangements, and perhaps just the slightest bit impatient. Caleb dissolved into a grin. Mouth, heart, all of him, grinning like an idiot.
“What?” she asked.
“You,” he said. Her hair was tied back severely in a knot, as usual, with a few fine strands drifting against her neck.
Caleb wanted to play with them, stroking and tickling her bare skin with them, making her shiver.
He wanted to kiss the small pearls in each of her earlobes, and follow the trail of her pulse with his lips all the way down her throat.
But she was wearing a shirtwaist with a satin bow at its collar, and the temptation of it kept him focused.
With a slowness that felt like sweet torment—and that Amelia hopefully felt too—he pulled on the hanging ribbons of the bow until it unraveled, then drew the loose knot apart.
“All right?” he asked as he began unbuttoning the shirtwaist, for she’d stiffened, and while he thought it was anticipation rather than discomfort, he wanted to be sure.
“Yes,” she said in her clipped schoolteacher voice, the one that had always made doing such things as discussing lecture schedules, concentrating in faculty meetings, and unbuttoning a blouse without lustily ripping it off her rather difficult.
Caleb willed his fingers not to tremble as he continued with his task.
Coming to the last button above her skirt’s waistband, he spread open the blouse.
What he discovered beneath it nearly stole his breath.
A chemise of the finest white lawn and Irish lace lay beneath a silk corset embroidered with flowers and decorated with a tiny pink bow that threatened to send Caleb into an outright swoon.
He’d never expected such dainty prettiness beneath the solemn practicality of her outerwear.
Her skin was so perfect, so creamy, dotted here and there with freckles, that he considered abandoning his plan altogether, since how dare a man such as he despoil her with his touch?
“You’re poeticizing, aren’t you?” Amelia said dryly.
“A little,” he admitted.
“I don’t wish to be rude, but this seat is somewhat uncomfortable. Might we progress at a swifter rate?”
He quirked his lips. “You want me to tear your clothes off you, is that it?”
“I’m not saying that,” she replied in the haughty manner he knew meant but I would if I weren’t too dignified to utter such a plea.
As much as Caleb liked the idea, he had no intention of giving her what she wanted so easily.
Setting one finger just beneath her throat, he slid it down, watching as her pupils dilated in response.
Lowering the trim of her chemise, he set one hand against her back to ensure her safety, then bent to kiss her, right at the border of lace and bareness, above her fast-beating heart.
His own heart ached with happiness. She tasted of lilac. She was warm and soft and, for just that moment, all his. He kissed her tenderly, as one might the heart of an angel. Then straightening, he looked into her beautiful, beloved, slightly stunned face.
“Two.”
“Oh, my,” Amelia breathed.
Caleb tried not to let smug triumph swagger across his lips (albeit not very hard, it must be said). “We all know I’m an antiquarian genius, but who knew math would also be my forte?”
For once, Amelia did not roll her eyes. They were glimmering like a night strewn with quiet, silvery rain, and Caleb frowned slightly.
“You’re going to cry again,” he said. “Am I making you unhappy?”
She shook her head and scrunched her eyes closed for a moment, and when she looked at him again, her eyes were—well, a little red, to be honest, and hazy, but she held his gaze with impeccable calm, so he decided to let the subject go. “What about three?” she asked.
He grinned. “Three will be your most favorite.”
And the world turned to sweet, shimmering magic.