Page 82 of A Fragile Enchantment

She wandered to one of the bay windows. Outside, there was nothing but a black-satin sky and the golden curve of the moon. She crawled onto the seat, scattered with worn pillows. She hugged one against her chest, feeling childish for how much it comforted her. Kit came to sit beside her. The moonlight brushed him delicately with silver.

In the silence, Niamh was all too aware of how their thighs were mere inches from touching. He wore such a pensive, somber expression, she couldn’t help herself. She knocked their knees together. “What are you going to do now?”

“I don’t know.”

“Then what do youwantto do?”

“There you go, talking about what I want again,” he said wryly. “What doyouwant?”

She smiled softly. “I want you to be happy. I wish your duty and your happiness did not seem so mutually exclusive right now. ButI know you will do well and that you will find contentment with Infanta Rosa.”

His expression grew wary. “Why does that sound like a goodbye?”

“Because… because…” Niamh drew in a shaky breath. She had really wanted to be more eloquent than this. “Thisisa goodbye. Jack has sent me away. As soon as I finish Infanta Rosa’s last fitting, I will be gone.”

“What?”

“I am so sorry, Kit.” She struggled to keep her voice even, but emotion swelled within her, too urgent to tamp down. “For everything. I never should have gotten you involved in this foolish scheme tonight. I never should have spoken to you so freely at all! If we never truly became acquainted, then…”

“Don’t talk nonsense.” Her protests died at the look in his eyes, panicked and furious and longing all at once. “This is not your fault. None of this is your fault. You need to stop shouldering everything and jumping to conclusions and blaming yourself for every little thing. If anyone’s at fault here, it’s me. I couldn’t have stayed away from you if I tried.”

She had never felt so grounded, nor so out of control. Her pulse roared, and her breath quickened, and her fingers dug into the cushion beside her. The air between them crackled, charged like a brewing storm.

Alive.

Her eyes fluttered shut as their mouths crashed together. Kit lifted her halfway onto his lap, and she fisted her hands in his lapels. Whether it was to steady herself or to hold him against her, she couldn’t be certain. The rush of her own desire shocked her, but Kit matched her hunger. He was artless, almost desperate, as his fingers twined in the hair at the nape of her neck. The rest of her hairpins fell against the floorboards like rain. And when his teeth pulled at her bottom lip, she was too far gone to be humiliated bythe moan he pulled from her. He kissed her like a man starved. He kissed her like he was running out of time.

Theywererunning out of time.

Kit drew back, and her heart leapt into her throat when he met her eyes. She wouldnotcry. If she ruined this, she would never forgive herself. Her mind spun with a thousand possibilities, all of the things she would never get to do with him, all of her fantasies crowding in at once. It was overwhelming, the longing he instilled in her. She hardly knew how to put a name to what she wanted. She whimpered.

“Are you all right?” His lips were kiss-swollen, and his breaths came harshly. “Is this…?”

Too much?She could hear the question in his voice. His concern was more endearing than it had any right to be.

Two roads diverged before her. There was the sensible route, where she put a stop to this before it could gut her, where she did not make their parting more difficult than it already needed to be. And then, there was the selfish route, the foolish route, the route where she let herself burn.

She hardly needed to think at all.

With trembling fingers, Niamh cradled his jaw. She swallowed so hard, she heard her own throat click. “It’s not enough.”

“No?” His pupils were blown wide with wanting. He shifted, one knee tucked into his chest, the other dangling off the edge of the seat to make room for her. “Then come here.”

When he spoke like that, she could deny him nothing. He guided her so that she was flush against him, her back pressed against his chest. She could feel the steady rise and fall of his breathing, the wild beating of his heart.

“Comfortable?” His breath stirred the loose hair around her face, and his voice was warm on the shell of her ear. A lazy shiver worked its way through her. How eagerly her body responded to him was humiliating.

“Hm… Not quite.” She wiggled her hips back and was rewarded by a low sound and the feeling of him hard against her. When she tipped her face toward his, she grinned. A flush crept up his neck.

“There,” she said angelically. “NowI’m comfortable.”

“Good.”

He caressed her ankle bone before slipping his hand beneath the hem of her skirt. It was long—far longer than she would like right now. Slowly—agonizingly slowly—he lifted it. His fingers traced fire up the curve of her calf, the swell of her thigh, the jut of her hip. The room was so quiet, she could hear the fabric sliding against her bare skin. Gooseflesh rippled across her body despite the heat, and she squirmed at the soft whisper of his breath against her throat, the softclickof metal as he unbuckled her garters. Anticipation quickened her pulse.

Her legs parted, and her knee knocked into the glass of the window, cold against her feverish skin. Somewhere in the distance, the sounds of the musicale far below them reached her. She became dimly aware of the thousand anxieties bubbling to the surface: what if they were caught, what if she had no idea what she was doing, what if she disappointed him,what if, what if, what if.

But she’d never felt so wanted. And when his hand finally,finallyslid between her thighs, her every worry dissolved. A quiet gasp escaped her. Her eyes fluttered shut; her head lolled back against his shoulder. He kissed her neck, and her limbs grew airy and useless. His free arm snaked around her waist to support her weight as she melted into him.