Chapter Nine #2
His gaze flickered to her lips. “I think I might be obsessed. Will you read my note?”
“Oh!” She jumped to her feet. “You are a scoundrel. If you think you can use this morning against me—”
“I’m not against you.” He sat up straighter, his eyes clearing. “I’m with you. I want to help.”
He wanted control . That, an entirely different thing. “Will you interview for footmen tomorrow? A butler?”
He shook his head. “I’ve sent to London for those.”
She paced across the room, as far from him as she could get.
“I will not be here to protect you, so I’ve made arrangements to hire fellows who can. Mrs. Dove-Lyon’s inspired the idea.”
Oh no. “What idea?” She braced herself for a blow.
“Former soldiers and boxers, bruisers who know how to throw a punch. The intimidating sort.”
“No! Felix.” He’d hired big, violent beasts of men who very well might terrify the women Hawthorne was meant to protect, to soothe and support. “I did not agree to that.”
He shrugged. “It’s done. They should arrive any day now. And, lucky you, when they arrive, I’ll leave.”
She crossed the room.
And flicked him on the forehead.
“Ow!” He rubbed the spot. “What was that for?”
“For being so highhanded!” She’d resorted to such punishments often when they were children.
She couldn’t wallop the boy in the wheelchair, even when he deserved it.
So she’d flicked him instead. On the forehead, the ear, the end of the nose.
He’d always looked at her just like that, too—shocked, angry, a bit befuddled.
She’d unbefuddle him. “You do not mean to stay here, so you cannot shape here to your expectations.”
And also a little bit because… he was leaving. And soon. She should glory in the knowledge.
She didn’t feel a bit glorious about it.
His arm shot around her waist before she could move away, and he tumbled her into his lap. “It is because I will not be here that I am shaping it, Caro.”
For a moment, she could not move, could only stare at the hard lines of his face, the tortured blue of his eyes. Same as they’d been as a boy.
She allowed herself to melt, for the boy who had been her friend.
And she wrapped her arms around his neck, for the man who held her tightly. And a little bit for herself as well.
He kissed the top of her head then lifted her chin, slipped his hand behind her neck. “Read your note.”
It was warm in her pocket, and when she pulled it out, her heart began a manic rhythm.
The ribbon he’d wrapped around it—the same one she’d put about his wrist days ago.
When she untied it, he slipped it through her fingers, putting it into his pocket.
Oh. It should not make her feel so warm and lovely to know her ribbon rested there. But it did.
Hands shaking, she unfolded the note. There was his handwriting—bold and sloped, messy yet strong.
Dear Friend,
It is likely too much to ask, but I had hoped you might not mind kissing me. If you are favorably inclined to my request, meet me in an hour’s time behind the stables. I should very much like my next kiss to be from you.
Yours,
Felix
It was almost identical to the note she’d given him all those years ago. Only hers had asked for a first kiss, not a next kiss. He remembered.
So she did what he’d failed to do back then.
She kissed him. A short thing, long enough only to answer his missive. And then she said, “Do we have to wait an hour?”
“God, no.”
Absolute folly.
She didn’t care.
He kissed her like she alone could rouse him, like she was a light he was following out of the dark. When he stopped, it was only to moan her name. Or, something like it.
“Caro-mine.” Then he settled himself in for a longer taste, and she let him.
Why not let him? Kisses were a husband’s due and a wife’s pleasure, and she found herself quite willing.
Eager.
Clutching at his cravat and pulling him closer, closer, as his kiss deepened.
Breathing difficult, thinking impossible.
Their kiss this morning had shown her the difference between the boy, her friend, and the man, her husband.
This one took the attraction, the desire that had curled to life inside her then like a bit of smoke before a spark and flamed it into an inferno.
Her body came to life with pulsing need. She ended the kiss, their lips parting with a wet pop, but he wouldn’t release her.
“I need to think.” She struggled, weakly, not even half-heartedly, to escape his arms of iron, the bar of iron, hardening beneath her backside.
“Done with thinking,” he growled. He took her lips again, and God help her, she took his, learning quickly how to slant and open and lick, how to nibble and tease and give as good as she got.
And what she got was very good, especially when his hands began to wander.
Fingertips tracing across her ribs as if he were playing an instrument, then splaying flat like his palm could shape her.
His thumb hot across her pebbled nipple, stroking, teasing.
His other hand venturing lower, gathering skirts so that the air coursed across her stockings.
He liked those, groaning as he ran a hand up her calf, over her knee, across her inner thigh.
At the center of her legs, his other thumb did clever things, too.
“Has any man touched you like this?” The demand hot in her ear.
“No.” She’d gotten close. A fellow in Edinburgh once. He’d left her cold.
Felix left her needing distance from her clothes. Too hot.
Felix didn’t leave her at all, this hand tight on her thigh, his thumb stroking her folds, probing into her curls, and discovering that place where she pulsed—the rising star he’d brought to blazing life in her. So needy for him so quickly. And he knew it.
“Having trouble breathing, Caro?”
“ Uhn .”
A chuckle. “How close are you, do you think?”
Terribly close to that bolt of pleasure she’d discovered years ago. Thank God her father and stepmother believed in education of a biological nature for young women. Certain types of books were wonderfully informative.
Now, so terribly close. He’d already stoked her need this morning, and she’d been ignoring the frustrating siren call of it since then.
No ignoring it now. He circled and stroked, and it should not take so little, but…
“Ah—” She cried out and his mouth captured hers. He held her as she fell apart.
A knock on the door.
“Not again,” he groaned.
Not right now! She wanted to sink into Felix’s chest and enjoy the liquid languor of the moment.
Another knock.
It woke her up, and even though he still held her like a miracle in the hands of a man who never expected one, she left his lap.
Are you sure? That, her body, yearning for him.
But it’s so nice. That, her lips. They still tingled.
But we can’t remember how to work. That, her legs. And her arms. And, oh yes, her brain too.
She sat next him as the door shook with yet another knock. “My lady?” Polly called from the other side.
“Give us a moment,” Caroline said.
“There’s another applicant. Just arrived.”
“Bloody hell.” Felix shifted, clearly uncomfortable as he rearranged the bulge in his trousers.
“Just a moment more, then we’ll see her,” Caroline said.
Grumbling from the other side of the door, then silence.
Felix looked ready to murder the door. “I dislike your maid.” He rolled his shoulders in big circles, stretching his neck from side to side. He’d clearly not slept well on the marble last night. “Not too late for you, though.” He grinned then, looking supremely pleased.
Irritation drained from his face, he popped an eyebrow up and cupped her cheek. “Do you think we have time for one more…” He leaned closer, gaze hazy yet focused on her lips.
“No. But we have time for a question.”
He rolled away from her. “Very well.”
“What are we going to do about this?”
“About what? This?” He traced a single finger down the length of her arm.
Focus, Caroline. “Precisely that.”
“There are lots of things to do about it. Should I make a list? Ah, a plan perhaps.”
Yes, a plan. She had an excellent one. “We should not give in to our urges.”
The half smile that popped his dimple into existence seemed more feral than happy. It had teeth, sharp and menacing. “Wrong plan, Caro.”
“I think you’re playing with me.” He must be. “You want me to think for some reason you’ve always…” Her cheeks felt like coals. “Liked me. But you cannot have. I made you pay for sending the footman.”
“You slapped me well for it.”
“You deserved it.”
“I did.” A mask fell over his face, hiding whatever he might be feeling. “But I’m telling the truth now.”
“And why do that?” Unless to manage her in some way. Get her back to London.
One of his hands, softly curled, seemed to be everywhere on her, sliding up and down her arm in a gentle caress, tracing the high bodice of her gown, parting the curls at her nape.
His gaze followed his hand, caressing her equally.
Oh, the heat was high in her cheeks, and the breaths short in her chest.
“Because,” he said with a sigh, “we are married. Why not? There is much to do that will not result in a child. And… I like kissing my friend. I like helping you out of your grief. I wish you would let me.”
Always he came back to that—her grief. She missed her father, but Hawthorne was not about him. Not really. Not… mostly. If Felix knew her true mission, would he want to help her still?
Holding his gaze, trying to figure out just by the blue of his eyes, she called out, “We’ll see the applicant now, Polly.”
Felix scowled as the door eased open.
Polly appeared, a smirk curling her lips. “The two of you decent? Ah, that’s good. Thought I’d make sure.”
“You’ve the devil’s own timing, Miss Polly,” Felix said, crossing his arms over his chest, a muscle in his jaw, ticking his displeasure.
Polly smirked and opened the door wider, then the small, bird-like Mrs. Smith—wife of the bearish boor who’d been hired to fix the windows—stepped in, and she looked as if she’d been crying.