Chapter Nine #2
She touched her fingers to her lips, remembering how he had kissed her.
He’d elicited a heady pleasure that had made her knees weak.
At once, she both wished he would do it again and hoped he wouldn’t.
The former because she’d twisted and turned in her narrow bed the previous night, imagining what other manner of scandalous things he would want to do with her, and the latter because he was a distraction.
She had never planned on marrying and had no need of a man, especially one who would only ever want her as a mistress.
Despite knowing he was paying her far more than she’d earn from plying her trade, her hands itched to return to her work.
“How is it?” he asked.
She stared at him. “What?”
He lifted one eyebrow and pointed to her hand, holding the nearly full glass. She hurriedly brought it to her lips and drained it, then set it down on the salver and turned back to the stage. “Exquisite.”
The lights dimmed then, and a hush came over the crowd.
She swallowed heavily and kept her hands clasped tightly in her lap.
But as the orchestra started up and the curtain came apart, she could not relax.
She normally would have enjoyed the experience, but instead, she fidgeted, wishing he would move or say something.
When an uneventful hour passed, she settled back in her seat with a resigned sigh.
It seemed the kiss in her shop had represented the extent of his interest.
Then he nudged her elbow. “Look, there.”
She followed his pointing finger to a box across from them and caught a flash of bare skin.
It couldn’t have been.
She put her forearms on the railing and peered closer before realizing she had opera glasses. The other box was close to the stage, so no one needed to know what she was looking at. She put the glasses to her face and gasped.
Two naked masked figures were twined together in amorous congress. The woman, wearing a mask of gold leaves, was on her knees. The man, who had a matching mask in silver, stood behind Gold with his hands clasped on her hips.
Kitty bit her lip but could not look away. Silver thrust with increasing speed, making Gold’s large breasts sway.
“Spectacular,” Cordon whispered.
Kitty’s pulse raced. Was that what he wanted? A single kiss in her shop did not mean she was ready to engage in such an act, especially in public.
Furthermore, how was no one raising a fuss? If she could see the figures, then others could too. But she heard no murmurs or gasps. It was as if the display she’d witnessed had been for her and Cordon alone.
“May I touch you?” he asked. “Bringing a woman pleasure in an opera box is an item on my list.”
The bubbling inside her that had started with the champagne intensified, and she answered without thinking. “Yes.”
A hand landed on her thigh right above her knee. The position of their seats suddenly made sense. They would be far less visible than the couple in silver and gold.
She swallowed thickly but moved her own hands out of her lap to drape over the seat, giving him more access. With all the layers of her skirt, she felt only the slightest pressure of his fingers creeping toward the part of her that wanted his touch most of all.
“Shall I continue?” he whispered.
The actors flitted across the stage as they sang, while the crowd below watched, unaware of what was happening above them.
That risk, that danger, only made Kitty more excited. She nudged her legs apart and tilted her head back. “Yes.”
His questing fingers reached her hip and paused at her thick outer dress.
“I had not thought this through,” he said. “May I move you to my lap?”
Her head pounded as she imagined draping her legs on either side of him and leaning against his chest, wrapping her arms around him, bringing their mouths together.
She licked her suddenly dry lips. “Yes.”
Then he lifted her and she landed atop him, with her legs to one side, as if she were riding a horse.
God, this was so dangerous. Not only because of the crowd, but also the people sitting in the other boxes.
If any of them turned their opera glasses, they might catch a very different show than that which they’d paid for.
That thrill made heat curl into a tight ball in her abdomen, and when he touched her ankle, she startled.
He chuckled. “So eager.” He pressed his nose into her throat. “I like it.”
Oh, God, what was she doing? She wasn’t innocent, but she was an unmarried woman, and a dressmaker, not a member of the demimonde. But as his chilly fingers curled around her ankle and moved up her shin, she realized that nothing else mattered as long as he continued to touch her.
“I want to kiss you,” he whispered.
She tilted her head. There was something odd about his voice, like his mouth was full, and his irises were once again a bright blue.
That should have been important, but then he captured her lips, and all rational thought disappeared.
She touched her tongue with his, matching him stroke for stroke.
Sitting in his lap, his arm wrapped around her back, his fingers sliding along the soft skin of her inner thighs, she felt as if she would come apart at any moment.
He drew back, pressed a kiss to her cheek, then more down to her neck, until he was nuzzling and suckling the tender flesh of her shoulder.
His fingers were doing remarkable things beneath her skirts, too, although his feather-light caresses weren’t nearly enough.
She squirmed, wanting more pressure but unsure how to ask.
“Is this what you want?” he whispered.
She moaned. “More.”
He touched her entrance with one finger while rubbing slow circles over her sensitive bud.
Then something sharp pierced her neck, as if he’d jabbed her with the tines of a fork.
It should have hurt, but the pain amplified her pleasure, and she came apart so powerfully, her toes curled.
When she returned to herself, he was watching her with eyes that were back to a warm brown and smirking.
“What about you?” she asked.
The bulge of his erection was pushing insistently into her bottom.
He licked his lips. “Not here. I am already quite… satisfied.” Then he kissed her again, but there was something strange about his mouth. She clasped his face in her hands and touched his upper lip, where there were two distinct bulges. “What is wrong with your teeth?”
His throat worked. He grabbed her hands, kissed her knuckles, then grinned, revealing a set of perfectly normal, if unusually white, teeth.
“I apologize,” she said. “I thought I saw…” She rubbed her oddly tender neck but felt nothing wrong. “It doesn’t matter.”
She returned to her seat but spent the rest of the performance wondering why their last kiss had tasted very different from the others.