Page 38 of A Flaming Lady's Secret Valentine
“That was very expensive,” she rasped.
“What was?”
“The mask.”
“Oh,” he breathed before he leaned down and kissed her.
At first, his kiss was light, testing the waters of her affection. His lips brushed back and forth against her mouth. He was asking for her consent.
He could have it. He could have anything else he wanted from her too.
She stood on the tips of her toes and took his lower lip between hers. It was all the permission he needed, and it seemed to spark something wicked in him. His hand fell from her face to her waist as he kissed her deeper still. She let out a mewling moan—perhaps his name, perhaps scripture—as his lips journeyed down to her neck.
Do all men kiss like this? Do all women feel weightless in their arms?
His body undulated against hers as he kissed her again. She felt his tongue run between her lips, pleading for her to open herself to him. Her mouth parted, and she melted against him.
Something deep, ancient,achingbloomed in her belly as he worked her body. She hummed with desire for him so strongly she feared her knees would buckle beneath her weight. He held her aloft and pulled away, shaking his head as though he could not believe what had happened.
She steadied herself in his arms, pressing her fingers to his mouth to ask for more.
“Enough,” he whispered, his words laden with lust. “Any more and…”
“And what?” She pecked him to tease him—to sate her hunger. “Tell me.”
“You know.” He pressed his forehead against hers. “Cecilia, youknow.”
“I know only that I want to kiss you again. Now, on the morrow, and every day after that.” She pulled down his cravat a placed a peck on the taut skin of his neck. He grunted softly. “If there is something else, you must tell me.”
Without warning, he scooped her up by the waist. She hiccupped with laughter as he turned them, standing her on the lip of the fountain and holding her there. Her hands trailed down his shoulders and his arms, resting atop his own as he held her steady. She leaned into him, placing a kiss on his forehead.
“Would that I could dance with you all night,” she said.
“I cannot dance.”
“Would that I could spend my night teaching you, then. It is Valentine’s Day tomorrow.”
“I am well aware.” He offered her a lopsided smile, and it announced the question she dreamed he would ask her:will yoube my valentine?“Lady Cecilia?”
“Yes?”
He regarded her a while. “Goodnight.”
“You are not funny.”
“I mean it.” He thumbed her lips. “Goodnight.”
Like a ghost, he slipped from her soundlessly, through the archway and into the night. Cecilia teetered on the fountain’s edge, shivering in his absence. Mr Raphael Travers had infiltrated her father’s ball to stand guard over her, and he had made it seem like the most usual thing in the world.
There was nothing usual about Raphael.
Nothing usual about what she felt for him either.
“You are my valentine whether you know it or not,” she said, hopping off the fountain and retrieving her headpiece.
Cecilia wrapped her arms around her chest and dashed back to the house, stopping only to pick up the mask they had left on the terrace and cast it into the bushes.
Chapter 13
