“Of course, my lady,” he repeats. The honorific I hear every day sounds wholly unique when it comes from him, affects me unlike any two words ever have before despite the teasing lilt of it.
“Good. We’ll start with dancing.” I spin around, letting my skirt swirl around my legs.
“Dancing?”
I close the distance between us, raising my hand, placing it right over his chest without making contact, until he nods his permission for me to touch him. “Dancing is an intimate act we perform fully clothed and a good precursor to the most intimate act we perform fully…not clothed.” I let my gaze burn a trail down his chest, all the way down to his crotch.
But Callum doesn’t so much as flinch. His hand finds my waist, settling into the curve. “I never thought of it like that.”
I hold up my other hand, letting him curl his fingers around it. “Then you must have been dancing with the wrong partners.”
“I don’t doubt it, my lady.”
10
Callum
The position wehold is not foreign to me—dance lessons were required when I was younger, the skills seen as necessary for a man of my station.
But I have never had a dance quite like this one. Even standing still, this dance already feels like the most erotic moment of my life. And not to say that I haven’t had erotic moments—I wasn’t lying to Lady Caterine, I’m no virgin. There’s just something about being in her embrace, her sunlight-through-whisky-colored eyes on mine, that hypnotizes me. She gets under my skin. Quite literally, in fact; my veins are on fire.
Lady Caterine flicks on her phonograph and steps back into my embrace, pressing our hips together as she guides me in the dance, a tango that is equal parts quick steps and sensual movement. I clutch her to me as we move around the small space of her suite, my steps never faltering. If she is surprised by my skill, she doesn’t show it on her face, but she does pick up the tempo, throwing more complex moves into the mix as we continue to glide around the room.
“Tell me about yourself,” she says, her calf curving around mine for half a second before flicking back to its original position.
“I’m sorry?” I keep my concentration on the movements, focusing on not missing a step, which is harder to do with her wrapped around me. Just that touch brought to mind an image of Lady Caterine’s legs enveloping me, tight around my torso, our cores pressed together.
“It’s one thing to learn to please a woman, but before you can please her, you have to win her over. So tell me about yourself. Woo me.” She smiles, her steps never faltering, her breath never stuttering.
The truth is I don’t usually have to get to know people, because most people I encounter already know plenty about me. Add to that, I’m not sure how much I can reveal to this woman. I’m supposed to be earning her trust and learning to trust her, but the truth is she is a Gifted with the power to manipulate emotions. I would be a fool to give her any information she can’t find out herself.
“I have a younger sister” is what I finally come up with. It doesn’t even occur to me that Lady Caterine has already met said sister, the haze in my brain keeping me from fully functioning.
She purses her lips, like she isn’t quite sure how to respond to that. “Do you two get along?” she finally asks.
“We do. She annoys me to no end, of course, but we’ve become friends as we’ve grown older. She’s the most formidable person I know. We lost our mother at a young age, and I know that can’t have been easy for her, because it wasn’t easy for me. I really admire the woman she’s become.” I bite my tongue to keep myself from expounding further. One seemingly simple question and I’m already spouting off my innermost thoughts, letting her see more of me than I should.
Lady Caterine’s forehead creases and her eyes bore into me as if she can gaze into the very heart of me. “Sounds like you care for her very much.”
“I do.” I don’t reveal any more than that, and the fact that I care for my sister shouldn’t make me feel as vulnerable as it does. It should be expected that I care for her. I home in on the physical sensations surrounding me so I don’t find myself trapped in the emotional. I slide my hand a little farther up Lady Caterine’s back, until my fingers can stroke the bare skin between her shoulder blades, the need to feel her skin under my palm almost overwhelming. “Do you have any siblings, my lady?”
“A sister as well. We’re twins.” Her breath catches when my fingers graze her back.
I pretend I don’t enjoy flustering her, somewhat mollified that I am not the only one affected. “You mean to tell me there are two of you?”
She laughs, her grip on my hand tightening. “Andra is the better of the two of us, in every way that matters.”
Her laughter bolsters me further. “I don’t think you give yourself enough credit, my lady.”
“You don’t know me very well, Your Highness.”
I lower my head so my lips are a millimeter from the curve of her ear. “I would like to change that.” The truth comes out of me unbidden, as if my brain has been swept away by the music and her eyes and the softness of her skin, like there is some force greater than the two of us dancing around the room. I forget who she is and why I’m here, forget my own name when she looks at me with raw desire flaming in her eyes.
She leans in, for just a second, letting my lips brush her delicate skin. Then she seems to come back to herself, putting space between us and reinforcing our original position. She studies me for another intense moment, as if she is trying to make sense of me. Something shifts, hardens in the depth of her honey-gold eyes.
It shakes me back to the present moment. My arms return totheir original hold, locking into place as if that could prevent me from falling under her spell again.
“You move well,” she says as she spins behind me, her hand draping over my shoulder and resting on my chest.
