Total pages in book: 79
Estimated words: 74156 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 371(@200wpm)___ 297(@250wpm)___ 247(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 74156 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 371(@200wpm)___ 297(@250wpm)___ 247(@300wpm)
“Miss Layton, I must tell you—you’re so much more beautiful without the wig.”
“Oh.” Her mind spun at his compliment. She had no idea what to reply. “I don’t like wearing that wig,” she whispered. “I’m made to wear it, to sing the character Armide. She’s a dark sorceress in the opera’s story.”
“A dark sorceress?” He let out a small sigh. “And you’re a soft, sweet sorceress in real life, aren’t you? You’re so pretty, I’d like to kiss you.”
“I don’t know if you should,” she said quickly. “I’m no sorceress, not really.” She was babbling in a whisper, for her voice wouldn’t work. “I’m not a practiced kisser, either. I don’t think you’d like to kiss me.”
But she wanted him to, secretly, guiltily, because she’d never been kissed by a man before. So when he leaned his face toward hers, his eyes full of questions, she lifted her chin and pressed her lips to his.
And oh, what happened then was so lovely, so unexpected. As their lips met, his arms tightened around her, drawing her close against his entire frame. Ophelia felt so many sensations, all of them warm, comforting, and delicious. This close, she could tell he’d used the same soap she’d bathed with, and also smell that bit of smoke, so the danger stayed between them, the danger they’d escaped. As his hands moved over her, exploring her body’s curves, she thought of him sweeping her up from the stage door, the way he’d plucked her right up with one arm and settled her onto his horse.
He was very strong to do such a thing. Why, she might have perished if he hadn’t come along. They embraced with deep feeling and abandon, and as her pleasure grew, his attentions began to feel necessary, not improper. His kisses were a whirlwind, falling on her lips, her cheekbones, her chin, her eyes. He smoothed back her hair, murmuring that she was so beautiful, so lovely beneath her costume, then pressed a firm hand down her back, along her spine. She wondered why she’d been taught a man’s touch was so frightening and forbidden, when it felt so marvelous.
For this was forbidden. She was a lady, the daughter of a powerful earl, and no man ought to even touch her hand without proper introduction and a chaperone’s permission.
But she was so far outside the bounds of propriety and her strict upbringing that she began to feel unhitched from that part of herself. This was the freedom she’d longed for all her life. Mr. Drake said she was beautiful and lovely, and she felt for the first time that she was, that she was a desirable woman, and it made her feel happy and excited, and a little wild. She returned his kisses with a reckless enthusiasm that surged the more he caressed and fondled her. When he slid his palms down and cupped her bottom, she gasped, not in outrage, but pleasure.
He made a soft sound, somewhere between a moan and a grunt, and rubbed his fingers over her round cheeks through the thin cotton of her chemise. She’d always been short in stature, and not at all voluptuous, but he sighed as if her bottom was the most glorious creation on earth. One of his legs wrapped about hers, drawing her closer. His chest and stomach were hard as a wall, and there was something else poking beneath the hem of his shirt, a thick shaft, but part of his body. His man’s part. She’d never seen one before, or imagined it would feel like this. He moved the hard thing against her pelvis with their clothing between them. Her hips arched toward the pressure as a curious longing built at the apex of her thighs.
“You stunning creature,” he whispered. “How elegantly you’re made. I want to stroke you all over.”
She didn’t protest as he inched up the hem of her chemise. Soon the light garment was pushed up her body and over her head, and he’d stripped her naked, all with her panting cooperation. She didn’t feel like Lady Ophelia Lovett anymore. She wasn’t even the fictitious Miss Layton. She was an aching, wild sorceress throwing aside the rules she’d been taught, because this touching and kissing was so powerful that she must be powerful, too. Mr. Drake touched his tongue to one of her bare nipples, and she arched at the heady sensation.
“You like that,” he said with a smile in his voice.
She couldn’t answer. She grasped his hair and tried without success to be still as he teased her other nipple with his tongue, but the sharp pleasure was too much. She ought to stop him, but she couldn’t stop him. Her fingers skittered over his shoulders and down his arms, looking for a place to hold. He tore open his shirt’s buttons and shrugged it away, and then she had his entire naked, hard chest to explore with her greedy fingers. She squeezed his tensing muscles, amazed at the force of him, his intensity. She stroked his neck, fascinated by the texture of his skin and the glorious beat of his pulse.