Page 55 of Atone, Adonis

Moments later Julianna emerged again, this time clad in the color of twilight itself. The silk clung to her waist and hips before it spilled away in a sweep of skirts that whispered across the polished floor. The neckline dipped modestly but enough to reveal the delicate line of her collarbone.

“Oh,” Julianna said when she caught a glance of herself in the looking glass.

She turned to Fred, only to find him gripping the arm of his chair with a strength that whitened his knuckles. She smiled at him and his hands tightened further.

“Better,” the modiste said with satisfaction. She circled Julianna, tugging at a sleeve, adjusting the fall of the train and pinning, always pinning. “Oui. This will do. The men will forget their own names when you enter the room.”

Fred cleared his throat from the chair. “They best not.”

Julianna flushed and the modiste gave her a secret smile. “Oui,” the woman said more quietly, just for Julianna’s ears. “This one will certainly do. The…what do they call him…the Local Adonis? He finally has met his match, I see. You are a goddess in this color, chérie.”

Julianna’s cheeks burned. She dared another glance at Fred, whose eyes had not left her for a moment.

“But perhaps,” the modiste went on a bit louder, “we will lower the neckline just a mite, non?”

She unpinned and then repinned the neckline before stepping back. “Oui. A vision.”

“Mes filles,” she said to the seamstresses. “Help me a moment in the back, will you?” She looked at Julianna. “You can undress yourself?”

“Yes, of course,” Julianna said and disappeared back behind the velvet as the seamstresses followed Madame Tremaux out.

She eased the pins out of the top and side, but as she began to remove the fabric, she felt a sudden, sharp tug at her hip.

“Oh!” she gasped, twisting instinctively. A stray pin had caught in the silk and pricked her skin. The more she tried to free herself, the worse it snagged, threatening to tear the delicate fabric and scrape her raw. “Ow!”

“Jules?” Fred must have heard her gasp. “Are you alright?”

“I’m afraid,” she whispered, half-mortified, half-laughing. “That I’m stuck. I guess I can’t undress myself after all. Madame Tremaux will be back in a—”

He was beside her before she’d finished that sentence, dipping his head behind the screen. “Are you—” he began but the words froze in his mouth.

The top half of the dress had fallen down, baring her chemise and corset to his eyes. She watched him lick his lips as his gaze dropped to her bosom. And she felt a surprising shot of heat, warming her from the inside out.

“I forgot,” she whispered, hearing that same breathy quality to her voice she’d had in the parlor room the night she’d cried over Thomas. The night Fred had held her. “That you are a deft hand with pins.”

He cleared his throat and took a step closer. “Hold still.”

Carefully, he bent close, his broad shoulders crowding her in the too small space. She could feel the warmth of him radiating at her side and the stir of his breath against the tendrils of hair at the nape of her neck. She squirmed when his fingers brushed her waist.

“Patience, dearheart,” he murmured, low and steady. “Or you’ll hurt yourself.”

He was so close she could see a tiny pale scar on his jaw she’d never noticed before. She wanted to raise her hand and press her fingertips against it.

His gloved thumb brushed her waist again as he eased the pin free. His touch was slow and gentle, and unbearably intimate. Her breath hitched. Her pulse thundered. She thought she might be visibly quaking.

She must have been because he noticed. His fingers brushed down the curve of her waist and he whispered, “Easy,” into her ear.

This must be how he addressed skittish horses. She wondered if they settled as quickly under his touch and calm voice as she did.

He pulled another offending pin out and dropped it behind him, one hand still steady on her waist. She heard the clink as the pin hit the floor and it reminded her to breathe.

He lifted the other hand so that it hovered just over her collarbone but then he paused, wavering for the first time. And she thought he was going to drop it again, thought he was going to walk away from her. Which was not….tenable.

“Fred,” she whispered to him. “Don’t go. Take off your gloves.”

She wanted to feel his skin on hers. She wanted something she could not decently name. Not now. Not in a semi-public space. Not while her whole body seemed to burn from the inside out.

He did as she directed, putting one gloved finger into his mouth and tugging so that the other hand stayed where it was. On her. Where it belonged.