Page 43 of Ladies in Hating
Georgiana did not turn around. “Stay here,” she said finally. “Don’t follow. I don’t want you to come with me.”
She passed through the threshold and turned, and then she was gone. Her warmth, her scent, the moon-pale column of her body—all of it vanished as cleanly and completely as if she’d been a ghost.
Cat did not go after her.
Chapter 14
Possible for you to send a list of modest hermitages for rent in Switzerland? Anywhere would do, in fact. The farther the better.
—from Georgiana to her solicitor, crossed out, crumpled, tossed in the grate
“Please cease regarding me in that impertinent fashion.”
Bacon, seated upon the pillow beside Georgiana’s head, did not deign to answer. His head remained cocked to one side, and his tongue drooped amiably out of his mouth.
Georgiana groaned and rolled away from his expressive white eyebrows. She flung her arm over her face to block out the dawn, and he responded by gently setting his paw atop her fingers.
She wanted to melt into the bedclothes. She wanted to hole up in this room and never leave.
She wanted to find Cat and beg her forgiveness. She wanted to kiss her, devour her, drown herself in Cat’s taste again. Again.
She allowed herself the luxury of another whimper beforecommitting herself to a face-down assault upon her pillow. What had she beenthinking?
She had not been thinking. That much was obvious. When she’d woken in the night to the sound of a woman’s scream—Cat’sscream, she’d been convinced of it—she’d fled her chamber in a mad, reckless dash. First, she’d thrown open the door to Cat’s chamber across the hall, but—though evidence of Cat’s presence was everywhere in the room, in the books and papers and stockings strewn heedlessly about—Cat had not been inside.
She’d heard the scream again then, and she’d nearly broken into a run as she’d made her way to the library.
No. She thought perhaps shehadrun, her slippers sliding on the tile and her dressing gown trailing behind her.
When she’d seen Cat whole and hale in the library, the golden warmth of her skin made pale by moonlight, Georgiana’s relief had been so potent she’d not been able to think clearly. Half of her mind had been telling her to go, to flee—and the other half had been all raw demand.Touch her. Make certain she’s all right.
Held taut by the conflict within her, she’d frozen instead. She’d stood, still and stiff as marble, as Cat had stroked her hand, and then her neck, and then her jaw.
She’d felt the fine slide of Cat’s fingers on her skin, and her body had seemed near to shattering. The tiny space between them might as well have been a gulf—a wall—a universe.
And then Cat had crossed it. She’d pulled Georgiana’s mouth down to hers, and—and—
Oh God. Georgiana had to stop reliving it.
She could not stop reliving it. She’d tossed and turned in her bed the previous night and tried to think of anything—anything—other than Cat’s mouth, and her deft lovely fingers, and the curvesof her body. She’d tried and tried and eventually she’d given up, shoved her hand between her legs, and made herself come so hard she’d nearly cried out.
Which, obviously, would have been a disaster. Cat was right across the hall, and she might haveheard,for heaven’s sake, and dear God,that thought was not supposed to be erotic.
She whimpered again into her pillow, and Bacon continued to pat ineffectually at the back of her head.
“I’m all right,” she mumbled into the ticking. “I’m sorry, darling.”
All rightseemed something of a stretch, but she did not want to worry her dog. She was so tangled up she could not see straight. She wanted Cat—desperately, ludicrously—and it seemed Cat was open to the notion.
Not only open to it. She could still recall the press of Cat’s soft body, the hungry demand of Cat’s mouth.
Cat wanted her too.
But such a thing was not possible. Georgiana knew that—had known that for a long time. She had chosen a life of independence, and with that came isolation. It was notsafefor her to form attachments—people who were close to her got hurt.
She tried to ignore the hot pressure building at the backs of her eyes. She had to leave Cat alone. She could not let herself be caught up by desire again. She could—
There was a knock at the door.
