Page 29 of Felicity Cabot Sells Her Soul
“You shouldn’t be. Do you think I’ve never taken myself in hand?” A rough chuckle tripped over his tongue. “I’ve done it more times than I can count. What do you think I was doing after I left you in the bathing room? I’m not made of stone.”
An odd little wriggle from her side of the bed. “You’re joking.”
“Not remotely. It’s been ten damned years and my memories have gone a bit hazy at the edges.” He closed his eyes, summoning forth that brand new, crystal-clear memory. “You have the most perfect breasts. If I’m lucky, I’ll dream about them.” His fingers twitched beneath his head as the picture formed in his mind, imagining the soft, supple weight of them cupped in his palms. “Nothing short of an explosion could have moved me. You could have shot me, and I’d have gladly bled out on that spot provided that it meant that the last thing I saw before I died was your fingers stroking yourself to climax.”
Her fingernails scraped across the surface of her pillow, the scratch of them shearing through the quiet room. She sucked in a shuddering breath. “Ian,” she said, and he was certain she had meant it to be chiding, recriminatory—but there was an ache in it, a quavering note of need half-hidden beneath the stridence.
She didn’t want him in any meaningful way. But shewantednonetheless. And that was something, wasn’t it? Better by far than the indifference in which she had held him these last ten years. There was room in her for both fury anddesire, however much she might wish otherwise.
“I would give my right arm to watch you again,” he said. “Only to watch, mind you. I’ll bargain with you for it—”
“No!” She’d stretched the word across three syllables, plaintive and warbling. Tempted, he thought, just a little, even if she forced herself to refuse it. Embarrassment warring with helpless desire. A dozen conflicted emotions tumbling about inside her head. Perhaps even inside her heart.
And that—that was enough. So long as the thought had been planted in her mind. So long as there was the slightest chance that her own frustrated desires would torture her as his had tortured him. He said, “I’ll have my kiss now.”
The bed shook as she twisted about and said incredulously, “What?”
“I’ll be gracious and require only one tonight.” Just one brush of her soft lips, and maybe he’d be lucky enough to catch the scent of her soap as well. Something sweet and floral, warmed by the heat of her skin.
Her voice took on a suspicious tenor. “What do you mean,only one?”
“You owe me seven,” he said. “One for every day missed over the last week.”
“I was ill!” she shrilled.
“As was I. Be glad I’m not requiring seven extra hours from you.”
An infuriated sound eked across her lips. “We were confined together for days!”
“Yes, and most of it was spent sleeping, so it hardly seems fair to count it. Really, I should be lauded for my generosity, given that I’m not in the habit of forgiving debts. Be glad I’ve elected to forego interest accrued on the kisses. I confess I’m not certain what the going rate is, but I’ll admit to being tempted to usury.”
There—that had done it. He’d piqued her straight out of whatever embarrassment might have lingered. With a wrathful sound, she flounced across the bed, and he caught just the faintest whiff of lavender as she planted her lips altogether too briefly upon the very edge of his jaw. And then her damp hair smacked him straight in the face as she whirled once again, giving him her back.
“I’m saving all the rest for a special occasion,” he told her, though she had not asked. “Perhaps I’ll call them due the next time I’m fortunate enough to find you pleasuring yourself.”
“You should be so lucky,” she snapped, but he felt the tremble that swept through her, violent enough to vibrate across the mattress, as if even that small suggestion had titillated her.
“I should,” he agreed. “I really, truly should. If you might have seen yourself—”
“Ian.” It was drawn out, issued in a warning tone.
“You have no idea how beautiful you are in the throes of ecstasy. Your breasts flush, your nipples tighten to ripe little berries. Your every muscle quivers with tension as you strive to reach your peak. You make the softest, sweetest sounds, and your hips arch. Your face—”
“Ian,” she hissed, her small fist planting itself in the pillow. “I am trying to sleep!”
Rather unsuccessfully, he thought, given that she was wriggling about as if trying to find a comfortable position. As if every sensation was a bit toosharp, her skin too sensitive. The tension between them was a palpable thing, like a thread stretched taut. Every word he uttered was another pluck to it, and it thrummed out a chord that united them in a shared agony of longing.
Which would go unsatisfied at present. But he allowed himself the smallest sliver of hope that that arousal she was helpless to conceal from him would win out eventually. He would seize any tiny opportunity she offered only to be close to her, to give her the tenderness and affection she’d gone without these last ten years. Even if she had convinced herself she didn’t want it from him any longer.
“Good night, Felicity,” he said on a sigh, and as he stared up at the ceiling, he listened to the harried pant of her breaths slowly ease to the even cadence of sleep. A dozen questions drifted through his mind, mostly pertaining to how he might twist this newest revelation to his advantage. Whether she might find herself tempted past the point of good sense. Whether his heart could endure the battering it would no doubt receive if all he could win of her was further rejection.
But the most prominent question had settled there hours before he’d found her pleasuring herself in her bath. It had been stuck in his head since earlier in the day, with the letter he’d filched from the stack of them Butler had delivered to him. The letter he’d removed, read, and tucked into his nightstand drawer until he could determine what was to be done about it.
He’d known, loved, and married Felicity Cabot. So who the hell was FelicityNightingale?
Chapter Eleven
Whatever are you looking for outside, dear?”
