Charlotte’s heart sped up.
“And, without realising that there was any encouragement on your part,” Mary continued, “I discovered my thoughts were dangerously full of your every look and word. I quite fell for you, Charlotte Lucas. I mean, I am falling.”
“I believe you mean those things, I do. It is simply that…” She swallowed, then reached up and stroked Mary’s hair, her hands trembling as Mary’s lips pressed against soft flesh, kissing a trail down to her collarbone. “You know full well that even before my late husband, I had never been courted. And I had certainly never experienced the kind of passion that I…that we…” She tipped her head back, biting back a moan, then shifted so that she could gaze into Mary’s eyes. “I suppose it is no secret that I think the world of you.” Her cheeks flamed at the admission. “You’re beautiful and brilliant and funny. You could have anybody you wanted.”
So why me?she didn’t add, though she dearly wanted to.
“I wish you could see in yourself what I see, for then you would understand why I adore you so completely. I have only been obstructing my own path forward, for fear of…” Mary’s eyes were dark and thunderous, her fingers digging into Charlotte’s hips in a way that was at once pleasurable and painful. “Perhaps we have been doing too much thinking and talking and worrying, and not nearly enough feeling. How do you suggest we remedy that?”
It was less a question than a suggestion, to which there could only be one answer.Is this really happening?Charlotte swallowed, her mouth suddenly dry. “Are you sure?”
“Yes,” Mary said without hesitation. “Are you sure?”
“Yes.”
“Then follow me.”
* * *
In Mary’s bedroom, shafts of sunlight peeked through the half-opened curtains, illuminating Charlotte’s shaking handsas she unbuttoned Mary’s dress, fumbling with excitement and nerves. Mary’s hands were far more skilled, peeling the dress from Charlotte in moments, the petticoats soon following. Her mouth never stopped moving, kisses peppered over Charlotte’s shoulders and collarbones, brushing the cusp of her ear as they tumbled backwards onto the bed. Words rushed out as if Mary had kept them in all this time; a swollen river finally bursting its banks. “You are so beautiful,” she said, again and again. Charlotte blushed to hear such compliments, and yet Mary’s eyes glittered so fiercely that she half fancied that Mary meant it, really found her pretty, saw something in her that the rest of the world had overlooked. “What do you like?”
Charlotte wasn’t sure how to answer the question. Wasn’t sure she could, really, not with her heart hammering so hard it ached and Mary’s palm trailing over her bare hip, palming the underside of her breast. Mary’s warm thigh pressed against her own. “I do not rightly know.”
Mary paused, resting her forehead against Charlotte’s, her breathing ragged. “Shall we find out together?”
“Yes, please.”
Mary’s fingers dipped down until they reached soft, slippery heat. A single moment of pressure and Charlotte was lost in the inferno, burning up, desperate for more, grabbing Mary tightly. Letting out an irrepressible, guttural groan, she buried her face in Mary’s shoulder, smothered every inch of skin she could find with desperate, panting kisses while the fingers between her legs pressed and stroked and finally, achingly, entered her. She wriggled one hand free, desperate to touch Mary in turn, and was shocked and delighted to feel the same aching heat. Mary’s moans undid her, breathing Charlotte’s name over and over as Charlotte’s fingers slid over soft flesh, discovering a new place to enter the world. “Inside,” Mary begged. “Please.”
Instead, Charlotte drew rough, shaky circles, never quite dipping where she was needed, until Mary groaned, her free handdigging into the sheets, clawing at the bed, her teeth grazing Charlotte’s shoulder.
“Darling, please, I beg you,” she gasped, and Charlotte marvelled that she had this power, this novel ability to reduce another person to such helpless, mewling gasps, and tried not to think of how the single worddarlinghad sent a fresh wave of fire sweeping through her chest. “Don’t tease me,” Mary growled through gritted teeth. “I’ve wanted you for so long. Touch me. Take me.”
No one had ever desired her before. Not like this, with a raw, urgent need. “Call me that again,” she whispered, half bold, half afraid that Mary would make fun of her.
Those fine, dark eyes weren’t laughing now. “Darling. Please.”
Charlotte did as she was bid, her fingers pushing inside, and was rewarded with a long, shuddering sigh that was brighter and more melodious than any music she had ever heard. She clenched around Mary’s fingers as they slid inside her again and again, the wonder of some familiar and previously banal action becoming something new, something that built inside her like water brought to a steady boil.
She clutched at Mary again, their mouths finding each other, as the strange feeling crested inside, building to a crescendo. In a single moment of lucidity at the top of the wave, time stood still. Charlotte opened her eyes and met Mary’s. She knew she had been forever changed, that she would never, could never forget this, that the life she had been living prior had been little more than a shadow self comprised of grey shades. Bright colours exploded behind her eyelids as she squeezed them shut, a shiver rippling through her body. She cried out as a sharp feeling—a cousin of agony but much, much sweeter—shuddered through her, and she clung to Mary, clung and clung and never wanted to let go.
Chapter Twenty-Three
Afterwards, they lay entwined, Charlotte pressing hot-mouthed kisses to every piece of flesh she could find, unreasonably afraid that Mary would melt away, a grief-made phantom her imagination had produced in the aftermath of Mr Collins’ death. How easy it had been to make love and be made love to in return. The urge to flee was sudden and strong, guilt winding colubrine through her belly. Perhaps she should never have known how glorious it would feel, for now that she did, the memories would plague her more when she returned to Meryton.
She bit her lip. “I hope I was not a disappointment.”
Mary looked at her sharply, then tilted her head. “Do you regret it?”
“No! Never,” Charlotte protested, “I just feel…odd. A little guilty, perhaps.”
“About what?”
“That I…that we…” She paused, thinking the question over. In fact, she had no idea what she felt guilty for. “I do not know. It is a new thing for me to want something and then get it. I don’t quite know what to do with myself.” She smiled hesitantly. “That seems rather silly when said out loud, does it not?”
“I understand completely. It is a normal thing to think when one’s entire world-view has been upended.”
Mary gathered Charlotte to her without a moment’s hesitation, and rained gentle kisses onto her cheeks and chin until Charlotte was as giggly as a schoolgirl. “Stop,” she protested, still giggling. “You are tickling me.”
