Page 40 of A Proposition for the Comte
He turned her then and lifted her so that he could find what he sought. And then he was in her softly, feeling his way so that she could know the joy of this touch.
She simply unravelled, right there in his hands, her muscles squeezing him with tightness, keeping him close, finding in the magic her way to the stars, a hitch of breath and the slick tang of sweat before collapsing, in heat and in exhaustion and in something else that he understood exactly.
Wonderment.
‘How do you know of this, Aurelian? How can I learn?’
Her lips were swollen from his kisses. The skirt she wore was bunched about her waist and the bodice fell to that place, too, the wool and underclothing framing skin of ivory.
Her hair snaked around her waist and lay on the covers in stains of tousled red, silky and thick with auburn, cinnamon and flame.
She looked like a fine courtesan, well used and satisfied. She looked happy.
‘Will you teach me how to please you, too?’ This came after a moment, her cheeks flushed and her eyes bright with amazement.
‘Are you sore?’
‘A little.’
‘Then now is the time to show you something else entirely.’
He had tasted her then, taken her with his mouth and tongue, a softer assault, but so very reminiscent of all the others.
Three times within an hour she had felt the burn of an orgasm when for all the years with Harland she had never understood it once.
Tonight she was like a harlot, like a woman who was used wisely and well. She could have lain there for a hundred years and never moved as she sought to feel all that he gave her again and again, there in the bedroom and the night winding down towards dawn.
She did not care. Aurelian de la Tomber was radiant and life-giving, a lover who understood every nuance of her body. She wanted to wallow in the feeling of it. She wanted to take him in her mouth just as he had taken her, without reservation or shyness. She wanted the break of the day to stay away until there was nothing left of them save feeling.
Her muscles contracted again without his touch and he laid his hand palm down across her stomach.
‘You are likemercure, Violet. Unpredictable and changing rapidly.’
Quicksilver, she thought, translating from the French and liking the word on his tongue, for the compliment in what he said was no small and vapid thing. For six years she had been so careful. For six years she had been frightened.
Aurelian had freed her here tonight. Freed her body by valuing dominion over her own feelings. There was nothing between them that had been forbidden. No limits.
Quicksilver.
The clock at the end of the room struck the hour of three and Aurelian rose to place another log on the fire. Then he poured more wine and brought her over a glass.
Sitting, she leaned against the headboard, making no effort at all to cover herself. Even that felt marvellously wicked for she saw him observe her in all the places no other ever had before.
‘Let us drink to the joy of sex, Violet. The elixir of life.’
She took one sip and then another, but wished he might put his glass down and enter her again. She felt the pulsating, thick want as an ache.
His eyes hooded as she moved and he removed what was left of his clothes so that the hard length of him was easily seen, dusky red in the firelight. The bandage on his hand was so very visible. ‘Come here.’
She did.
‘Sit down upon me.’
The engorged flesh of him came between her legs and then upwards into her. Upwards and upwards until there was nowhere left for it to go, save against the opening of her womb. He placed his hands on her shoulders and filled her to the very hilt. Only him. Only them. Only his flesh and the knowledge that she would remember this one moment for ever. Joined completely. Her head tilted back and he took her there, too, with his mouth, rasping into softness, a new heat joining the other one, so that rapture and ache came together to create a feeling that was dangerous and consuming. Like a small death. She even forgot to breathe.
Slumped against him a moment later, she felt his fingers moving across her back, drawing circles. Shivering, she came closer, fire diluted now into tiredness. She wanted to sleep for ever.
Lifting her, he drew back the blanket, her breasts pressed against his chest before he laid her down, tucking the warmth about her.
