Catherine’s smile widened. “Is that something you’d like?”
Lucy nodded convulsively.
Catherine tapped a finger against the side of Lucy’s throat. Just one finger, the tiniest rebuke, but the other woman’s pulse leaped beneath her touch.
“Tell me what you want,” Catherine commanded.
Lucy replied in a whisper: “You.”
Catherine’s lips parted in a silent, joyous laugh.
Lucy shook her head, her breath huffing out. She swallowed hard, and her chin lifted. “Kiss me.”
Catherine smiled sweetly—then brushed her lips over Lucy’s cheek, and away.
It was a deliberate, devilish tease of a kiss, and it made Lucy growl so low and fiercely that Catherine shivered in the cool night air.
“Kiss mehard,” Lucy corrected herself.
Catherine obliged. She wrapped one hand around Lucy’s neck and pulled the taller woman’s mouth down to hers. She nipped at Lucy’s lips until they opened for her, then she sank her tongue into the sweet, wet heat of Lucy’s mouth and devoured her like a comet was screaming down out of the sky, and they only had time for one last kiss before the world ended.
When she felt Lucy’s fingers clutch hungrily at her bodice and pluck at the buttons of her gown, Catherine ended the kiss and stepped back, out of reach.
“What next?” she demanded, though the breathiness of her own voice rather undercut the superior tone she was aiming for. Her breath whooshed in and out of her lungs, and despite the chill in the air, sweat was already trickling like a string of pearls down her spine.
Lucy’s chest was heaving, too. It was not quite cool enough for her breath to fog, but even from a foot away, Catherine could feel the hot puffs of air brushing over her cheeks and collarbone. She gulped in one last breath, and waved a shaking hand at the stairwell. “Downstairs. Bed.”
Catherine grasped that outflung hand and towed her lover along relentlessly. They bumped down the hallway, laughing at their own clumsiness, the sounds hidden behind furtive fingers.
Catherine pulled Lucy into the bedroom and shut the door, then pushed her up smartly against it. “Next.”
Lucy’s eyes were dark and hot as coals, only a single star-like spark in the pupils. She took a moment to look Catherine up and down. “Clothes.”
Oh, she was far too brazen, this early in the game. Catherine pressed the heel of her hand more firmly against Lucy’s shoulder, asserting a countess’s authority. “Your clothes or mine?”
“Yours...”
“And do what with them?”
“Take them off,” Lucy moaned. “Rip them, if you have to. Just hurry.”
“I will do no such thing.” Catherine turned on her heel, and stared haughtily back over her shoulder. “You will do one button at a time, and you will be careful about it.”
Lucy laughed again, but the sound was pure need and submission, her eyes afire with yearning and her expression desperate. Her hands shook on the nape of Catherine’s neck, but one by one all the buttons of the countess’s gown were undone, her stays unlaced, and every last scrap of silk and linen and lace had drifted in a heap to the floor.
Catherine turned again, hands on her hips, her chin proud and high.
Lucy was still leaning against the door. Her palms pressed convulsively against the wood, fingers flexing, as her eyes roamed Catherine’s glorious nakedness. The room was lit by only a single candle, one tiny sun against the darkness, bathing bared skin in undulating seas of light and shadow.
Catherine ran a hand slowly, savoringly down her own body, from shoulder to hip.
The movement pulled Lucy’s gaze along like a magnet pulls a compass; Catherine felt as though she were standing at the center of the world.
She arched a single eyebrow. “Next?”
Lucy’s voice was husky, low and aching. “Now my clothes. Take them off.” She pushed away from the door, her hands clasping in front of her, the knuckles white. “Please.”
Catherine sauntered around to stand behind Lucy. The younger woman was wearing one of her old gowns, a deep gray that had once been green—it showed on the wrong side of the cloth, when Catherine began unbuttoning and unfolding the two sides apart. Slowly she revealed the long line of Lucy’s spine, the wings of her shoulder blades, the dip at the small of her back. Catherine pushed the garments to the ground and pressed herself against that shining acre of skin. The feel of Lucy’s surprised gasp vibrated through blood and bone and arrowed right to Catherine’s nipples, tight and aching. She shifted a little, letting herself enjoy the friction for a moment as her own hands slid forward, round Lucy’s waist and higher up, until she was cupping the sweet small weight of Lucy’s breasts in her two hands.
