“But he’d been her lens, you see. She saw the world through her love for him. And the fact that he put that expression on her face... that he made my mother feel likenothingshortly before she died...” His voice raised a little. He took a breath. “It’s that I can’t seem to forgive. And perhaps in order to bear it I must make him and his evil blue-blooded wife gravely uncomfortable for the rest of their lives.”
“Lucien...”
“You’re about to say something wise to make me think again, aren’t you? I forbid it. You have already contorted me into a somewhat better person.”
“But it’s a burden, don’t you think? To carry around these wrongs that can never quite be undone?”
There was a silence. He breathed in.
Breathed out.
“You are not wrong. It is indeed a burden. It just...” He gave a bleak laugh. “It just seems intolerable to live in a world where my mother’s life was treated as though it were of no consequence. I do not yet know how to bear that burden.”
He looked up at her. Rueful in his pain; sorry to burden her with it.
It cut her in two.
And she laid her hand gently against his cheek. It was an instinct, a reflex, to take away or share his pain. In that moment, it was intolerable he should suffer alone when she had comfort to give.
His hand came up and covered hers. Gently.
The silence was different now. Wary. Velvety. Fraught.
Their fingers, like flowers blooming in reverse, curled, then turned, then laced. Eyes averted, together they savored the meeting of their skin. She could feel her heart beating in her wrist.
Time seemed to elongate like honey dripped from a spoon.
He turned her hand over gently and pressed his lips to her palm.
She exhaled a shuddering breath. He turned his head to find she was there to meet him, and as his lips found hers she freed her hand and threaded it up through his hair to hold him.
It was hesitant at first, the kiss. Gentle. Tentative. As though they were kissing someone new. As though, somehow, if they were furtive they could claim no responsibility for what their lips were getting up to.
But as she laced her hand up through his hair, as their tongues met, and twined, she could feel his desperate, savage relief, a sound of pure want, hum in his throat; it was very nearly a sound of pain. He was shaking with a surfeit of need, or she was; she could not be certain. Perhaps they both were.We can’t we shouldn’t I musn’t.Her good sense wasn’t entirely mute but her senses were anarchists: her senses were greedy for him, and they were deaf to reason. The pleasure of kissing him—it seemed in the moment inconceivable she had ever denied herself the pleasure of this man. And as her head fell back into his hand he transformed the kiss into something so tenderly carnal and demanding. She felt it in the very soles of her feet, in every corner of her soul, until, when their lips parted for a moment for a breath, that breath she took was staccato.
Her eyes were still closed when Lucien’s hands lighted on her shoulders; he pushed the night robe from her so gently, so leisurely, that she could, at this point, pretend to herself that this wasn’t happening. And then unhurriedly, as if they weren’t doing this in the parlor of The Grand Palace on the Thames where anyone could conceivably come along at any time, so unhurriedly she could have at any point put a hand on his and said “no, stop,” he drew the ribbon at the throat of her night rail loose; she felt the cool air against her skin as it sagged loose.
And she opened her eyes when he tugged the soft linen down, down, down. She wanted to see his face now.
His exhale in a gust of wondering, pained pleasure. He buried his lips beneath her ear and filled his hands with her breasts, stroking with clever, delicate fingers, dragging thumbs over her nipples as hard as beads, and she heard her own breath as a roar. She didn’t dare say a word. His breath and tongue in her ear sent jagged filaments of bliss through her and she nearly sobbed from the pleasure.We can’t we shouldn’t I mustn’t.Anyone could come upon them at any time. They both knew it. The prospect ought to be mortifying.“Angelique,”he whispered right into her ear, turning every syllable into a rueful caress that banked her lust, her name a word synonymous with need, his voice shaking with desire, as if she’d bewitched him. As if only she could free him. Oh God oh God.
She reached for his trouser buttons.
They fell open with a tug or two. She reached in and closed her hand over his hard cock and stroked him, once, twice. He ducked his forehead into her throat, his breathing jagged, the tendons of his neck taut. She did it again and his head fell back hard with a stifled hiss of pleasure. She moved into his reaching arms until she was astride his thighs, and he grasped, with shaking, desperate hands, the hem of her night rail and furled it up and up, and slipped a hand between her legs, and she choked back a sob of pleasure. She may have whispered, half choked, “Please.”
And then she rose up so he could guide his cock into her. Her breath snagged on a moan in her throat.
“Christ... oh Christ...” he breathed.
The exquisite torture of moving slowly, slowly together. So as not to rock the chaise, which would likely sound like a goat trapped in a stall. The exquisite torture of this needing to be over quickly, because anyone could conceivably discover them at it. Staring awestruck down at him staring up at her, his eyes black with desire, hot, then as she moved over him, closed to endure the pleasure, the tendons of his neck taut. Her release was already bearing down on her, pressing at the seams of her very being, like a shivery river of sparks. Her breath came in swift ragged sobs as he gripped her hips and arched up to meet her, and she bit her lip hard to keep an animal keen of pleasure from escaping. He bucked his hips up to meet her as she came down hard. And in an instant, it was impossible to pace. She clung to his shirt with her fists as he gripped her hips as they collided, their skin slapping, and when his hand reached to stroke her hard where their bodies joined, her release was on her like a cataclysm. She arched backward as it struck and left her in smithereens of bliss. Wave after untenable wave of bliss shook her and she tipped forward, her face against his shoulder to smother her scream. She may have bit him.
His arms tightened on her to keep her from toppling and to drive himself to his release. He went rigid and somehow had the extraordinary presence of mind to pull from her as his release slammed into his body, and she covered his mouth with her forearm.
All was silent, apart from the soft gusts of breathing.
He buried his head against her breasts, heaving; he kissed one softly. She rested a hand on the back of his soft head, damp with sweat. They sat, for just a minute, like that, breathing in time, their bodies rising and falling, as though they’d been tossed onto the surface of a sea.
They did not yet look at each other.