Page 46

S ilas’s head thrummed with the electricity of a thousand lightning strikes, stars sparking behind his eyelids.

The heady joy of Ophelia in his arms again, her broad smile turned up toward him, madcap with excitement and desire.

Lust streaked through him, hot and dangerous, but he forced himself to concentrate; he wanted to remember everything.

Stroking her hair tenderly, he catalogued the exact second Ophelia’s lips met his, the particular weight of them against his own, the distinct taste of tea and honey on her tongue when she swiped it against his, eager and questing.

He singed the memory of her fingers curled at the nape of his neck into his mind, pulling at the roots of his hair just enough to bring his cock to full attention, his entire body adrift on sensation, anchored only at the places where their bodies met.

Breasts and chest, hips and thighs. He tried to steady himself, pressed kiss after kiss to her lips, but when she drew her warm tongue across his mouth, begging entry, he had felt himself go under, sinking into the honeyed warmth.

A low growl rumbled between them, captured almost instantly by Ophelia’s sipping kisses, her languorous explorations of his mouth.

Silas wondered if one might go mad from desire, thinking that at least he and Ophelia would do so together.

When she pressed herself more firmly against him, he could feel her body trembling, her shuddering breaths rubbing the edge of her corset against his nipples distractingly.

He couldn’t remember ever wanting to do anything more than he wanted to unbutton her shirt and lay her bare to him.

His mind reeled at the memory of Ophelia’s breasts overflowing her corset, he want to figure out more ways to pleasure her with his hands and tongue.

He opened his mouth wider, trying to taste more of her, bumping their noses when he tilted her head to better meet his tongue.

She pulled back, rubbing the bridge of his nose, a rueful smile on her still-damp lips.

“Sorry.” Ophelia giggled breathlessly, before running her hands along his jaw and up into his hair.

“S’okay,” Silas replied, leaning in to press open-mouthed kisses along the line of her jaw and down her throat.

He lingered behind her ear and licked into the dip between her shoulder and neck, sucking the tender spot gently when he paused.

Running his hands up Ophelia’s arms and cradling her face in his hands, he pressed a soft kiss to her lips.

She smiled against his mouth, and before he knew it, he was giving in to the firestorm of desire burning through him.

He didn’t wait or lap gently this time, but plunged into the dark warmth of her mouth, tongue tangling wildly with hers, teeth nipping at her kiss-swollen lips.

Silas felt his cock swell, his trousers uncomfortably tight, just as Ophelia arched against him, then drew back, her chest heaving.

He raised his hands to the top button of her shirt, pushing the tiny mother-of-pearl button through its stitched hole, looking up to see whether he had her permission to continue.

She nodded, her breath catching when his fingers brushed against the rise of her breast. Pushing the straps of her overalls off her shoulders and carefully peeling back the fabric, Silas ran a finger along the embroidered edge of Ophelia’s corset, considering the creamy expanse that rose and fell quickly under his gaze.

The skin of her chest was smooth and pale, dotted by the tiniest freckles, a constellation only he could see.

Watching her face carefully, he ran the backs of his fingers gently down her sternum, dragging a finger into the cleft of her breasts.

Her skin was so soft and warm, her reaction to his touch so electric, Silas thought he might come right there.

Ophelia let her head fall back, sighing as she did so.

Silas kissed the base of her throat and dipped a long finger beneath the edge of her corset, finding the hardening point of her nipple.

His breath left him in a rush, and Ophelia arched against him with a tiny whine of pleasure.

He could feel her pushing her breast up into his palm, trying to increase the contact, and his mind blanked, utterly blackened by a haze of desire.

It hummed between them like a gossamer thread, electric and impossible, and he was struck anew by the miracle that Ophelia mirrored his desire so exactly, so hungrily.

Hunger. It clawed and howled in his chest, like something wild and too long denied.

Dipping his head to where his hand cradled the satiny weight of her breast, he opened his mouth and let it out.

The swipe of his tongue around Ophelia’s nipple threatened to bring him to his knees and he tightened his grip on her hip to keep his balance.

Desperate to be inside Ophelia again, to be that close, he let his tongue linger over the pebbled skin of her nipple, exploring the texture even as he felt it tighten almost to a point.

Unable to resist Ophelia’s broken sighs and the thrill of pleasuring her, he took her nipple into his mouth, sucking gently, then with more force when she threaded her hands in his hair and held him to her.

She arched against him, and the press of her softness against his cock was more than he could bear, so he pressed his thigh between her legs.

Hitching her up against him, and begging his body to withstand the exquisite torture, Silas ground Ophelia against the muscle of his thigh, his free hand skating over her hip, clutching at the extra fabric of her overalls, trying to make contact with her body.

She made hot, needy noises, so pressed his leg harder against her centre, felt her arch into it, legs tensing to find purchase against him.

“I’m ... Silas ... God,” she intoned, rubbing harder, uncoordinated, against him.

Painfully hard, he tried to ignore the friction of her leg as her orgasm overtook her.

Head thrown back, pale neck exposed, she shuddered and cried out, clutching his shoulders for support.

He ran his hands up and down her back, feeling an aching tenderness pushing from behind his ribs.

She looked up at him. Her blue eyes were fathoms deep, pupils muzzy and blown wide with desire.

Like a goddess, hair wild, colour high on her cheeks, she looked both surprised and completely at ease.

Her desire was plain on her face and Silas loved the frankness of it, wanted to kneel before her, give her everything she desired.

He didn’t know what that looked like, but he found he didn’t really care.

He would find his way to something new. Could already feel how tight and stiff his old thinking felt.

They would build something beautiful. Together.

Not having any words at all, Ophelia sagged into him, letting her cheek press into his chest. She listened to his heart pound beneath her ear and felt the echo of it in her own chest. Here, here, here each beat seemed to say.

She had half expected the cold rush of self-recrimination, but it didn’t come.

Satiety lifted her on a tide of pleasure and she pushed away her worries.

Later on, when she was alone again, she would have this to remember, when they were for each other and the world was quiet for a moment.

Silas pressed a long, soft kiss to the top of her head, his hand smoothing down the coils of her hair, and she ran her hands up his back to pull him closer to her.

Right now, Ophelia told herself, she had Silas, willing and impressively eager, and she intended to take every advantage of the moment.

She nuzzled his chest and raised her head to kiss him, which he returned, then murmured, “Let’s get these off,” and pushed her overalls down over her hips, pulling her to step out of them.

Indicating her corset with a wave of his hand, he said, “You might be quicker with that,” and proceeded to unbutton his waistcoat and the buttons at the neck of his shirt.

Shucking the vest, he slid his thumbs under the worn leather of his braces, and Ophelia stopped unhooking her corset to watch.

He grinned, vulpine, and made a show of teasing the leather over his broad shoulders.

Shirt off, braces hanging down his legs, he began to unbutton his trousers. Ophelia’s throat dried instantly.

“Leave those just like that,” she said, her voice rough.

A dark eyebrow flew up, but he didn’t protest. Only nodded and waited for her to finish with her corset.

Bare and settled against the pillows on Silas’s bed, Ophelia felt like a woman in a painting: admired, sated, doted upon.

Silas bent, then crawled up the bed toward her, and she reflexively pulled the sheet up to her chest. He shook his head and pulling the sheet gently away, settled his wide shoulders between her spread legs.

“I want to taste you again,” he whispered, looking up to meet her eyes, before lowering his head and pressing his mouth to the damp curls at the apex of her thighs.

She hummed a ragged agreement as she let her head fall back against the wall.

Silas’s tongue was moving delicately along the seam of her vulva, dipping into the sensitive folds with tiny licks, then sucking kisses that dragged her swollen lips into the heat of his mouth.

Ophelia felt lost to the world, floating on a sea of sensation so wide she could no longer see the horizon, anchored only by Silas’s tongue lapping into her, his spread hands firm under her backside.

She squirmed to get closer to him, a low keening in the back of her throat.

“Silas,” she managed, “don’t stop.”