Page 18 of Insolence (Eisha’s Hidden Codices #1)

Shit . My legs quake as I breathlessly await her touch where I need it the most.

She makes a noise as soon as her fingers brush me, her head dropping onto my shoulder. “ Mmm , you’re soaking wet. Oh, hell. I want to feel how much.”

Her touch is as brazenly self-assured as I am a trembling mess. She traces a line up my seam through the thin, drenched cotton of my panties.

“Sadrie, gods .” I bite the inside of my cheek to keep from crying out as she pulls my underwear aside to swipe her thumb across my clit. My hunger rises, growing beastly, nearly monstrous in a way that has me straining to stay put.

“Tell me to stop. Say it, I dare you.”

“Don’t,” I gasp. “I think I’d have to kill you.”

Her low chuckle is breathy on my neck. “I figured as much. You feel heavenly, by the way. I can’t wait to taste you.”

A pathetic whimper falls from my lips, and the air thickens again, blotting out the Archive around us.

Between torturously slow swipes of her thumb, the air on my wet pussy is deliciously chilly. I long to feel her hot mouth sealing over me there. I nearly wail when her fingers push between my folds, dragging my arousal upward.

“You’re shaking.” Tracing circles, she smoothes slickness over my throbbing clit.

My eyes slide shut on a luxuriant moan as pleasure unspools through my limbs.

“Are you going to drop?” She’s pressed so close, her soft laugh ghosts across my cheek.

My head hangs. The breath I blow out is as unsteady as my legs.

Although we’re alone in here, the risk of getting caught is ever-present. I should be worried. Frightened, even. All things considered, I should definitely be smarter.

“Still deciding,” I moan as she hits my swelling nub again, her fingertips sweet, cool silk against what feels like a live coal of blistering want.

Somehow, the potential danger of what we’re doing only heightens the excitement. Fuck it, I want her. Here and now, consequences be damned.

“Relax. I got you.” Her free hand lands beneath mine on the upright, helping to support us.

Her fingers speed up between my legs. I give myself over to the sensations, a shameless groan spilling out of me. Pleasure splinters through my nervous system. All too soon I’m nearing a steep precipice with every deft stroke.

Her cheek skims mine. “I may or may not have been planning this since meeting you.”

“Planning what? Watching me come apart on your hand in the Archive?” I reach behind me, wedging my own hand between us and clawing at the band of her skirt.

“Watching you come apart anywhere on me, wherever we can get away with it, as often as possible.”

“Greedy girl,” I say and slide past her garter belt, into her underwear, and down, into her warm, wet heat.

“Wanton woman,” she answers, then moans. Her fingers briefly falter when I press into her folds.

“Sadrie, shit,” I breathe. “I can tell that you’ve been planning to seduce me.”

“Oh, hell.” Her hips jerk when I curl my fingers, teasing her swollen flesh. Not one to be outdone, the circles she’s drawing between my legs become tighter and faster.

“I can’t stop thinking about tasting you. Your thighs smothering me. Crawling over you to straddle your face.”

Ecstasy shoots through my veins at her words. A spike of pleasure is fast to follow. The beast inside of me roars for more, its hunger dwarfing my ability to muzzle it.

She grinds the hard ridge of her clit against the pads of my fingers, touching me and whispering, “I want to do so many things with you. Take you so many different ways and let you take me.”

“ Fuck ,” I whimper, nearly out of my mind. “Are you close at all?”

Her breathing comes faster. Her slick wetness squelches between my fingers the deeper she grinds. “I will be. Soon .”

It’s at this precise and ungodly moment that the Archive door swings open and falls shut with a thud that sounds throughout the small wing.

Shit . I freeze, my heart ramming. My hand and Sadrie’s hips go still. But her nerves must be made of stronger stuff than mine, because she doesn’t so much as pause her tortuous, mind-rending teasing between my legs.

“Sadrie,” I hiss, as voices come from near the entrance. There are two of them—two women—and one sounds familiar .

Sadrie lifts her hand, and my relief is mixed with profound disappointment.

But she’s not finished with me. Wrapping her free hand around my torso, she pulls me back tighter against her. I let go of the shelf.

Against my better judgment, I’m desperate for something, anything, when she hikes my skirt up again. Her fingers inch between the bottom of my garter belt and the waist of my panties, like I’m doing to her. When she reaches my slick sex again, she parts my folds to lay me open.

The voices travel around the room while my legs shake. I’m dead certain one of them belongs to Ghisele.

“Oh, gods,” I whisper, barely daring to breathe. Every muscle in my body is taut with fear, bound up with rapture yearning to explode.

When Sadrie slides two fingers down on either side of my swollen clit, my knees want to give out.

“Two things.”

“What,” I nearly sob, the word a shaky exhalation.

“Be as quiet as you can,” she instructs. Then, “Kiss me, songbird.”

I turn my head to accept her mouth. Her lips catch mine, her hot tongue swirling over mine while she squeezes the stem of my clit between her fingers.

She pulls up toward my navel. Stars explode behind my eyes. I buck into her hand, a muffled moan escaping. She inhales sharply, kissing me harder as she pinches and pulls again.

Pleasure sings through me, so sharp and sweet I fear I’ll die if she stops. But I need her to stop.

“What’s this?” The second voice is vaguely recognizable, but I can’t place who it is.

“Some lazy person just left their things here,” comes Ghisele’s snotty reply.

They found our cloaks. They’re too close! Sadrie does something that has heat surging in the pit of my stomach, and I nearly cry out.

Fuck, I’m too close.

“Another one!” Ghisele exclaims, and I know she’s pawing like a dog through the garments we stupidly left on the card catalogs. Thank the gods the black cloaks with fur lining and detachable hoods we’re all provided are identical. “Who’s in here?”

I hold my breath, ready to lose my damned mind to the terror and the helpless erotic sway Sadrie has me in.

Ghisele is closer when she calls out, “Hello? Is somebody in here?”

Her companion might as well be a raven: "Someone in here?”

I breathe my jittery nerves into Sadrie’s mouth, her lips sealing hard over mine in response.

“Are you hiding? ” Ghisele's haughty tone is coming from the study area now.

The combination of bliss, lust, and fear morphs into an even more heady elixir than before. My eyes flutter closed, and I pump my hips, desperate for release.

My belly tightens, my orgasm right on the brink.

With her free hand, Sadrie grabs my wrist that’s still wedged between us, tugging my hand from her skirt.

She directs that hand around me and forces my fingers past my lips, coated in her arousal. Her slick musk on my tongue drives me the rest of the way to climax.

Euphoria knocks the air from me. I manage to muffle myself while I fold in half, the hand not currently in my mouth grabbing the bookshelf for balance.

“I can hear you breathing , you know.” Ghisele is directly behind us, only a few shelves away.

The companion titters. And I am only half aware of them as my orgasm bowls through me in waves. We’re seconds away from getting ourselves caught and thrown to the sisters’ mercy, and Sadrie shows no signs of stopping whatever she’s doing to me.

Gods help me, it’s worth it.

I’m ready to drop, sucking and biting my fingers to keep the scream in my throat from erupting when a third voice joins the other two.

“Ghisele?” It’s coming from back near the entrance.

My orgasm slowly winds down. I'm reeling and gulping air as quietly as possible. At least it sounds like the other two are moving further away. Thank the gods.

“Oh, Enid. There you are,” says the third voice. “You’re both needed in the kitchens.”

I’m still bent over, utterly astounded, my hair hanging over my face. Their footsteps recede to the entrance. It’s a matter of minutes before they’ll be wondering where I am, too.

“Someone just left their cloak. Over there, on the card catalogs,” says Ghisele.

“A couple of someones,” says the other girl. Enid, apparently. Suddenly, I can place her. The oldest of the handmaidens—if she isn’t at least eighteen yet, then she’s damn close. She helps in the kitchens full-time, but the humid heat never seems to affect her perfect chestnut curls.

As far as I can tell, she’s Ghisele's only friend.

Sadrie lets go of me, the rustle of fabric and her quiet grunt the only indication that she’s stumbled backward, landing on the rug behind me. I let my hand drop from my mouth and dangle. My fingers smart where I bit them, but I didn’t break the skin.

“Leave them,” comes the third voice. The bossy edge to it reminds me of Ana. “Chores are starting, and Cook’s in a mood. We need you both right now.”

The sounds of grumbling and retreating footsteps bring a wave of relief. I’m sweating, shaking, and strangely exhilarated. When I peek behind me, Sadrie’s on the floor, her back propped against the wall, legs splayed in front of her.

It’s not until the door opens and closes again that my knees finally give way and I collapse. I land across her lap with a squeal and cling to her.

“I don’t think they would’ve approved of our study session,” I garble, still half-dazed.

“I’m not so sure,” Sadrie murmurs, gathering me in her arms and pressing a kiss to my forehead. “Ghisele seems like she could use a study session herself.”