Their eyes met.
The melody lingered in the air, binding them.
Catherine felt it like a thread pulled taut. She did not decide to lean toward him. She simply did, drawn by something older than thought.
His breath caught. Then his mouth was on hers, and the kiss was nothing like the frenzied ones they had shared before.
It was heartfelt. It tasted of salt and wine and something close to despair, as his hands came up to frame her face as though she were something precious and breakable.
She pressed closer, fingers curling into his shirt at the collar. His arms locked around her waist and drew her flush against him, and the kiss deepened until it ached, until it carried the weight of every sharp word from the evening and every unspoken thing beneath them.
She pressed her lips to his jaw. His throat. Felt his pulse stutter beneath her mouth.
“No more lies,” she whispered. “Not tonight. Only this.”
He pulled back to look at her, and his face was raw in the lamplight, something close to pain behind his eyes.
“I cannot lose you,” he said, raspingly. “Even if I cannot give you everything you deserve.”
Catherine held his gaze. She thought of the painting. The fever. The way he had said her name in his sleep, broken and afraid. Whatever he was hiding, it was not this.
“You will not lose me,” she said quietly.
CHAPTER 25
Catherine kissed her husband with everything she had.
Her fingers curled into his shirt, pulling, and she felt his hands slide into her hair, tilting her head to deepen the kiss. His tongue stroked against hers, hot and possessive, and the sound he made when she opened wider for him sent heat flooding between her thighs.
She shifted without thinking, swinging her leg over his lap until she was straddling him on the narrow piano bench, her skirts bunching around her hips. The bench screeched dangerously beneath them. She did not much care.
The moment she settled against him, feeling the hard, unmistakable ridge of him pressed directly against the aching heat between her legs, they both gasped into each other’s mouths.
“Catherine,” he moaned gutturally like a prayer.
She did not answer with words. She rocked against him instead, seeking friction, and the groan that tore from his chest made something fierce and wild surge through her. Her fingers worked at the buttons of his waistcoat, clumsy with desperation, and he shrugged out of it without breaking the kiss. His cravat followed, landing somewhere on the floor.
His hands found the fastenings of her gown. The hooks gave way one by one, frantic and fumbling, and she arched into him as the bodice loosened and cool air met her flushed skin.
“Too many layers,” he muttered against her mouth.
“Far too many,” she agreed breathlessly.
He tugged the sleeves down her arms, letting the gown pool around her waist. Her stays followed, unlaced with shaking fingers, until she sat astride him in nothing but her chemise, the thin cotton clinging to her breasts, rosy nipples stiff and visible through the sheer fabric.
His cobalt gaze darkened. He stared at her as though she were something he had been ravenous for, and then his hands came up to cup her breasts, thumbs brushing across the tight peaks through the linen, and her breath left her in a rush.
She rocked against him again, harder this time, and felt the wet heat of her own arousal dampening the front of his breeches where they pressed together. The friction was delicious. Maddening.Not nearly enough.
His mouth dropped to her throat, kissing and sucking at the skin there while his hands kneaded her breasts, and Catherine threw her head back with a broken sound that was pure want. She felt his fingers hook into the neckline of her chemise and tug downward, baring her to the waist, and then his mouth closed over one nipple, and she nearly came undone on the spot.
The wet heat of his tongue, the gentle scrape of his teeth, the way he sucked and laved at the tight bud until it was swollen and aching, made her hips roll against him in helpless, rhythmic pulses. She clutched at his shoulders, his hair, anything solid, because the sensation was so sharp, so overwhelmingly good, that she felt as though she might fly apart.
“We should,” he said roughly against her skin, “move. Before this bench collapses.”
“I don’t care if it does,” she gasped.
He laughed, breathless and raw, and lifted his head to look at her. His eyes were nearly black, his mouth swollen and damp. “I do. I will not have our first time end with us in a heap on the floor.”
