AllFreeNovel
Share Us
He unfurls his fingers across my cheek. The heat they trail across my skin shivers all the way down to my core.
I grope for the right words to answer him. “I mean… The rest of the world is right there. You don’t need me to remind you of that.”
“Maybe I did.” He traces his fingertips lower, down to my jaw, and desire peals through my body louder than any bell. “You’ve made it seem possible to want more than I’ve ever let myself consider before.”
My mouth has gone dry. It keeps all my effort to hold my voice steady, but it still comes out so low it’s almost a whisper. “What do you want?”
He strokes his hand down the side of my neck to delicious effect. The gleam in his eyes looks hot as a glimmer of flame. “Right now? I want you. Every way I can have you. As selfish as that might be.”
There’s no mistaking his meaning. A quiver that’s pure delight runs through me from head to toe. “I don’t think it can be selfish when I’d have an awfully good time too.”
Then an uncomfortable thought strikes me. I ease back a bit. “You’re not saying that because you think it would make me happy, are you? I wouldn’t want you to pretend—”
Casimir lets out a rasp of laughter. “And I wouldn’t. I don’t think it’d ever make you happy to have someone fake their desires—and you’re sharp enough to notice. But I don’t need to pretend.”
I can’t help glancing down at myself. At my gawky frame, for all it’s prettied up in layers of silk; at the pallor of my skin that might be even more sickly than usual after this afternoon’s agony.
The courtesan touches my jaw to bring my attention back to him. “You know… I’ve never been intimate with anyone simply because we both knew we’d enjoy it—rather than as a transaction, one kind of happiness for a different sort. It could be that straightforward, couldn’t it? Neither of us owing each other anything, just finding our pleasure together.”
My voice goes rough too. “Yeah. I think it could.”
No promises, no future plans, just an interlude of shared joy. It can mean nothing more than that.
It can’t be selfish of me to want it when he thinkshe’sbeing the selfish one, right? Maybe there really is something in me that Casimir has needed, even if his desire turns out to be fleeting.
My entire life is teetering on the brink of one sort of disaster or another. I’ve got to grab on to the good in it while I can.
I lean forward and press my lips to his.
With the first giddy jolt of heat as Casimir hums encouragingly against my mouth, I realize we’ve never actually done this before. The other night, he touched me in places barely any other man has, but we didn’t exchange a single proper kiss.
He claims my mouth with the same gentle confidence he brings to every other gesture. Before he’s even skimmed his hand along my side, I’m already melting into him.
I didn’t get to touch him much last time either. Now, as he eases me closer against him, I trail my hand down his sleekly muscled chest. The compact ridges thrill me even through the fabric of his tunic.
Casimir marks a path of scorching kisses along my jaw and down my neck, following the path his fingers traced earlier. As he nudges aside the chain of the necklace Esmae gave me, his hot breath sets my skin alight.
I gasp and jerk free the belt at his waist so I can slide my hand right underneath his tunic. His toned chest feels even more delightful skin to skin.
Casimir lets out another pleased hum and reaches behind me for the laces of my dress.
“It’s probably better not to dislodge your clothingtoosignificantly,” he murmurs against my neck. “In case we need to reassemble you in a hurry. But I can work around that limitation.”
He tugs down the gown’s bodice just far enough that he can scoop one of my breasts into his hand. As he swipes his thumb over my already pebbling nipple, he grazes his teeth across my throat.
The two sparks of pleasure collide with a flare that shocks a whimper out of me. Then he lowers his head to suck the peak of my breast into the exquisite heat of his mouth, and I bite my lip against a full-out moan.
The archive walls won’t be soundproofed. These rooms are large and infrequently used enough that Alek and I have never run into any other scholars down here when we’ve briefly roamed, but that doesn’t mean I can count on the entire basement remaining empty.
But it’s hard to keep my sounds of pleasure contained as Casimir summons a steady tingling of bliss with the pressure of his lips and the darting of his skillful tongue. He attends to the one breast until I’m digging my fingers into his soft hair and his back just to hold on through the heady sensations, and then kisses his way across my chest to the other.
As he laps my nipple to a stiffened peak, he tips me over on the settee. I arch against him, my sex throbbing with need.
I didn’t think I could want a man as much as I did when he “pampered” me in the bathtub, but I’m burning even hotter now.
“I need to taste your mouth again, Ivy,” he murmurs, rising up over me.
I have no complaints at all about the kiss he brands to my lips—or the way his hips settle between my splaying legs. I instinctively arch up to meet him.
