Her fingers went to his waistcoat, finding the buttons she had imagined all evening. They came apart beneath her touch—one, two, three—and she pushed the fabric aside to press her palms to his chest, feeling his heart hammer beneath the linen. His hands tangled in her hair, threading through loose waves and tilting her head to change the angle of their kiss.
The wrapper slid from her shoulders.
It pooled at her feet in a spill of pale silk that neither of them noticed.
Samuel pulled back just enough to look at her. His eyes had darkened, the gray swallowed by something more primitive, and his breath came uneven.
“Tell me to stop,” he said, voice rough—scraped raw. “Tell me this is madness, and I will walk out that door, and we will never speak of it again.”
Alice answered by reaching for his cravat and pulling it free.
His shirt followed, dragged over his head with hands that had found purpose. She pressed her palms flat against his bare chest and felt the frantic beat beneath her fingers. The firelight painted him in amber and shadow, revealing planes and angles she had only imagined.
“Alice.” He said her name the way a drowning man might say air.
She kissed the hollow of his throat, tasting salt and warmth, and felt his groan shudder against her mouth. His hands found the ties of her nightdress, and she did not stop him.
The muslin slid down her shoulders.
Cool air touched her skin, followed by the heat of his gaze. She should have felt vulnerable. Instead, she felt powerful—reading her effect in the tension of his jaw, the darkness of his eyes, the way his hands shook as they moved over her.
They sank to the Turkish carpet together.
The wool was rough against her back; the hearth’s leftover warmth washed over them. Samuel braced himself above her, arms trembling with restraint, and Alice drew him down.
Skin met skin, and it stole her breath.
Imagination had been no preparation for reality. He was everywhere—weight and anchor and liberation. His mouth found her throat, stubble scraping tender skin, and she arched into the contact, a sound slipping from her that she did not recognize.
“Samuel.” His name broke apart on her breath.
His only answer was to trail his lips lower.
Alice’s fingers dug into his shoulders, nails pressing crescents into flesh she wanted to claim,even if only for this night. His mouth found her breast, and the world narrowed to heat and pressure and the shocking intimacy of being known.
They moved with an urgency that bordered on desperation, both chasing something neither could quite name. Walls crumbled inside her, defenses she had spent years building falling away like paper in rain. She clung to him and let herself fall, trusting him to catch her, trusting this moment even if she could not trust whatever came after.
His hands explored with focused intensity—hip, waist, inner thigh—drawing gasps she could not swallow. She tried to speak, tried to shape the words that mattered.
“I…” She swallowed. “Samuel, I…”
Nothing coherent came. Not the words that would change this from surrender into something else.
So she kissed him instead.
The kiss said what language could not.I see you. I want you. I am terrified.It beggeddo not stopanddo not leave. He answered in the same currency of breath, touch, the soft sounds between kisses.
When they finally connected completely, something in her broke open. Some last barrier she had not known she held. She cried out, muffled against his shoulder, and felt his groan vibrate through her.
They found a rhythm that needed no discussion, building toward something inevitable. The fire burned down to embers, casting long shadows across the carpet. The lamp guttered, its oil thinning, and the room seemed to pulse with their movement.
When the climax came, it shattered her.
Alice pressed her face into his neck and let herself fall. Moments later, he followed, the aftermath rippling through them. They lay tangled in it, his breath warm at her temple, her heart racing against his ribs, their bodies still joined in ways that made separation feel impossible.
Neither spoke.
The silence was not awkward but sacred—space carved out of everything they could not say. Alice shifted until her head rested on his chest, feeling his heartbeat slow beneath her cheek as his fingers traced absent patterns over her shoulder.
