He watched her for as long as he could, letting himself tumble into her gaze, following her slight flex and curl as she worked his climax from him, swallowing him.Bliss.Completion.Only when the pleasure became too much, when the oblivion of how forsakenly good it felt to release surged against the warning to keep quiet, did he close his eyes through the last moments of gratification to savour them.Then everything ebbed away, and the suppression eased into gasps that did not need to be silenced.
Odette released him from her mouth.She wiped a gloved finger along her lips.‘Am I forgiven?’she asked.
‘Not yet.’Cassius grabbed at whatever frills and fabric he could find and tugged her up, onto his lap.He needed to kiss her again, had to know what she tasted like when she was his.He claimed her mouth, rougher than before, demanded entrance, tasted her tongue.He had to feel and breathe her, had to commit all this sensation to memory.
Odette moaned in response, and he plucked enough buttons open to slide his hand beneath her bodice to cup the swell of her breasts, still caught beneath the stitching and stays.As she arched into his touch, she panted and squirmed in his lap.Even with the high of his own orgasm still fresh inside him, all hunger satiated, he recognised her desperation, the urgency of her desire.Cassius abandoned his attempts to bypass her bodice and instead set to work yanking up the swathes of her skirts until they bunched above her knees.Her black, low-heeled boots swung above the floor, and he trailed a finger over her white silk stockings as he buried his hand beneath her skirts.He fought his way through petticoats, over ribbons, brushing bare skin at last—soft thighs and, finally, the sleek wetness of her cunt.
He had defiled her beautiful mouth.Now he needed to make it sing.
With a crooked finger, he stroked over the plump flesh, smooth as her thighs.What a wicked surprise.The soprano shaved, or maybe waxed.She spread her legs wider, and he stroked her slit, teasing at her nub, caressing but not penetrating her body.
‘My turn,’ he grumbled low in her ear.He rubbed until she moaned, a high, needy sound.‘Keep quiet, Miss Delaney.If your voice carries across the theatre,everyonewill know.Because your voice is unmistakable.’
‘Don’t you tease me, Zadora.’And she spread a little wider, until her skirt stretched taut between her knees.
‘Now that I have you, I will do exactly what I want.Take the time I want.Enjoy you as I please.’
Odette buried her face in the crook of his neck, stifling a moan against his skin, and when he languidly circled her nub, she exhaled with both desire and relief, bucking her hips at his touch.He kept stroking, kept working her until she clung to his shoulders and her nails pressed through his coat.
‘What would you do if I stopped?’He slowed his gentle movements.Ran the tip of his finger along the line of her sex again.‘What if I decided to make you wait?’
‘I would finish myself,’ she snapped, already rummaging through her skirts with her free hand.
‘Don’t you dare.Not until I say,’ he warned.She hesitated, then submitted, limbs growing liquid within his arms.‘Good,’ he offered, and resumed his rhythm.‘I want one note from you.One sound.One moan, just for me.And I don’t care how loud it is.Understand?’
She nodded, biting her lip.Cassius slowly slid two fingers inside her, deep, deeper, until his knuckles pressed against bone.He pulled out even more slowly before pushing into her again.And again.In and out, in and out, he strummed her as an adagio, and when Odette forced another rumble of pleasure into quiet, he withdrew completely and licked the tips of his fingers.She watched him, lips parted, and as he fumbled his way through fabric once more, she pulled her skirt up a little to help.
Her breath caught when he thrust inside her again.She was wet, warm, so soft, so tight around his fingers.Cassius stroked faster now, all the while trying to imprint the feel of her in his mind, the smell and the taste of her.This was a memory to pluck out later, to relive on lonely nights or through boring conversations.He would relish recalling how he’d played the soprano as if she was his instrument.He rubbed her nub, too, his dexterous fingers working at all her points of pleasure, and Odette thrust against him, riding his hand.She tightened around him, still stuffing down her groans, her mouth pressed close to his ear, and her hot breath seared his skin.‘When?’she panted.
‘Now.’He thrust faster, drew neater circles.‘Sing for me.’
Her entire body softened.Little gasps blossomed into tiny moans, and she rolled in sync with him, at first matching, then mastering his rhythm.Now it was his turn to follow her, to stroke as she guided.She held a breath, her eyes fluttering closed, and with a delicious gasp, gave voice to her climax.One long, throaty moan filled the pit, swirling all the way up through the empty mezzanine to reach for the boxes, a sound of heaven made audible, of touch turned to song.Cassius took in her flushed cheeks and dishevelled hair, her eyes closed and her expression abandoned to pleasure… damn, she was beautiful.Always so beautiful, but this was beauty turned to chaos, uncontrolled, unravelled, only for him.A ripple chased through her, her muscles tightening and easing, outside and in.He flicked his fingers one more time to stretch out the last of her moan for just a beat longer… then she collapsed against his chest.
Cassius withdrew his fingers.She stayed curled against him, trembling.
‘Was that better than—’ he began, but stopped when she sat upright, blinking hard like she didn’t recognise him.She placed her palm against his chest and pushed herself up to shake out her skirts and fix her hair.
‘That… that’s settled then,’ she said, her tone unusually flat.‘We have that out of the way.Now we can go on as we were.’
And before he could flex his fingers or even wipe her wetness from them, she had crossed the pit.
‘Odette?’he called, but the door slammed shut.
Cassius licked, then sucked at his fingertips.Smelt what he’d drawn from her.Savoured it.Tucked every sensation away.
The soprano undone indeed.
Chapter 11
WhenOdettehadarrivedin London fifteen years ago, it had been as a third-class passenger on a steam train that huffed and puffed its way into Paddington Station with a belch.That same morning, she’d boarded a steam ferry in Calais, which had trundled across the Channel and deposited her in Dover.
She’d left a trunk of clothes behind her—painstakingly built up with money raised from performances and street shows.The small carpet bag she carried was all she could manage alone… because, since her grandmother had died a week earlier, that’s what she was.
Alone.
Unwilling to stay in France because it hurt, and with no home to return to, Odette had done what they always did—she moved on.They’d been heading west, so she continued, landing in London on a promise and a prayer, determined that her voice would help her find her way.Other singers thought of fame as an abstract possibility of faint hope and maybes.Not Odette.Odette wanted the world because that’s what Babcia had told her she deserved.The woman who’d buried a daughter and a husband in the same week had been as hard as the gravestones they’d walked away from, and every spare coin they made from singing and selling flowers—be they drachma, sous, florins, or lira—had been spent on lessons for Odette.Deportment, language, reading, mathematics, instruments… but mostly, singing.Her grandmother had never doubted Odette’s potential, and out of loyalty, Odette had believed in it, too.She adored her grandmother too much to resist the work, and not only because she filled her young mind with dreams of glorious stage roles and regular meals.Babcia protected her.She wielded her walking stick as a weapon, and any man or theatre manager who looked at Odette for too long received a sharp crack around the kneecaps and the promise of a slit throat if he dared to make any advances.That was how Odette had learnt she was beautiful—through an odd combination of ogling and threats of violence.
London had begun as London often did for weary travellers—as a disappointment.Dreary and grey, doors closed in her face when she asked about auditions.A growling stomach, empty after a long day without eating, forced her to pause and contemplate her options.Right then, right there in Soho, a man stopped to ask if she was well.For reasons she still didn’t understand, she blurted out the truth—no.With his dark hair, dark eyes, Jonah Worthington moved through the streets almost like a mailman.A recognisable outsider, he picked up and passed on knowledge or snippets of information and was greeted by all yet owned by no one.He had given her a penny for some soup, apologised that she was not suited to modelling for him in his current artistic season, then told her of someone who might have a spot in a performance that would make her a little money.Hardly the West End, the theatre was in fact very muchoffthe West End, but any stage was somewhere to start.And at least two people came to see the terrible show without walking out partway through: Jonah Worthington himself and his good friend Albert Abberton.
