"I'm—yes—in the cadenza," she panted,
He chuckled. The kind of sound a dark god might make before rewriting the laws of physics (watch out, Newton!) His fingers circled faster, one slipping inside, pushing, breaching.
She moaned, helpless against the new tempo. The rhythm. The pressure. The unfair talent of his hands.
Wanton had expected discipline. A stern lecture. She had not expected to be used like a disobedient libretto—bent across ducal lap, vibrato in every breath, and trills in places no music instructor would dare annotate. The overture had barely begun, and already her dignity was performing its own fugue exit stage left.
She bit her lip, determined to maintain her composure. But his fingers pressed deeper, stroking, circling, coaxing her open in a way that made her forget the difference between research and need.
Her hips shifted of their own accord.
Field Note: Entire body now participating without prior consent of the brain. Data increasingly suspect.
His breath ghosted over her skin. He flicked her clit, and then teased the edge of her slick, aching center.
She gasped. Not intentionally. Not academically. But simply because—oh, sweet scandal in a cravat—it felt good.
Too good. Her mouth fell open, and what emerged was a field report in primal vowel form—so wanton, so unfiltered, it could have gotten her excommunicated from Miss Primrose's Tea Society on the spot.
This was no longer science, but the Regency equivalent of swinging from the chandelier, corsets flying, shouting, "More champagne, less propriety!"
She pressed into his touch, hips lifting, breathing erratic, toes curling like they planned to write thank-you notes.
Scientific detachment? Shredded. Dignity? Suspended indefinitely.
Field Note: Who the devil cared?
Movement III: Finale Furioso – The Moan Heard 'Round the Room'
Tempo: Frantic. Explosive. Utterly Shameless. Instrumentation: Bare Skin, Frantic Breaths, Ducal Determination.
He plunged two fingers inside her, curling just so, striking that hidden chord with ruthless accuracy. Her entire body seized, every muscle drawn taut in ecstatic suspension. His fingerstracing the wet, aching seam of her sex, dipping into slick heat with the expertise of a virtuoso pianist gliding over ivory keys. With exquisite deliberation, he pressed his thumb against her clit, setting a rhythm that matched the beating pulse between her thighs.
Her spine arched. A sob burst from her throat—a high, keening note that shattered on the marble and echoed back in decadent harmony. Her thighs clamped around his hand. Her hips bucked with the violent, involuntary rhythm of rapture unrestrained. She was no longer Wanton Wallflower, scientist; she was Wanton Wallflower, soprano, soaring toward the climax of her solo.
But the duke was not finished composing.
Tap. Circle. Press. Repeat.
This was not improvisation—it was mastery. His fingertips coaxed, teased, then pressed, each stroke a note, each flick a melody that played across her nerves with merciless beauty. Her breath fractured into helpless whimpers, hips rising, seeking more, harder, deeper, now!
His thumb circled her clit, once, twice—then again with devastating precision, setting her body aflame in notes she’d never heard, rhythms she’d never known.
The pressure built. Her pulse surged in time with his fingers, each stroke playing her like a maestro mid-crescendo. She clutched his thigh as if it were the last stable surface in a world liquefied by lust.
And then—She came in a wild, soaring cadenza
A scream burst from her lips with such operatic might it didn’t just echo off the hammam’s domed ceiling, it rattled it. The Turkish lantern hanging above them—hand-blown, delicately painted, imported at great expense, shivered on its chain.
Then snapped. It fell and shattered spectacularly against the tiles.
A chaos of colored glass, startled echoes, and gooseflesh.
Wanton didn’t notice. She was busy climaxing hard enough to earn an honorary position at La Scala.
Her spine arched like a soprano reaching the high note of a forbidden duet. Her toes curled, her fingers left faint indentations in ducal quadriceps, and her body quaked in divine, combustible ruin.
If Pergolesi had seen her, he’d have rewritten every duet for one. If Newton had measured her vibrations, he’d have thrown out gravity altogether.
