Page 83 of A Fragile Enchantment

She turned to catch him by the mouth, but she couldn’t focus, couldn’t quite get a good angle on him. She drifted through a haze, and it felt so good, she never wanted to be anywhere else, never wanted it to end. There was nothing but the heel of his palm flat against her stomach, the steady rhythm of his fingers, her hips moving of their own accord against him. Never had she despised her stays more thanwhen he traced her breast through the boning. Never in her life had she wanted to be touched more. His breathing quickened in time with hers. Pleasure coiled tighter within her. It built, slowly—and then all at once. She bit down on a cry as it crested.

He eased his hold on her, letting her unwind from him. His eyes were hooded and clouded with something like wonder. “You’re incredible.”

Heat zipped into her face. As the haze cleared from her thoughts, the embarrassment caught up to her. For the last few minutes, she hadn’t had a single coherent thought. Now, they sprung upon her with a vengeance. Was she too loud? Too needy? Too much? She didn’t even want to consider what she must’ve looked like—or how she looked now, with her hair in disarray and her cheeks stung pink. “Pleasedon’t make fun of me right now. I’m vulnerable.”

He blinked, as though she’d struck him upside the head. “What are you talking about?”

“You’re teasing me, aren’t you?” She buried her face in his neck. “I bet you’re filing all of this away for later.”

Kit choked on a laugh. “Maybe. Not for any of the nefarious reasons you seem to have in mind, though.”

She groaned. “Kit!”

“Believe me, I’m not making fun of you. That was…” He ran a hand through his hair, searching for the right word. He seemed to come up short and only looked at her helplessly. “It was good.”

“Oh.” Her face felt hot. “Well, then.”

It boosted her confidence, at the very least.

Drawing in a shaky breath, she shifted back onto his lap and straddled him. Her knees pressed tightly against his hips, and she watched with a small shiver of satisfaction as his throat worked. It was all she could do not to chase the movement with her lips. His hands reflexively rested on her thighs, but what nearly undid her was the quintessentiallyKitglint in his eye. A challenge:What next?

Niamh ran her fingers through his hair until she found the lace holding it back. He let her do it without comment. When she tugged it loose, his hair cascaded past his shoulders. She nearly sighed aloud at his unaffected beauty.Gods,was the only dreamy thought in her head,it is so unfair.He probably never thought twice about how stupidly soft his hair was. The moonlight spun it into silver. It lit his eyes with pale fire.

She pushed his jacket off his shoulders; next, she unfastened his neckcloth. She could feel his eyes on her, watching her every move. He somehow looked amused and embarrassed and entirely undone by the slow reverence with which she undressed him. Rain began to fall steadily, muffling the shaky sounds of their breathing and the rustle of starched linen. His cravat came loose at last, and his shirt parted to reveal a thin sliver of bare skin below his throat. She wanted to taste it. She wanted to make him feel the way she did. Gods, if only it were easier to say. Her hands trembled from nerves. But beneath it all, there was excitement.

Certainty.

She allowed her palm to roam down his chest, over his waistcoat’s warm silk and cool wire buttons. “Kit?”

He didn’t answer her. He only turned his eyes onto her like a blade. Her mouth went dry.

“Do you want me?” She hardly recognized the sound of her own voice, shy and wanting despite the boldness of her words. “Because I want you.”

At first, his only reply was to cradle her neck and kiss her as though tomorrow would not come.

“Yes,” he murmured against her lips. “Yes.”

24

Rain drummed steadily against the roof. The rose window overhead looked like a small lake suspended above them, and on the other side of the glass, the sky was a dreamy swirl of violet. Through the cracked-open window and the lace curtains, she could smell the rain: damp soil and damp grass, the world stirring awake around them.

Sweat cooled on her skin and shone on the lines of Kit’s shoulders. He was so lovely, with shadows feathering soft against his cheeks and his eyelashes a fan of black. His breath flowed evenly against her, and his heart beat steadily against her cheek, where it rested on his bare chest. She reached out to brush his loose hair off his forehead. There was a sort of languid serenity about him now. It filled her with fondness so bright, it strained against her ribs.

She could’ve stayed here forever, with the weight of his armsaround her. But this contentment was another fragile and impermanent thing—another thing she’d never truly had. She traced the line of his jaw, determined to commit every detail of his face to memory. He was just like one of the Fair Ones. Tonight, he’d spirited her heart away, and she’d be left sick and lovelorn all her life.

“What are you thinking about?” he asked huskily. “It’s loud, whatever it is.”

Niamh shot upright. “Oh, nothing.”

He seemed skeptical but didn’t push. He only took a lock of her hair and twisted it slowly around his finger, as though he meant to reel her back down to him. “Come here.”

She almost complied, if only to kiss him again and marvel at just how low that lovely flush of his traveled, but from her vantage point, she spied something familiar—and strangely colorful—in the pile of his clothes.

She leaned over him, her hair spilling heavy over her shoulder, and plucked out a scrap of silk. The moment she touched it, a strange feeling seized upon her. A warm, steady happiness, touched at the edges with the bittersweetness of loss. Even without the enchantment stitched into it, she would’ve recognized this anywhere: the handkerchief she gave him on the day she arrived in Avaland.

“Why have you kept this?” She couldn’t keep the accusation out of her voice as she dangled it in front of him. “You hated it.”

Panic passed over his face, and she could practically see him wrestling his impulse to be snappish back into its cage. After a long moment, he said, “I didn’t hate it.”