Page 30 of Elizabeth and Caroline
“Muddle through?”
He reached down and took her hand, twining their fingers together and that felt comforting and familiar, for they had walked so often with their hands joined. His voice was soft and deep. “It is not so very complicated.”
“Yes, well, I don’t have any notion of it, though,” she said. She shook her head. “No, I have some notion. I have been apprised of the mechanics of the—” She groaned, feeling her cheeks heat. “I only mean that if there is something I am supposed to be doing, I don’t know what it is.”
“I am supposed to be taking better charge,” he said, gently amused. “I am working myself up to it. I shall get there.”
“All right,” she whispered.
They looked into each other’s eyes for several long moments. He tugged on her hand and she let herself be pulled close, very close, so close that there was barely an inch between their bodies, so that the fabric of her shift and his banyan were slipping against each other.
“Should we kiss?” she said.
“Likely,” he said, chuckling a little. He lifted their twined hands and brought one of her knuckles to his mouth. He pressed his lips into it, a pleasant sort of warmth. “Perhaps you’ll take charge, then.”
“I can’t!” she protested. She ducked down her chin, her voice small. “I only mean that I don’t know how.”
“As it happens, I don’t either,” he said and then he bent his face down and captured her lips with his own.
The kiss was shockingly good, warm and slippery, and he let go of her hand to gather her into his arms and she pressed both of her hands into the warmth of his chest, feeling his firm skin beneath the thin layer of his undershirt.
His hands splayed out on her back, and they seemed so large, her own body so small. It was a dizzying sensation, but quite pleasant. She melted into him, her whole body feeling as if it was turning somewhat liquid.
The kiss went on for some time, not really one kiss but many, kisses that flowed into each other, one beginning as the other ended, and he crushed her tightly against him, and she seized handfuls of his shirt, his banyan, and he practically lifted her off her feet as they grew closer and closer.
When he finally pulled back to look down at her, she felt different, transported, flowing, somewhat insubstantial. His lips looked reddened from kissing her. She could see it even in the scant lamplight. He gazed down at her with such a look on his face, one of utter adoration and regard.
She gazed up at him, flooded with that insubstantial feeling, as if he was the one solid thing in the wide world, and as if she must cling to him to stay upright.
They moved across the room together, as if of one accord, neither communicating aloud their intention, but both seeming to know what they were about. He backed up, still holding her in his arms, until they arrived at the bed.
He sighed, reaching up to trace the outline of her jaw with one, thick finger, and then he sat down. She stayed standing, but he pulled her against him, bracketing her body with his spread legs. Eye level with the collar of her shift, he began to untie the lacings.
They were decorative. They didn’t need to be undone. She could pull the whole thing over her head without untying them.
But when he parted the garment to show himself the valley between her breasts, she liked it. He brushed his fingertips over the soft skin there, dipping down towards the softness of her belly. He still had that look of awe on his face.
A little shy smile overtook her features. She felt small and soft and utterly feminine, a feeling she realized she didn’t have often. Shewasfeminine, of course, but she was not used to beingthis, to being an object of desire and beauty, to being admired. It was heady and delicious.
Staring at her flesh, he shrugged out of his banyan, and then reached back with one hand and pulled his shirt over his head in a sort of absent movement, still gazing appreciatively at her.
His shoulders and chest were bare now, and she sucked in an audible breath at the sight of his bare skin, barely illuminated in the low light. The swells of the muscles in his shoulders were barely gleaming.
She felt a little off-balance. She put her hands on his shoulders to steady herself. Then, she liked the feeling of the way his flesh gave under her fingers and she began to explore, touching him, liking the way he was both firm and soft, bared and vulnerable and yet stronger than her, broader than her, more, well,male.
He looked up at her, and he gave her a mischievous sort of smile, boyish, like he had been given permission to do something forbidden but quite enjoyable, and then he moved aside part of her shift so that the sleeve fell away from her shoulder and bared one of her breasts to him.
The air kissed her bare flesh, and she gasped. He let out a hum of rumbling appreciation. Her body tightened at the sound of it. She liked that he was pleased at the sight of her.
He leaned in and pressed his mouth to the tip of her, kissing the sensitive peak, which hardened in response.
She sighed.
His hand came up to cup her. “God, but you’re lovely,” he breathed.
She shuddered at that.
He let go of her, leaning back on the bed, hands behind himself, propping him up as he gazed up at her, drinking in the sight of her. “Take it off?”
