Page 55 of Felicity Cabot Sells Her Soul
“Oh, God,” she said as her belly clenched on a sudden surge of longing. Her thoughts scattered to the darkest reaches of her mind, all busyness of her brain eclipsed by the urgency of arousal. “Ian. This is indecent.” It had to be, surely.
Another lick; long, slow, savoring. A raw, hungry sound emerged from his throat. “I don’t give a damn about decency. I’ve wanted to do this to you for years. Years upon years upon years.” His hands pressed firmly against the instinctual nip of her thighs, fighting to keep the space he’d made for himself between them.
Her hand groped for his head, fisted in his hair once more. Her thighs trembled with exertion, tiny little twitches she couldn’t control. He found her clitoris buried beneath the curls at the apex of her thighs, massaged it with the point of his tongue. Fire sizzled in her veins. Her core clenched. Her chest hitched in a few frenetic breaths, struggling through the sharp, nearly painful surge of pleasure.
Probably, she thought, she ought to have pulled him away. Instead her trembling fingers smoothed at the silky strands of his hair. “There,” she said, her breath hissing through the grit of her teeth. “Again. Please.”
Her senses spun as he set in with a vengeance, feasting upon her private flesh like a starving man. Breathing in hard little pants, she only just managed to choke back a cry when he peeled one heavy palm from her splayed thigh and stroked the tender opening of her body. His fingers dipped inside her, stretching delicate interior muscles.
A lingering lap. His fingers curled, rubbed some exquisitely sensitive place. The cry escaped anyway as she cast her head back upon the pillow. “Ah—Yes!” It was almost upon her, that first mind-scrambling spasm. Pleasure coiled deep in her belly, pressure compacting in on itself, growing deeper, stronger.
Another plunge of his fingers, another curl. His lips drew that tiny bead of flesh between them, sucked delicately. The tip of his tongue rubbed in a lazy rhythm, pitching her headlong into the brilliant flash of climax. Every muscle drew unbearably taut for a long, torturous moment—and released in a rush of bliss so devastatingly pure and perfect that for a second, she thought she might have glimpsed heaven.
Her limbs went lax, all tension dissolved. Restlessness overtaken by complete lethargy, satiation. Thoughts dark and dim and mercifully few. Headclear and quiet, echoing only with the gasps of her own breath.
Exhaustion weighed upon her more heavily than the blanket Ian drew up over them. In the silence that followed she could manage no more than to turn her cheek against his chest and melt into the security of the arms he wove around her, guarding her against the chill of the room.
“It means something to me.” The words were little more than a murmur, pressed against her temple with the warmth of his lips. “Sleep now. Just sleep.”
She would. Shecouldnow. She could feel it already, slipping over her like a rising tide. Her lungs drew in a greedy breath, savoring the scent of salt that clung to his skin. Her eyes closed as she exhaled, and one palm landed on his chest. “It didn’t mean nothing,” she conceded in a whisper as sleep descended upon her. “It didn’t mean nothing.”
Chapter Twenty
Is that a new pelisse?”
Felicity jerked out of her daze at the unexpected intrusion of Charity’s voice, her fingers closing around the ring she held in her hand. She hadn’t expected company for breakfast—most especially not Charity’s, since Charity had never been a particularly early riser. But she had, however briefly, crossed paths with Mercy’s husband, Thomas, whowasan early riser, and who had brought little Flora down with him in an effort to spare the ears of those who had still been sleeping upstairs, since Flora had been bound and determined to test the limits of her little lungs with ear-piercing shrieks.
“Yes,” Felicity said, with a little shrug of her shoulders within the warm folds of the soft blue wool that encased her; worlds finer than her own aged coat which had been perhaps a month or two from falling to rags. “And the dress as well.” She hadn’t asked for them, and Ian had made no mention of them. They had simply been hanging in the dressing room this morning when she’d risen, right beside her own worn things. She’d noticed a few more extravagant gowns as well, tucked away toward the back—the sort a woman of means might wear to an evening event. But the vast majority were of a simpler fashion, exactly the kind of dresses a headmistress could be expected to wear.
“Well, you look quite nice.” Charity settled into the seat besides hers, muffling a yawn in her fingers. “Is there tea?” she asked. “I’m not myself before I’ve had tea.”
“Butler’s on his way with a fresh pot,” Felicity said. “The last one went tepid.”
“Thank God,” Charity said, and wilted back against the chair. “I slept rather poorly. Or, rather, I slept quite well up until Flora decided to treat the lot of us to an early morning serenade. She’s got quite a set of lungs.”
Felicity swallowed a laugh. “She does, at that.”
Butler reappeared bearing a fresh teapot, and Charity murmured her thanks as he poured her a cup. She inclined her head in the direction ofFelicity’s closed hand as she busied herself in sugaring her tea. “What have you got there?” she asked.
“My wedding ring.” Felicity uncurled her fingers to reveal the gold band within. “I don’t know what to make of it.”
Charity glanced at it briefly over the rim of her tea cup, one brow arching in silent judgment. “Not much,” she said dismissively. “Hardly more than a trinket. The stones aren’t precious.”
“I was hoping you could tell me about them,” Felicity said. “Doesn’t it strike you as…odd?”
“Certainly,” Charity sniffed. “But there is no accounting for taste. One would have thought a man of Mr. Carlisle’s fortunes could afford better. Here, let me have a closer look, then.” She held out her hand, and Felicity laid the band into it.
Charity’s lips pursed in concentration as she squinted at the small stones, turning the band to catch the light pouring in through the window. And then— “Oh,” she said, in an odd little voice as her brows arched toward her hairline. “Oh, I see.”
“What?” What did she see?
“It’s—well—” Charity scooted her chair closer to Felicity’s, turning in her seat to face her, holding up the ring between them. “It’s an acrostic ring.”
“I beg your pardon?”
“An acrostic ring,” Charity repeated. “You see, the first letter of each stone spells out a word when you string them all together. I received one from an admirer once, which spelled outregard. I was quite touched by it, even if I found the arrangement of stones a trifle jarring to the eye. These stones aren’t of particularly good quality, I’m afraid.”
Felicity knew that already. But what did theysay?
