A Lily Among Thorns(84)
She did so, conscious that her hair must be flattened and disheveled underneath. He watched her with the quiet, perfect focus he could slip into so easily, as if he were content to observe indefinitely. She’d seen him give it to crucibles and organs and dress seams, but rarely to people. He gave it to her, though, sometimes. What did he see? She combed her hair ineffectually with her fingers. “I needed a costume no one would expect me to wear.”
“You really did look like an angel.”
“But if you had to choose a winged creature to represent me, it would be a harpy: yes, I know.”
His eyes darkened. “Sometimes around you I have trouble remembering the difference.”
She frowned in surprise, and then he was kissing her fiercely, his tongue in her mouth and his hands tangled in her hair.
Chapter 20
“I don’t ever want you to be anything but what you are,” he said raggedly. He kissed her jaw, her pulse, the curve of her neck; she tilted her head to let him, to silently beg for more. “You can be hateful sometimes, but you’re honest.”
“Is this about my rouge?” she inquired, concentrating so as not to sound breathless, and he laughed, his mouth opening against her collarbone.
“This evening, when I saw you—all I wanted—in the world—was for you to stand up straight—and say something”—his hands were on her waist, holding her steady as his mouth inched back up her neck to suck at a sensitive spot just above her racing pulse—“sardonic—and raise an eyebrow—”
“If I realized it would have this effect, I’d have stopped raising them days ago.”
He pulled back for a moment to look at her. “That would have been a damned shame.” He kissed her birthmark.
She shivered.
“Turn around,” he said, and she did. He undid the buttons on the white gown—she knew he would never have tried to tear the cloth, but she could feel his impatience in every tiny, abrupt pop—tugging the sleeves down as he went and hungrily kissing her shoulders. Soon he had opened all the fastenings on her petticoats and she was standing in her shift and stays.
“I’ve always thought this part was far too complicated,” he said.
“I’ve known men who just cut through the laces,” she offered. There was silence.
She glanced over her shoulder. Solomon’s eyes were narrow with disapproval. For a moment she wondered if this reference to her past would destroy the mood, but he just said, “Good laces cost at least a shilling!” She laughed as he went to work on the knot.
When he had unlaced her stays and pulled them over her head, she turned once more to face him. For a moment he looked bewildered. “Serena, I—”
His voice was rough and throbbing and sad. She’d noticed from the moment they met how expressive his face and body were, how he smiled and frowned with all of him, how the way he leaned forward or scratched the back of his head could convey a world of meaning. Now he could smile and frown with her body, too. The want in his face and voice made her yank the shift over her head and toss it on the floor. He relaxed, his hands hovering for a moment above her skin before he touched her.
Serena closed her eyes. She made no sound, but she trembled and breathed hard as his hands and mouth moved on her breasts and down over her belly, his knees hitting the floor with an impact that jarred Serena from the soles of her feet to her fingertips.
He nuzzled her inner right thigh. “Third birthmark.”
Her throat was tight. When his tongue dipped between her legs, she gave a wordless cry and clutched at him to keep from falling. Oh God, Solomon. When he groaned into her it was like—there were no words for what it was like. She could feel herself crumbling beneath his hands like badly fired clay. She wanted—she had never—she—it had been so long and even then—
He stopped, suddenly, letting go of her and getting to his feet. “Open your eyes,” he said, but she couldn’t. She reached out blindly, seizing his braces and burying her face in his chest. She mumbled something and didn’t even know what—the only discernable words were Solomon and please.
“Serena, do you want this?”
She nodded hastily against his shirt.
“Say it out loud.”
She waited until she was certain of her voice before answering him, even though each second he didn’t touch her was torture. “What part of ‘Solomon, please’ do you find ambiguous?”