Chapter 19
Shaking her head, Cecilia felt herself tap her opposite arm three times before she walked forward. With the way the instrument was placed, Cassian was facing them, and she came close enough that she could catch his eyes.
When she met his eyes, she mouthed, what in heavens are you doing?
His brow ticked up as he slammed on a note that made her wince.
His smirk was more directed to her than anyone around them, and while Cecilia admired his ability to make a fool of himself, she felt deep down that he was making sure to be so horrible that whatever she did after him would be incredible—and that warmed her.
A soft, tender emotion unfurled in her heart.
She shook her head and stepped on the dais, then gently rested her hand on his shoulder, stopping him.
“I think it’s best if I take over from here, Cassian,” she said calmly. “I appreciate your enthusiasm, but you’ve scarred enough eardrums, dear, mine included.”
A smattering of genuine laughter came from the crowd as Cassian stood, took her hand, and kissed the back of it. Angling her body to put her mouth to her ear, she whispered, “Thank you.”
Seated, she cast through her mind to find a fitting song as she rested her hand gently on the keys. There was no use in denying it. Her fingers fell naturally into Mozart's, The Marriage of Figaro, sonata. It had been one of the first pieces Mr. Portland, her tutor, had taught her.
So immersed was she in the light, beautiful melody and in her own thoughts that she did not swim to the present until she tapped the last key on the pianoforte and the final note reverberated through the room.
It took a mere breath before enthusiastic applause rang out from the room, and someone asked for an encore. Obliging, Cecilia followed with a Beethoven sonata that went on for longer than her first song. That, too, gained more applause at the end.
Flushed with the admiration, Cecilia took Cassian’s arm as she stepped down. Briefly, she caught the Dowager’s smile and nod, which only made the heat in her face blaze.
“That look was veritably conspiratorial,” Cassian murmured in her ear. “Do I need to barricade my door tonight?”
“If you had not before, you needn’t tonight,” Cecilia smiled. She looked around and found that Lady Catherine was not present, but resolved to visit her in the next day or two. “Did you enjoy tonight?”
“It was middling,” Cassian replied as they donned their coats and stepped out into the bracing night air to wait for their carriage. “Well, if you counted the lords not fully meeting me in the eyes or insinuating that I am some back-alley dog willing to launch into a bare-knuckle fight.”
“Are you not?” Cecilia asked as they stepped into the carriage.
“I am,” he shrugged a single shoulder. “But I don’t care enough to give them the impression it matters to me.”
As the carriage went off, she added, “Thank you for taking the attention off me when Lady Rainsville asked me to play,” she puffed out a breath. “I don’t know why I was so taken aback by a simple request.”
“Once again, you burden yourself with the opinions of others,” Cassian replied.
Her lips curved, “Something you have made into an artform. But again, thank you—” She paused as the idea that sprang to her mind felt utterly scandalous, but felt to be exactly the sort of thing Cassian was needling her to do.
Be spontaneous.
Before she could overthink it, Cecilia slid from her seat across him and straddled his lap. Cassian’s left brow shot up while his hands dropped on her hips. “What is your plan here, Cecilia?”
“I thought maybe a verbal thank you might not be enough,” Cecilia breathed.
Resting her hands on his shoulders, she molded herself against him at the same time as she slanted her lips across his. Brazenly, she licked against his lips, feeling strange for being the initiator—but the power was heady.
Cassian followed her lead patiently, allowing her to do as she wanted while she felt his tightly restrained urge to take over. Pulling away, she whispered an inch from his mouth. “You think I am doing this wrong, don’t you?”
“Not necessarily,” Cassian’s hand snuck up her back to wrap around her nape. “There are a few things you can work on, but—”
His lips found hers again, and then instantly, her tongue twined with his in a molten dance. This was precisely what she needed, and she let herself melt into him. He knew without words what she felt, what her breathy sighs and unconscious movements conveyed.
Cassian let his mouth wander from her mouth to her neck, licking and nibbling his way down her throat. She squirmed in his lap, and he groaned as the curve of her derrière pressed snugly against his filling length.
He flicked his tongue against the throbbing pulse at the junction of her neck and collarbone. She gasped, her neck arching to the left, giving him more access.
He obliged her, his mouth sealed over the spot, sucking hard while a hand snuck between them and cupped her breast. Heat sizzled under her skin, pooling in her breastbone and belly; dimly, Cecilia realized she was rocking on his lap.
Cassian hissed softly. In her ear, he murmured, “Stop asking for what you cannot handle, sweetheart.”
Before she could categorize the sudden shift, she felt Cassian pluck the earrings out and gently deposit them on her original seat. Reeling, she watched as he dropped the jewels back into their soft suede pouch and tucked them into his inner pocket.
He met her wondering gaze. “Only safeguarding them until we get home. They are very expensive.”
She could not make heads or tails of Cassian’s confusing actions; did he not want her as he had made many references to in the past?
“Cassian…” she hesitated. What did she want to say? What did she need to tell him? What did he want? Once again, she opened her mouth, but the words would not come out. Resigned, she sagged back into her seat, “…you confuse me.”
She heard the regret—and frustration?—in his low sigh. “That is not my intention.”
Stepping out of his bathing room, Cassian ruffled his damp hair and peeled his robe away. Clad only in a pair of loose trousers, he doused the lamp on his end table and flung the drapes wide to let the moonlight in.
Atticus, his faithful companion, padded to his side and nosed at his knee, and Cassian sank to the side of his bed. Hunching over, he braced his elbows on his knees and rubbed the hound’s ears.
“I wish I had such simple desires like you,” he murmured, “Eat, sleep, sniff a female in heat and excise the call of nature to propagate your breed. You’re not bogged down with emotions and feelings—” he paused, “—or maybe you are, but you do not process it the same way I do.”
The hound only tilted his head up, craving more scratches, fully oblivious to what Cassian was saying.
“You are not burdened with responsibility to people who look to you for help,” he said. “Nor do you have to wrestle with unexpected feelings for a woman you promised to love in name only.”
Something prickled on the side of his neck, and Cassian realized he was being watched—and not by another set of canine eyes either. Belatedly, he remembered asking his butler to carry in a bottle of brandy after his bath.
He grunted, “How much of that did you hear, Andrews?”
“Not much,” his staid butler intoned. “Only the part I suspected.”
He stood and took the bottle. “Not a word.”
“My lips are sealed, Your Grace,” Andrews promised.
Narrowing his eyes in suspicion, Cassian asked, “Did you receive a reply from Mr Douglas?”
“Not yet,” Cassian replied. “But I am sure your man-of-business will reply promptly.”
With a smile that Cassian did not trust, Andrews bowed out of the room, and Cassian poured out a glass. He swallowed half of the glass, reveling in the warmth that spread through his body.
Atticus padded over to the rug near the fire, and he settled down to sleep just as Cassian gravitated to his bed. Resting the cup on the end table, he sat up against the headboard and considered the situation he was in.
He cared for Cecilia.
He felt protective of her.
He desired her deeply. He wanted her—but he knew he could not have her. Not the way he wanted.
“And she still has not told me what she wants me to do to her,” he muttered while reposing on the pillows.
Without the fog and smoke that always seemed to blanket London, clear moonlight streamed through a part in the curtains and caused shadows to frolic on the ceiling.
Between the brisk wind fluttering through the room and the drugging effects of the brandy, he was falling asleep—but then his door pushed open.
Hazily, he peeled his eyes open and spotted Cecilia, lingering at his doorway. She was clad in a frilly white wrapper, over a gossamer silk nightrail, and her hair was pinned away from her face.
He did not say a word as she came closer, then wordlessly lifted the covers so she could slip in beside him. He turned his head. “Couldn’t sleep?”
She worried her bottom lip, “No. And I cannot stop worrying that I did something wrong tonight.”
Cassian rolled his neck. “What could you possibly have done wrong?”
Cecilia turned on her side and brazenly slid a leg up his to rest her knee just under his manhood. “When you kissed me in the carriage, I felt you. You were just as aroused as I was.”
He did not move. “Did you expect more?”
“Yes,” she admitted quietly.
He lifted a brow, “What did you want, Cecilia?”
Lifting on an elbow, she said, “I want to pleasure you how you have pleasured me.”
Mirroring her pose, Cassian grabbed under her knee and pulled her leg higher to hook over his waist. “And how do you plan on doing that?”
She kissed him, and instantly, he rolled onto his back so she straddled him. He plucked the pins out of her hair and buried his hands in her locks as the kiss went on.