Page 111 of A Curse of Hope and Shadows: Part I
Adeline, Adeline, Adeline.
He wanted words, wanted to fasten what he was feeling to tangible form, but his mind was falling to pieces along with the rest of him, leaving little behind but a desperate, frantic need to have more of her.
Her fingers slid from his chest to around his neck, still murmuring softly when they parted for air, and then moved to his cheeks—
She jerked away.
“I can’t,” she whispered.
Dimitri dropped away, heart turning to lead, wishing he could melt into shadows. He clutched the cheek that had obviously disgusted her so. “Right,” he said shortly. “Of course. I understand.”
“No.” She grabbed his wrist, his furred one, in both hands, and did not let go. “It’s not because of that. It’s really, really not. I can’t because…”
She was surely searching for a lie, a way to spare his feelings.
“It’s not proper,” she finished.
He thought the lines between them blurred long ago. If she was happy to hold him, to sleep beside him, to share her thoughts and feelings and desires, to be the keeper of his own… was this really so much worse? “You’ve rarely cared, before.”
Adeline tensed. “There are some lines we shouldn’t cross.”
He wanted to argue. He wanted to insist that she was wrong, that it didn’t matter. He wanted to scream at her. He wanted to kiss her again, to melt back into that embrace.
But more than all of that, he didn’t want her to hate him. So he merely nodded his head, and tried to walk away. He couldn’t find the words for anything else.
“I’m sorry we can’t,” she said, as he reached the door. “But I’m not sorry we did.”
He paused, then, wondering what she meant, if it was another lie meant to appease him, soften the blow. Adeline would do anything to avoid hurting others.
Then kiss me again. Be with me. Stay with me.
He knew how much the words made him sound like a petulant child, and he didn’t want to fall down any further in her estimations.
“It’s late,” he managed, “I’ll see you in the morning.”
For days, weeks, months, he had imagined touching her like that. He’d imagined all sorts of terrible reactions, too.
And yet none of those imaginings had been able to cut into his chest so, with a pain so raw and visceral that it felt worse than all the transformations heaped together.
There was more than one way to break.
Chapter Twenty-Six: Memories of Touch
That night, sleep evaded Adeline like smoke across the water.
I kissed Dimitri. He kissed me.
His touch had been overpowering, overwhelming, a touch that turned reason to putty, unravelling, remaking. She’d abandoned all proprietary, all sense and logic.
His first kiss. You couldn’t tell. She’d felt more in that brief moment with him in the library than she’d felt in every kiss she’d ever shared with Jean. Maybe it had just been so long. Maybe all kisses were supposed to make you feel giddy and delirious.
She’d served unwed mothers before in her capacity as a midwife. There had been no judgement—her mother had nurtured that straight out of her, counselling empathy and acceptance—but there was a difference between acceptance and understanding. She’d never understoodhowthey could lose control of themselves, when she’d felt so little with Jean. She’d had only the faintest prickle of curiosity.
But she understood it now, how easy it could be to surrender to a moment, to sensation, to joy and pleasure and everything else that kiss ignited in her.
But she couldn’t do that with Dimitri. He was young, very young, and this sort of thing never ended well for the servants. Dismissal at best if they were discovered. At worst…
At worst she ended up with a baby in her belly. There were ways to prevent such a thing, but they were not foolproof, and often dangerous.
