Chapter Three #3
It was nothing like the chaste kisses she had read about in her mother’s approved novels, the gentle pressing of lips, the tender exchange of affection.
This was something else entirely. His mouth claimed hers with a hunger that stole her breath, his lips parting hers, his tongue sliding against her own in a way that made her gasp into him.
She had never been kissed. She had never imagined a kiss could feel like this, like drowning and flying at once, like her entire body was being remade by the pressure of his mouth on hers.
Her hands found his shoulders, his chest, the warm column of his neck. She did not know what she was doing, but her body seemed to know, seemed to arch toward him without conscious thought, seeking more contact, more closeness, more of whatever this devastating sensation was.
He groaned against her lips, a low, desperate sound that vibrated through her, and suddenly she was pressed against the garden wall, the stones cool against her back, his body hot against her front. The contrast made her shiver.
“Do you feel this?” he breathed against her throat, his lips tracing a path from her jaw to her collarbone. “Do you understand what you do to me?”
She did not understand. She understood nothing except that she was burning, that every place he touched ignited something beneath her skin, and that the ache inside her had become almost unbearable.
“William,” she gasped, and the name felt sacred in her mouth, forbidden and precious.
His hand slid down her side, over the curve of her waist, settling at her hip with a possessiveness that made her knees buckle. The thin fabric of her gown, her nightgown, she realised dimly, though she had been wearing a ball gown moments ago, offered no barrier to the heat of his palm.
“I have thought of nothing but you.” His voice was ragged, broken. “Every hour. Every moment. I close my eyes, and I see your face. I try to sleep, and I feel your hand in mine.”
“I thought…” She could barely form words. His mouth had found the hollow of her throat, and he was doing something there with his lips and tongue that made coherent thought impossible. “I thought you did this with everyone. That I was merely—”
“You are not merely anything.” He pulled back just enough to look at her, and his grey eyes were dark with something she did not recognise but responded to instinctively. “You are the only thing I have wanted in years that I cannot simply take.”
“Then take me.” The words emerged without permission, shocking her even as they left her lips. “I do not want to be safe. I do not want to be sensible. I want…”
She did not know how to finish the sentence. She did not have the vocabulary for what she wanted, only the ache of it, the hollow, desperate need that pulsed through her body like a second heartbeat.
He made a sound that was almost pained. “You do not know what you are asking.”
“Then show me.”
His mouth found hers again, hungrier this time, more demanding.
His hands moved over her body with purpose now, learning her curves through the thin cotton of her nightgown, mapping the territory of her waist and hips and the swell of her breasts.
When his palm brushed across her nipple, she cried out into his mouth, the sensation so sharp and unexpected that her whole body jerked.
“So responsive,” he murmured against her lips. “So perfect. Do you have any idea…”
His hand slid lower, gathering the fabric of her nightgown, drawing it up along her thigh. The night air kissed her bare skin, cool and startling, and she should have been ashamed, should have stopped him, but in the dream, there was no shame, only want.
His fingers found the bare skin above her stocking, and she heard herself whimper.
“Tell me to stop,” he breathed. “Tell me, and I will.”
She said nothing.
His hand moved higher.
The sensation that followed was unlike anything she had ever experienced, or ever imagined experiencing. His fingers found a place she had barely acknowledged existed, a place that was hot and slick and so sensitive that the lightest touch made her entire body seize with pleasure.
“Oh.” The sound that escaped her was barely human. “Oh, William.”
“Yes.” His voice was dark, triumphant, reverent all at once. “Yes, just like that. Let me…”
His fingers moved, stroking, circling, building something inside her that she did not understand but chased instinctively. Her hips rocked against his hand without her permission. Her head fell back against the garden wall. Her fingers dug into his shoulders hard enough to bruise.
“William.” His name was a desperate invocation. “William, I don’t, I can’t…”
“You can.” His lips found her ear, his breath hot against her skin. “You will. Let go, Eliza. Let me see you fall apart.”
The tension crested. Her body bowed like a drawn string. And then…
Release.
It crashed over her in waves, pleasure so intense it bordered on unbearable, radiating out from where his fingers still moved to consume her entirely.
She heard herself cry out, his name, or something wordless, she could not tell, and felt herself shatter against him, trembling and gasping and utterly, completely undone.
When the waves finally receded, she was boneless in his arms, her face pressed against his chest, his heart beating rapidly and hard beneath her cheek.
“My Eliza,” he murmured into her hair. “My impossible, magnificent girl.”
She looked up at him, and his grey eyes were soft in a way she had never seen, vulnerable, open, entirely without armour.
“What is this?” she whispered. “What is happening to us?”
He smiled, and it was not his wicked smile, not his practised charm. It was something real. Something true.
“I do not know,” he said. “But I find I do not wish to stop it.”
He lowered his mouth to hers…
And Eliza woke.