To Have and to Hold (Finders Keepers #4)

Chapter Seven

It did not feel like dancing at all, the way they moved and came back together. Percy wondered if it was the most united they had been since the day in that tiny, stifling church, sunlight spiralling through the air. When he urged her closer, she obeyed, head tilting back to bare her elegant neck. Her eyes locked on his, unmoving, hot and heavy in the candlelight.

Time and reality parted to give way to this moment, the music swelling and his hands on her body the way she had never allowed when they were not pretending.

Tomorrow—but he could not think of tomorrow. There was only tonight.

Her lips tempted him, lush and full beneath the white feathers of her mask. Her hair, tightly coiled and pinned to the back of her head, gleamed like sunlit autumn leaves. Coming here had been a spur-of-the-moment decision, one made before he had even known what he was doing. After she had accepted his judgement of William, he’d given himself leave to hope, and when he had seen her rejection of William’s advances, he couldn’t have stayed away even if he’d wanted to.

And he had not, in that moment, wanted to.

Now, he could not bring himself to regret it; he felt the arousal in her body as surely as he did in his. Here, playing at being strangers, there was no need to hide behind the mask of familiarity and the way things had been between them.

They ate, they drank, and they danced. The night deepened and eventually sunrise harkened the onset of morning. The candles guttered, replaced by servants carrying new ones. Guests napped on sofas, or withdrew to nooks and corners, or perhaps unoccupied rooms, unwilling for the night to end. The ballroom emptied, fellow dancers leaving with each new set.

Still they moved together, hands clasping, bodies twisting and moving, parting always to come back together again. Each reunion, as brief as it was, sent relief coursing through his body. Though he’d deliberately not had anything to drink that evening, he felt intoxicated. Inebriated. Out of his senses.

“Odysseus,” she said, breaking the silence between them. “Epic hero. Is that not an audacious claim?”

Percy twisted her into a darkened corner, not missing a step even as his thumb smoothed over the bare skin of her hand. They turned, and a shudder ran through her. She pressed up against him, trapping him against the wall, and he wondered if the act were consciously done. He doubted it.

“He was perhaps a bad hero to choose, in retrospect,” he said.

“Why? Because he went on many adventures?” she teased him, leaning in, her eyes hypnotic. “Or perhaps because he was daring and bold.”

“Because he did not love his wife as much as he claimed to.”

“You don’t think he loved her? Legend says he did.”

“Legend has a habit of distorting the truth.”

“Well, he claimed to love her, then. I think he believed he did.”

He placed his hand on her waist, knowing no one was watching, and not particularly caring if they did. His thumb pressed against her ribcage, inches from the underside of her breast. She was such a slight thing, so easily breakable. Yet, for all that, she had broken him more times than he ever could, and with a far lighter touch. “Is that the same?” he murmured.

“For some men, it is.”

“You have a poor opinion of mankind.” He swiped his thumb up higher, and her breath caught. “Are we so very irredeemable?”

Her eyelids fluttered as though she heard the silent question underneath his voiced one. Am I so irredeemable ?

“I thought—perhaps—so.” Her fingers gripped his coat, ensuring he could not escape even if he had wanted to. “Now I hardly know what to think.”

His back brushed the wall, and he tightened his hold on her, drawing her flush against his body for the first time. The feel of the contact made him want to groan, to whisper her name and unpin her hair so it fell over her shoulders the way it had the previous night in her bed.

Yet the moment he did, their game would be at an end. Once he undid their pretence, he would not be able to stitch it into being once again.

He was not sure if he would want to.

She leant back, gazing into his face. Her hand rose, fingers brushing the edges of his mask. An indifferent disguise, as ineffectual as hers. “I do not wish to think about tomorrow,” she whispered.

He caught her wrist, fingers gentle, and brought it to his mouth. Soft, so soft, under his mouth, the scent of her perfume more pronounced here. Hardly breathing, she allowed the caress.

“Then let us live in denial a little longer,” he whispered, and when he flicked his tongue across the line of her vein, she gasped. “Allow me one thing, sweet Circe.”

“What is that?”

“Allow me to kiss you.”

The shadows of reality beckoned as she watched him. “Why?”

“Because I have wanted to since first I saw you.” He drew her arm over his shoulder and played his winning card. “We only have one night.”

Consequences. The word thudded dully at the back of his mind, and he knew it played in her mind, too. However much they didn’t want to face up to what this meant, tomorrow they must. A conversation was in order.

But for tonight . . . Tonight they could play at falling in love and nothing more.

She leant against him, eyes widening as she encountered his erection pressing against her stomach. Even if he had wanted to deny wanting her, this rendered it impossible.

He didn’t mind. Let her know. If she had been paying attention over the course of their marriage, it would be nothing new. An old reality, no longer shocking.

Still, what looked like surprise flitted across her eyes, and her breath came in a short spurt.

He ached.

His thumb brushed the underside of her breast.

Both hands braced on his shoulders, she rose onto her tiptoes, rubbing up against him with innocent sensuality as she brought her mouth against his.

Allow me to kiss you , he had said. Expecting, as had always been the case, to be the one to initiate. He had expected that she would yield, and perhaps—as he hoped—enjoy what pleasure it brought her. Instead, she wrapped her arms around his neck and held herself in place as she kissed him. Clumsily at first, their lips unaccustomed to the feel of the other’s. Unaccustomed to the sensation of her taking control.

Percy yielded. Both hands moved to her waist to support her as he returned her kiss gently, not letting her feel the way her tongue sent need rampaging through him. When she nipped at his bottom lip, he tightened his hold on her, stifling the groan. But by the way her lips curved in a smile, she understood what lay behind his restraint.

If he had his way, he would lay her bare and find a surface to take her against. Any would do. The wall, even, if she would permit him spreading her legs and pushing between them.

He blinked back all the lurid fantasies that sprung to mind, knowing he could never give way to them here. Or, perhaps, anywhere, if she refused to allow her body its desires. For as long as they had been married, she’d locked up the moment her body had responded to him. Out of resentment, he was sure. A feeling of loyalty, in some twisted way, to the man she had believed herself to love.

And so he held himself still as she tilted her head, finding the place their mouths slotted together as though they were made for one another. Her tongue slid against his, gently probing and gaining in confidence at the shiver that rocked through him. His hips jerked, out of control, seeking friction against her. In response, a moan tore from her throat, and she clung to him more tightly.

His restraint slipped, just for a second, and he felt around her to grip her backside. Such perfect curves, lush and soft in all the right places. He’d never known want until it came with red hair and green eyes and lips that were as wont to pout as smile.

He throbbed for her, kissing her back more urgently, showing her with his mouth all the things he longed to do elsewhere. Taste her. Lick her. Find her pleasure and bring about her climax the way she had never allowed him—but tonight, he knew, the usual rules did not apply, and she would give him all the things she had denied their entire marriage. Not merely sex, but desire .

And where would that leave them?

Gasping, she broke away, staring up at him through the shadows with wide, lustful eyes and swollen lips. “There,” she said, voice throaty in a way that made him burn. “Your kiss, sir.”

She had no inkling, no real idea, what she did to him.

He turned her, now being the one to press her against the wall with the weight of his body. He waited for her to move, but she kept still, breathless the way she had been that night in her bed. Waiting.

But the day closed in, dawn light filtering through the windows, the dome. The night was at an end.

As he met her gaze, he expected her to pull away, to hide behind the walls she’d erected before they’d even married. Instead, she met him with an expression so fierce, it should not have been so lovely.

Perhaps instead of Circe, his enchantress, he should have named her Boudicca.

“It’s almost time,” he said, pressing a kiss to her forehead. “My night is at an end.”

She closed her eyes, nostrils flaring. “We only promised each other one night.” It sounded almost like a curse.

“We did.” He stepped back and bowed. “Allow me to take you home.”

For a moment, he thought she might ask for something else—something more. Instead, she nodded slowly. “Keep your mask on,” she said, and he understood her meaning. Keep pretending .

“Of course. Tonight, I am nothing but a hero of legend.”

The smile didn’t reach her eyes. “A philanderer.”

“Now that I cannot agree with.” He touched her chin with the tip of one finger, and her eyes met his, open and searching, the fierceness fading into vulnerability that made his heart ache. “Not all legends are true, sweet Circe.”

She took hold of his wrist and brought his fingers to her lips. A gesture that she had never bestowed upon him before. But when she looked up again, all he could see was resignation across her face. “Call your carriage. I think it’s time for us to leave.”

Cecily kept silent on the carriage ride home. Their pretence was unravelling, thread by thread, with every yard they travelled. All she had were questions.

Had it always been like this with Percy?

Back when he had first started to court her, she couldn’t remember it ever feeling like this . Butterflies and flirtations and . . .

They’d talked. Of course they had, when they’d first met. He’d been a friend to her, and music had drawn them together—and even then, she had loved the duets they sang, as though time paused whenever his voice joined hers, and her heart ached, and she felt that wanting inside herself for more . But once the song ended, she had gone back to pining over William and thinking of Percy as a friend. A father figure, almost, showing interest in her because he wanted to encourage her interests, not because he was in love with her.

Now she wondered if she had ever known what love was. Being with Percy did not make her heart yearn with the same desperate intensity as it had with William when she was nineteen. He was not a firework but the steady burn of a coal fire, all embers and occasional flame.

And she had kissed him.

The memory of it brought a hot flush to her cheeks. An ache between her legs that she didn’t remember feeling before. Vainly, she rubbed her thighs together, only stopping when he glanced down at the movement. If anything, that only made the aching worse.

She’d never wanted like this before. And especially not Percy . Silver-haired, patient-eyed Percy, who had spurned her not hours before, and who had danced with her as though he could not stop himself.

Percy, whom she had long ago resolved never to want. All those years telling herself that she could never forgive him, and here she was, allowing the press of a hand, the touch of his mouth, to vanquish all of that.

She wished she had done it sooner.

She didn’t know she’d been crying until she put her hand to her cheeks and felt the tears.

Percy produced a handkerchief from somewhere. “Was it so very bad, sweet witch?” he murmured, his words a drug.

Cecily reached for the anger that had sustained her through four years of matrimony, only to find it was a storm that had blown itself out.

“No.” She hated the way her voice cracked a little. No, it had not been so very bad.

He reached for her hand, taking it in his. Although they had held hands all evening, this felt different somehow, when their bodies were otherwise so far apart. His skin was warm against hers, the callouses on his palm rough against hers. She recalled the way his fingers had scraped against the page of his book as he concentrated, and her stomach fluttered helplessly. How such an act could be so seductive, she didn’t know, but she couldn’t deny the heat that corkscrewed through her body, ending between her legs at the thought of those hands on her.

Stomach, breasts, lower. Lower.

It had been an age since he had last touched her there. Even then, the encounter had been short-lived, because she had not wanted him to be in her bed, so before anything of that nature could happen, he had left.

How ridiculous that she’d been denying herself because of a man who’d never wanted anything more than her innocence.

The blow was crippling.

“Circe?” he asked, and it sounded so like her name when he said it like that. “What’s the matter?”

I’m a fool . But not just a fool—one who had hurt her husband so much she couldn’t be certain that this one night of dancing would be enough to bring him back.

His thumb swept across her inner wrist, urging her into speech with that kind, patient way he had. Even when she knew she was being a brat.

The carriage pulled up to the house, and her heart clenched. This was the end of Odysseus and Circe; now they must return to being Percy and Cecily, with all the complications that went along with that.

He released her hand, and she felt the loss like she had lost the hand itself.

“We have arrived,” he said.

“When we step inside?” She couldn’t hide the plea in her voice—though for what, she couldn’t be entirely sure. “What then?”

“Then?” He inhaled slowly, and softness crept back into his voice. “Ah, my sweet love. Then we will have to face the dawning of the day.” He rose, crouching a little in the confined space, and leant in close. Certain she would receive another kiss, Cecily closed her eyes. But instead of her lips, his mouth ghosted across her cheek. “Goodnight, my darling,” he whispered.

Tears, as unexpected as they were inconvenient, stung her eyes, and she remained where she was, hands entwined tightly in her lap, as Percy climbed out of the carriage.

By the time she, too, entered the house, his figure had long gone.