Chapter 25
Georgia felt like dashing from the ball.
There was an urgency deep inside her, a need for something to escape.
She knew that her cheeks were flushed and hoped that the gathered guests would take it to be from the exertion of dancing.
The war of words that she felt like she had gone through with Keaton had set a fire in her blood.
His grace on the dancefloor despite his blindness had acted like a forge bellows on that fire.
She clutched his arm now, fingers tight, wanting to touch him through the fabric, to feel his skin.
When he had pulled her closer than the form of their dance demanded, it had sent a delicious thrill through her.
That thrill was still present, tingling in her fingers and toes, causing the hairs on the back of her neck to stand up.
It felt as though they were moving through treacle, as though the crowd around them was clinging to them, refusing to let them leave.
Georgia smiled and nodded, made eye contact, and behaved entirely appropriately as they made their way to the door.
Inside, she wanted Keaton to pull her along with his long-legged stride, break into a dash that would free them, leading them into the embrace of the night.
Finally, they were stepping out of a door and onto a wide paved area. Before them was a dark expanse of lawn, framed by tall trees and an earthy breeze. Lanterns had been suspended above the paved ground, and tables and chairs set up, though none were currently occupied.
“We have come out through the wrong door,” Georgia said quite breathlessly, “we have reached the gardens at the rear of the house.”
She heard Keaton curse in exasperation from beside her.
“Is there anyone in sight?” he asked.
“No one, they must all still be inside.”
“I am not going back through that swamp,” he said emphatically, “there will be a means of reaching the street from the gardens.”
His description of the ball as a swamp resonated with Georgia.
So desperate had she suddenly become to be free of them and somewhere alone with Keaton that it had felt as though she was sinking into a noxious mire.
The night air felt cool around her. She clasped his hand and led the way across the paved patio area and onto the lawn.
Darkness enveloped them, seeming to muffle the sound of merriment and music from the house behind them.
“You seemed comfortable with Mademoiselle Marigne’s closeness,” she said at last, unable to keep it in any longer. “Far more comfortable than when we first met.”
Keaton arched his head slightly, intrigued. “She placed herself close to me. I did not request it and did not want it. Why do you ask?”
“Are you avoiding my question?” she challenged.
“No, I answered your question. Why does it bother you?”
Georgia was silent for a moment.
Why does it bother me? I cannot answer that question without staking a claim on Keaton. A claim he might reject.
“I… I have not seen other women show an interest in you before,” she finished, disliking the inaccuracy of the answer but fumbling for the solution to her own feelings.
“Ah, you believed that a blind man would not be attractive and therefore not a reason for jealousy,” he stated bluntly.
“No! I know how attractive you are. It is just that I have not seen you flirt or show interest in any other woman except…”
That was dangerously close to identifying the feelings that remained unspoken between them.
Lust and physical desire had spoken loudly for both of them.
They had given in to that voice more than once.
Their departure from the ball had been driven by it, in fact.
But if she identified how she felt for Keaton and how she hoped he felt for her, would it prompt him to push her beyond arm’s length and accelerate the demise of their arrangement?
“Except for you,” he finished for her. “That was the purpose of our arrangement. It would not serve my interests to be seen showing interest in other women.”
Georgia stopped. They stood in the middle of the lawn. Darkness surrounded them. The sounds of merriment and music from the house were all but muted. She looked up at Keaton’s shadowed face.
“Is that the only reason?” she demanded.
“What would you have me say?”
“The truth!”
“No other woman has caught my interest. That is the truth. No other woman can draw my attention from you when you are in the room,” he snapped. “Does that satisfy you?”
Georgia felt breathless. Her heart was pounding as though trying to escape her ribcage. She felt that she stood on the precipice of a chasm, balanced on the edge of a knife. One step might send her over the edge.
She placed her hands on Keaton’s chest, running her fingers down his body, letting him feel the softness of her caress and draw from it the emotion that was on her face.
“It does,” she said, softly, “and you should know that the only eyes that I wanted upon me were yours.”
“The only eyes that you can never have,” he murmured.
“There is more than one way of seeing. As you know.”
She took his rough hands in both of hers and placed his fingertips on her forehead, then slowly traced them down her face.
His fingers splayed, taking in the shape of her face once again.
They stroked down the outside of her throat, making her swallow and shiver as he caressed the sensitive skin there.
A blast of sound came from the house as a door was opened. Georgia jumped.
“Are we in sight of the house?” Keaton asked quickly.
“We are beyond the light cast from the windows, but if someone ventures out this far…”
“Then we must go.”
Georgia led him deeper into the darkness, slowing as they reached the end of the lawn and were faced with an impenetrable wall of bushes and trees.
They followed the edges of the undergrowth until they came to a path which wound into the greater darkness beyond.
Soon, they were swallowed by that darkness.
Georgia could not see her hand in front of her face. No light penetrated the thick growth, and, she supposed, high walls around the property blocked light from the streets beyond. She realized that she was opening her eyes wider as though this would aid her sight. She stopped, suddenly.
“I cannot see anything. I only know you are beside me because I can feel you.”
“I cannot see anything either,” Keaton replied, wryly.
She laughed. “Of course. We are both blind while we are out here.”
She closed her eyes, noticing no difference.
“We proceed by feeling the path beneath our feet and the air ahead of us with our hands,” Keaton instructed, taking the lead now.
Georgia put out a hand, waving it back and forth to identify obstacles such as wayward branches. With careful steps, she felt the change in the ground when the path bent to the left, and she stepped onto a softer patch, off the path. Keaton gently guided her back onto the firm, well-trodden ground.
“How do you manage?” she whispered, feeling as though she was about to fall into a hole with every step. Her entire body was tense.
“Because I must.”
“You are very brave.”
“Thank you. But courage has nothing to do with it. I am not ready to give up and die.”
“Good. The world would be a poorer place for it.”
He chuckled deeply. “You have not always thought so.”
“Have I not? How do you know?”
Keaton halted. Georgia’s hand touched the fissured bark of a tree to her right. A low branch brushed her hair. Keaton stepped close. She knew because his presence was suddenly large in her mind. An undefinable awareness of his proximity, of his magnetism.
“I assumed,” he said at last, breathing the words into her ear, arms encircling her waist.
“If you simply talked to me, you would not need to assume.”
“Talk was not part of our arrangement,” he pointed out.
“Then hang our arrangement!” she snapped.
“I couldn’t agree more.”
Georgia wanted to reply, but Keaton kissed her.
Suddenly, he was pressed hard against her, and she stepped backward instinctively until her back hit the tree.
Keaton’s hands framed her face, exploring her features once again, seeing her despite the midnight blackness in which they were engulfed.
She clung to him, arms going about his waist, pulling at his shirt, suddenly desperate to touch him directly. Nakedly.
She moaned when the fabric pulled free of his breeches and her hands settled on his lean flesh. She moved them over the smooth skin until she encountered the faint line of a scar. Tracing it, she withdrew hesitantly from his kiss.
“What is this?” she panted.
“A gift from my father. When I was old enough to stand up to him, he deemed me old enough to be scarred when he beat me. I believe that came from the buckle of his sword belt used as a lash.”
Georgia gasped, feeling the length of the scar that ran up Keaton’s back.
“You have no scars?” he asked.
“No. Only in the mind,” she answered.
He kissed her again, but this time on the cheek.
It was a soft touch, a butterfly caress, feather-light.
His kisses grazed, roaming towards her ear.
Kissed the line of her jaw, the lobe of her ear.
Her neck. His lips parted, and she felt his teeth brush her skin.
Then they too parted as though he intended to bite.
She drew in her breath sharply at the notion that she was being tasted.
That Keaton was a creature of a dark fairy tale, a seducer who consumed the souls of maidens.
It intensified the pleasure she felt at the maddening tenderness of his lips.
She wanted to be released from the pressure within her, to let it consume her and collapse at his feet—sighing his name and helpless before her desire.
Instead, she was tormented by the exploratory touches that were a prelude to lovemaking, enticing and bringing her closer to the edge step by step.
But slowly, oh so slowly. His hands moved across her shoulders, fingers playing her nerves as though she were a piano.
She shivered and writhed at the passage, squirmed as her upper arms were encircled by his roughened, strong hands.
He squeezed enough that she knew that she could not be free unless he allowed it, to remind her of his strength.
His remorseless strength. His glorious masculinity.
Her knees trembled. The tree was another masculine presence behind her, its bark rough, its trunk hard and unyielding. She was pinned between them.
Keaton’s head lowered to her chest, his tongue licked at her goosepimpled skin, tracing a path downwards, leaving a trail of wetness behind that was cool where the night air touched it.
His hands encompassed her breasts and cruelly pulled at the neck of her dress.
It resisted for a moment. Then tore in the middle.
She wore a modified chemise beneath, cut so that it was not visible above the dress. It fared no better.
Then Georgia was naked to the air. Her torn dress and chemise fell away, slipping to her waist and held there by her hips.
Her left breast was engulfed by a warm, wet cave.
Keaton’s tongue flicked against her nipple.
Georgia ran her fingers through his hair, tightening them and holding his head against her bosom.
She wanted him to nuzzle her, to suck and even bite.
To taste and savor her. Keaton’s tongue trailed to the right breast, pulling at the nipple with his teeth and making Georgia cry aloud.
She pushed at his coat, removing it from his shoulders and then down his arms. He shrugged it aside and she attacked the laces of his shirt.
When she felt his bare chest revealed, she hugged him close and pressed her mouth to his skin in imitation of what he had been doing to her.
The feel of his coarse hair over the stony muscle made her toes curl in delight.
It was wonderfully male. Unbearably male.
It made her acutely aware of her own femininity, her own vulnerability.
His hands delved beneath the waistline of her dress, cupping her buttocks, squeezing and then slapping. It made her squeal and then clap a hand over her mouth at the unexpected loudness.
“You will be mistaken for a fox,” he chuckled throatily, “they are notoriously lusty animals too.”
“I am not notorious,” she whispered, grabbing at Keaton’s buttocks in return.
It meant that his loins ground against hers, and she felt the hardness there, straining to be free.
She caressed it, running her hand up and down and feeling the response from Keaton’s body, hearing the gasps in his breath.
One of his hands moved around her hips to the front, delved downward, and suddenly she was lifting herself onto tiptoes.
Her mouth opened wide in a silent gasp of helpless pleasure.
She threw back her head as his other hand clamped onto her breast, pulling at the nipple even as he entered her wetness with deft fingers.
Her senses became focused on those two parts of her body alone.
Her thighs shook and her back arched. A pressure was building within her, searing every nerve ending.
It was volcanic, surging upward from the heart of her womanhood.
It rendered her limbs spasmodic; she clutched at him, nails digging in.
She pressed her mouth to any part of his bare skin she could find, screaming her ecstasy against it.
Keaton released her breast and pressed one of her hands against his manhood. She heard his breath come in panting gasps, sensed his approaching eruption, which was coming in lock-step with her own. Both sensed this, and as she put a hand over his mouth, he did the same thing.
Their cries of climactic pleasure were muffled as their bodies shuddered and tensed against each other. Then fell limp.