They arrived at the window seat, and Violet flung herself down upon it. “We should have one of these installed in our library,” she said, patting the cushions. “It’s extremely comfortable.”
“Whatever you wish,” James said, but from the way he was looking at her, Violet wasn’t at all sure that he had heard anything she had said. “What was it you wanted to speak about, Violet?”
“Um,” Violet said, unaccountably nervous, “I enjoyed our waltz this evening.”
She sounded inane, she knew.
“As did I,” James said, stepping closer to her. She tilted her head back to peer up at him, his head framed by the dim light surrounding him. “Violet . . .” He hesitated, and Violet leaned forward. She could see some sort of internal war being waged within him, and in that instant she wished desperately that she could read his thoughts. When he spoke, however, his tone was guarded, and he merely said, “That can’t be the only thing you wished to tell me.”
“Oh,” she said, striving to keep a note of disappointment out of her voice. “Er—did you enjoy your dance with Lady Fitzwilliam?” That, of course, hadn’t been at all what she intended to ask him.
“It was invigorating,” he said, raising an eyebrow at her in silent inquiry; he could clearly tell she was working herself up to something and was stalling a bit.
“I’m certain it was,” she replied, resting an elbow upon the windowsill behind her. “I’m sorry my delicate health wouldn’t permit me to dance as enthusiastically as I normally would.”
She had noticed that somehow she had begun to use the ruse of her illness as a code—when she wished to say something else to him entirely, she mentioned her failing health. It was a lie they held together, both of them aware of its falseness, neither one admitting as much in words. Rather perversely, it had the effect of making her feel closer to him—and if that wasn’t a sad commentary on the state of her marriage, then she didn’t know what was.
“Ah yes,” he said, leaning down and bracing his hands on the sill, allowing his arms to bracket her face. “And yet you felt well enough to suddenly interrupt the middle of a waltz?” He shook his head in mock astonishment. “Amazing.”
“One never does cease to marvel at the wonders of the human body.”
“Indeed,” he said, and there was a dark promise in that single word that sent a delicious shiver up and down the length of her spine. She looked into his shadowed face, into the green eyes gazing so intently at her, and she reached out, very deliberately, and placed a single ungloved hand on his cheek.
He closed his eyes briefly at the feel of her hand on his skin, then opened them again—and, quite suddenly, she couldn’t breathe. She sucked in an unsteady breath, but it felt as though she could not get enough air in her lungs. He leaned forward, giving her ample time to pull away, but she remained still.
He hesitated a fraction of an inch from her lips, giving her one last chance to stop him, but instead she leaned toward him, brushing her lips against his. And then, it was as if in doing so she had released him from a curse that bound him, for he bent down, seized her face in his hands, and took her mouth in a bruising kiss.
This kiss bore no resemblance to the chaste touch of lips of a moment before, and Violet relished its difference as she slid her hands up to cup the back of his head. Their mouths were hungry, his lips moving against hers in a frenzied dance, giving her no chance to so much as catch her breath. Violet parted her lips and let her tongue dart out to trace the seam of his lips, savoring the familiar taste of him as he opened his mouth in turn.
And, oh, she had forgotten how this felt—the wet heat of their mouths together, the growing warmth in various parts of her body to which she normally paid little attention. James reached out and slid a hand into her hair; Violet could feel the pins that held her coiffure in place falling to the seat cushions behind her. James cupped the back of her neck with one hand as he slid the other to her waist, pulling her to the edge of the window seat and into the cradle of his body as he dropped to his knees.
She let out a moan and they broke the kiss, each breathing heavily. She allowed her head to fall back against his hand at her neck, eyes staring unseeingly at the ceiling far above. James leaned forward and placed a kiss at the hollow of her throat, where she could feel her pulse pounding wildly. His tongue darted out to taste her, and she slid her hands into the thick locks of his hair, pulling his mouth back to her own.
She slid forward even farther until she was perched on the very edge of the window seat, her breasts brushing against the fabric of his coat. The hand that was clutching her waist began a slow journey north, cupping the weight of a breast, rubbing a finger across the hardening tip.
“James,” she gasped, breaking the kiss again, but words failed her as he began to kiss a path along the side of her neck and onto the upper slopes of her breasts. His other hand released her head and reached down to tug at the bodice of her dress—not forcefully enough to tear the fabric, but with a persistence that, after a moment, was rewarded when first one breast, then the other, popped free of fabric and corset.
“Someone might come in,” she said with what remained of her sanity in that moment, and James stilled at once, his head rising so that she could no longer feel the heat of his breath against her bare skin. He turned his head to peer over his shoulder, and Violet followed his glance. From their perch, Violet could not see the room’s entrance.
“We’re hidden from view of the door,” James said, and Violet was pleased to hear that he was breathing rather heavily himself, his voice slightly uneven. “But if you’re concerned—”
By way of reply, Violet leaned up and kissed him again, prompting a rumble of satisfaction from deep in his chest that she felt in her own body, pressed against him as she was.
“Lean back,” he said, tearing his mouth away after a moment, and pushed against her waist with an inexorable pressure that resulted in Violet half reclining against the cushions of the window seat, her legs spread wantonly. James moved forward to fill the space she had vacated, and she could feel the evidence of his arousal pressing against her as he crouched between her legs. He raised his hands and practically tore his gloves off, flinging them over his shoulder without a backward glance. He bent his head and, without further preamble, took one of her breasts into his mouth, causing Violet to arch off the window seat, her body bowing in pleasure at the feeling of his lips and tongue on her sensitive skin.
Her head fell back on the pillows behind her and she slid her hands into his hair once more, keeping him cradled against her as he kissed and sucked. Violet felt as though she were on fire, the blood in her veins racing with a feverish heat. She gave a wanton arch of her hips against him, once, twice. He groaned in response and lifted his head, his eyes blazing, and the sight of him there, with his hair disheveled and his cheeks slightly flushed, his chin resting in the hollow between her bare breasts, was so intoxicating that Violet felt as though she might spontaneously combust.
The first year of their marriage had been one of love and lust, of desire, of a need and hunger that she had not previously known existed. And yet, nothing—nothing—could have prepared her for what she felt at this moment.
Had it been it simple deprivation? she wondered with the small part of her mind that was still capable of rational thought. Had four years of abstinence been enough to prompt this reaction? Yet she could not imagine feeling this desperate, frenzied desire for any man other than her husband. It was something specific to them, to Violet and James and Violet-and-James, impossible to define but here, crackling between them.