Chapter 5 #2
That was the first time Simone had ever called her by her first name. And the way she said it, like her tongue was rolling around every syllable. Caroline forced herself to nod and knew it was jerky and as unsteady as her knees.
“But—but that’s not why it’s different,” Caroline managed to choke out. She had to stay on task. “Arabella has taken plenty of men to bed, I’m not a fool no matter what you think of me. It’s different because she feels more.”
Simone licked her lips. Caroline found herself tracking the action, her hands shaking at the flash of pink tongue over wet lips. Why did that make her tremble?
“Does she?” Simone asked, her voice softer now, less harsh. “And how do you know that?”
“I have eyes in my head,” Caroline whispered, and wished she sounded more indignant. “It’s the way she…she flutters when she speaks of him. Like some kind of electric current is between them even if he’s not in the room.”
“An electric current,” Simone said, and took another step closer.
Now they were too close and Caroline couldn’t breathe as Simone reached out and took her hand. There was the same electric current she’d described a moment before, that flutter she saw on Arabella’s face. Why was it moving through her? Why was the room too close and too hot?
“Simone?” she whispered, uncertain what she was asking for. Explanation? Release? Or something else? Something darker and hotter and more terrifying than anything she’d ever wanted in her entire life.
Simone nodded, like she was answering the question, and then the hand that wasn’t holding Caroline’s came up to cup her face.
She leaned into Simone’s soft fingers without meaning to, her entire body reacting to that touch.
It had been so long since another person touched her and the last person to do so had been one she wanted to avoid at all costs.
This was something entirely different. This was like a moth to a flame or a magnet unable to be stopped from flying to its opposite pole. It was undeniable and so she didn’t deny it even when Simone let out a soft sigh and began to lower her lips to Caroline’s.
Even when Simone kissed her.
It was gentle at first, just a featherlight touching of lips.
Something she might have been able to lie to herself about later and say was only friendly.
But she didn’t want it to be friendly, she knew that in the deepest recesses of her heart, and she lifted her hands to steady herself on Simone’s forearms as she parted her lips slightly.
It was an invitation she had made and Simone took it with so much passion that Caroline instantly felt like she was being swept under by it. Simone’s tongue slipped past her lips and they tangled together with a desperation and desire Caroline had never before allowed herself to feel.
Simone crushed her against her, fingers gripping against Caroline’s spine as she lifted to make herself closer, to fit herself more perfectly, into the arms of this woman she had dreamed about for years without allowing herself to admit it.
Now she wanted more, wanted things she couldn’t even imagine but her body ached for them.
“Please,” she murmured against Simone’s lips.
Simone slowed the kiss without breaking it and her hands stopped gripping so tightly.
Caroline followed suit, tilting her head so that the kiss could become deeper and reveled in the taste of this woman.
She was sharp like the whisky she’d been drinking, but also tasted sweet beneath it all.
Her lips were so full and soft and lovely, Caroline found herself wanting to explore them for as long as possible.
She found herself wondering what they might feel like skimming across her skin in other places.
And her scent. She’d been close to Simone before, but never this close. She smelled like wildflowers, something plucked from a garden. Caroline wanted to drown in that smell, let it wash over her in a bath until it lingered on her permanently.
Simone was backing her up, she realized, back toward the settee and she didn’t fight her as they eased back together on the cushions.
Simone covered her partly, hands now sliding down her sides, feeling the shape of her beneath her dress.
She arched beneath that touch, moaning softly and blushing when she realized she was making that sound for Simone.
Simone laughed against her lips but didn’t stop kissing, just arched a little into her, rubbing her dangerously exposed breasts against Caroline’s properly covered ones.
It was intoxicating to be like this, to let herself be swept away by this woman. She would have let it go further, would have lost herself entirely but at that moment there was a light knock on the door across the room.
She jolted and pushed Simone away before she flew to her feet and across the room to the window where she fought to catch her breath. She could feel Simone watching her, but refused to look back.
At last, Simone said, “Yes?”
Through the door, Simone’s butler said, “Miss Arabella Comerford.” Then he cracked the door slightly.
Simone sucked in a sharp breath, but her voice sounded calm as she said, “Oh. Yes. Well, have her come in.”
Caroline shook her head and smoothed her hands over her skirt. Arabella would see. She would know. Not from Simone, who now appeared as calm as ever, but because Caroline couldn’t. What she’d done and how she’d felt when it happened had to be written on every line of her face.
Arabella entered the room and of course she looked at Caroline first. Her eyes widened in surprise as she looked toward Simone, now on her feet before the settee where she’d just changed every part of Caroline’s existence.
“Simone,” Arabella said, and crossed so they could kiss each other’s cheeks. Then she turned on Caroline, her brows knitting together in further confusion. “And Aunt Caroline. I…I admire I’m shocked to find you here. I didn’t realize you and Simone shared tea.”
Further panic rushed through Caroline, but she reached up and smoothed her hair a little. She could do this. “I—we don’t. Or we didn’t. Not often at any rate. I just wanted to talk to her about—”
“Gracious, Caroline, don’t give yourself an apoplexy,” Simone said smoothly. “Your aunt and I share something in common, our care for you and your sisters. We bumped into each other at Mr. Mattigan’s bookshop and decided to have tea. I’m not sure one should say they are shocked to see us together.”
It was a good lie. Over the years she and Simone had seen each other at Mattigan’s a few times. Truth be told, Caroline was often disappointed when she entered the bookshop and didn’t find Simone there.
“Well, I’m happy for you two to be friends,” Arabella said. “To have you both looking out for us is a very powerful idea.”
“Yes,” Caroline said. She had to get out of this room, away from Arabella’s far too seeing stare and also the swirl of confusing feelings and desires still crashing into her from Simone’s kiss.
“But it seems you have something to discuss with Simone…with Miss Stanhope, and I think it’s best I not be involved in the details of your arrangements.
I’ll excuse myself.” She glanced toward Simone and for a moment their eyes met.
All at once, the desire returned, as inappropriate as it was to feel it.
She had to force herself to say, “Thank you for—for today.”
“It was my pleasure,” Simone said with a smile, perhaps the first one since Caroline’s arrival. “May I escort you to the door?”
Caroline did want her to escort her to the door. She wanted to talk to her and perhaps kiss her again in the foyer. But that was wildly wrong and inappropriate and exactly the way one got caught doing something they certainly shouldn’t have done. “No, I’m fine. I can find my way. Good afternoon.”
She fled the room then without the backward glance she so wanted to give.
Somehow she found the voice to ask for her carriage and when it arrived she threw herself inside.
Only when she was alone did she dare to touch her cheeks and lips, somehow expecting them to be different somehow after such Simone had touched them so intimately.
This was unlike anything she’d ever done before, ever wanted before. It wasn’t something ladies did…was it? In her world, a woman was expected to marry a man and produce his heirs like a broodmare and then settle into comfortable despair.
But Simone had kissed her and it didn’t feel like any of that at all. It felt like the electric pleasure she’d heard her nieces describe when they spoke of lovers, or her friends who actually liked their husbands. It felt…natural to her.
But it couldn’t be. What had just happened had to be some kind of game to Simone, didn’t it?
A lark at best, a cruel amusement at worse?
Something meant to make her head spin just as it was at this moment and question everything she’d ever wanted or dreamed of or secretly suppressed.
Whatever it was, it left her shaking and achy and more confused than she’d ever been in her life.
And she feared one couldn’t be unchanged after such a thing. That it wasn’t possible she could ever be the same again.