Chapter 63 The Thaw #2
I turned toward the windows. The frost there pulsed faintly, alive, like veins under skin. The mansion’s many eyes watched me in silence. I thought of Temperance’s laughter, of the way her presence filled the emptiness between heartbeats, and I knew what she wanted.
What I wanted.
I slid the shirt from my shoulders and stood, shivering, before the line of windows.
The air bit at me, each breath leaving a faint halo of frost that hung for a heartbeat before vanishing.
I could feel Temperance even though I could not see her, the weight of her gaze moving over me like smoke that had gained the ability to touch.
My long hair fell across my back, heavy and still slightly damp from the bath, like a dark veil clinging to my skin.
I crossed the room toward the bed, the floorboards moaning beneath my bare feet.
The quilts were chilly against my thighs as I lay down.
I did not pull the covers over me. I wanted her to see me as I was: unguarded and desperate.
The cold gathered in the corners of the room, listening. It moved closer until the air itself seemed to hum. I closed my eyes and let the sound of the wind replace the thundering pulse of myheartbeat in my ears.
“Do you see me?” I whispered to the ceiling. My eyes were half lidded as I gazed up, and I undulated my nude body against the cool fabric, relishing in the soft touch.
The air answered with a sigh, a low hum that rippled through the room.
Candlelight trembled on the walls, shadows swelling and collapsing like lungs.
The curtains stirred. I could feel her near, like an invisible current tracing the curve of my ribs, the hollow of my throat, the slope of my hip.
Every inch of me prickled with awareness as the ache of want became agonizing.
The tension of potential existed between us, and we hovered on that chasm of possibility, with one foot floating midair over the edge.
The longing grew heavy and unbearable. My body was a storm barely contained within skin, fever and frost meeting at the brinkof every breath. The air thickened until it felt like her hands were all around me, the temperature shifting wherever her unseen presence lingered.
I drew my hand across my chest, feeling gooseflesh ripple in itswake.
I traced a finger along the hollow of my throat before dipping it into my mouth and wetting it, moaning around the digit.
I had known what it was to be touched by men, but never what it meant to belong to myself.
It was different. It was heady, ungoverned, a kind of desire that did not ask permission.
And it was wholly mine. The power of it startled me, a rush that made my body move before my mind could catch up, hips lifting as if answering some ancient rhythm as my fingertips traced my hip bone.
I let the feeling take me: the trembling, the hunger that had nothing to do with flesh and everything to do with being seen—truly, finally, and without fear.
My breath deepened, caught,intensified once more, and something inside me loosened.
My pulse spread outward, echoing through the room, syncing with the rhythm of the wind against the windows.
Finally, I spread my thighs and bared myself to the chilly air, to Temperance, and to my wandering hands. The first brush of my cold fingertip over hot flesh made me jolt and moan loudly.
I was wet, wetter than I had expected to be.
It had slipped down and dripped onto the bedspread, building a puddle of my arousal.
I slid my fingers through the slick mess, reveling in it, before dragging it up to my clit.
With two fingers and firm pressure, I steadily circled the small, sensitive bud.
I sighed into the pleasure.
The first spark of sensation was startling in its gentleness.
It spread through me like heat waking in winter wood, slow and deliberate, claiming each inch of skin.
The sound that left me was not shame but relief, the voice of someone remembering her own name.
I hadn’t known what pleasure felt like for years.
What had passed for it before was performance, a survival instinct dressed up as intimacy.
Men had taken, and I had learned to go still beneath the taking. But this—this was mine.
For the first time, I wasn’t performing. I wasn’t enduring. I was feeling freely, fiercely. Each breath came with a shiver that seemed to belong to both of us. Temperance was there, unseen but certain, her presence pressing against my every exhale, her approval shimmering in the windows.
This was what it meant to take myself back, to be seen by onlyher, and to find holiness in my own undoing. The world outside vanished. The snow. The house. The grief. All of it fell away until there was only the sound of my breath and the quiet, reverent pulse of allowing myself to feel this.
When I fell over the cliff, my body shaking with more than the cold, it was equally tender and overwhelming.
The candlelight trembled. Cold wrapped around my ankles, climbed my thighs, and spread across my stomach in a delicate, deliberate chill that left gooseflesh in its wake.
I closed my eyes and exhaled. It felt like she was drawing the fever from me, gathering every tremor and fear and turning them into something sacred.
“Tomorrow,” I said aloud, still breathless.
For the first time since I’d arrived, I wasn’t afraid of dying.
After basking in the afterglow for a moment, I blew out all the candles, plunging the room into darkness. The window’s frost glowed faintly, and in that pale light, I could see her standing within the pane, waiting.
Tomorrow, I would open the door.
And I would not return.