Page 42 of Ladies in Hating
Georgiana shivered under Cat’s hand. Her skin was inexpressibly fine, softer than the silk of her gown, and warm, and trembling.
Cat brushed her fingers beneath Georgiana’s ear, and Georgiana made a tiny raw noise, almost a moan.
Cat had been on the verge of something—decision, action, a hot and reckless plunge—and that hoarse, wanting sound swept her over the edge. She nudged her fingers into Georgiana’s hair and pulled Georgiana’s mouth down to her own.
She kissed Georgiana. And—
Oh God. Georgiana kissed her back. Georgiana’s lips were soft, and her hands came, very gently, to Cat’s waist.
Cat heard herself make a little sound against Georgiana’s mouth, and she slid her hand down Georgiana’s back to tug her closer.
She wanted more. She wanted Georgiana’s lips parted, wanted the taste of her, wanted to feel every inch of her skin. She dropped the journal, heard it fall, and could not bring herself to care about anything except the warmth of Georgiana’s body through silk.
Georgiana’s mouth came open over Cat’s. Slowly, deliciously, the kiss changed: softer, hotter, wetter, deeper.
Somehow, Georgiana’s kiss was demand and plea at once. A sweet and urgent thrill passed over Cat’s skin as Georgiana lickedat her lips, then sucked, then bit. The artless greed of it was the most erotic thing Cat had ever felt, and when Georgiana’s hands began to move across her body, she had to cling to restraint with both hands.
She wanted. God, she had wanted Georgiana for days—not just the week they’d been at Renwick House, but from the first moment she’d seen her in an alley behind Belvoir’s.
And Georgiana was hungry for her too. Georgiana’s hands and mouth told the same story:I want you; please let me; don’t stop.
Cat’s body was flushed and sensitive, and the urgent pressure of Georgiana’s hands pulled desire taut inside her. She could feel the slim bones of Georgiana’s ribs beneath her dressing gown, and she wanted to slide her palm to where the garment parted, slip her fingers beneath it and find Georgiana’s skin.
But then—slowly, thickly—the barking of a dog penetrated the carnal haze in Cat’s mind.
She tried to breathe. She pulled back from Georgiana’s body, all heated silk and dark woods scent, and felt her stomach pitch at the loss of contact between them.
Georgiana’s eyes blinked open, slow and heavy. Her pupils were wide, and her mouth was a long, elegant curve, flushed and wet from Cat’s own.
“Your—dog,” Cat said. She tried to steady herself. “Do you hear that? Is that—Bacon?”
Georgiana blinked again, a delicate sweep of those pale lashes casting shadows on her cheeks. And then—
And then her whole body went stiff. Closed in on itself—pulled away from Cat, somehow, though she did not seem to move.
“Yes,” she said, “that’s Bacon. I”—she looked around, almostfearfully, as though she were trapped in the room—“I should go, I have to—”
Cat took a step back; her hip bumped against the shelves of books.
Georgiana was breathing hard as she yanked her dressing gown more firmly into place, wrapped it tight around her body. She wasn’t looking at Cat as she stepped away. “I have to go.”
Her voice was taut—icily formal—but Cat knew to look past that now. To see the tremble in her fingers and the flush at the base of her throat.
Cat put a hand to Georgiana’s elbow, a tiny brush of skin on skin somewhere between a grasp and a caress. “Do you want me to go up with you?” OhGod,that sounded more like a proposition than she’d necessarily meant. “To make sure everything’s all right, I mean. You said you heard something earlier, and—”
“No,” Georgiana said. She shook off Cat’s hand and spun toward the door, already in motion.
Cat looked down at her empty hand. She wanted—
She wanted to follow. She wanted tohelp.
But she knew herself. If she was not careful, she would make of this more than it was. Would find herself trading on dreams beyond hunger and heat, beyond bodies pressed together in the night.
So she held herself still, though her feet strained to go after Georgiana.
Georgiana paused at the threshold, her fingers on the ebony jamb. “I imagined it,” she said. “Before. There was nothing. I—” Her fingers tightened on the wood, as though to wring more words from it.
Cat waited. She—wanted.
