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Sonya’s cheeks burned.
Sin burned hotly on her lips. She could taste it on her tongue.
Trembling hands had grabbed hold of study shoulders. Charged with unspoken sentiment, the air between them sizzled. It was not too late to turn back, she thought, looking up.
The arms around her waist loosened. Had he sensed her doubt? If so, he was rather more in touch with her thoughts than any living being had ever been. It was the strangest thing, to be understood so well, with nary a word.
Sonya hesitated for one long moment. “Forgive me; I am not used to–“ To what? Affection? Passion? Making love with a man? Her chest heaved with sudden horror. She turned sideways in his arms. “Perhaps I ought not to even attempt it.” She could not possibly bear it if he too found her disappointing.
Half-expecting a show of temper, Sonya was nevertheless surprised to feel only tenderness in both his address and his touch. “There is no need to rush.” His lips brushed the shell of her ear with a careful stroke. He coaxed her into facing him once more and leaned in for another kiss. Insolent lips gave her the most maddening kisses, plucking at cords she was unaware she’d had to begin with, until Sonya melted. He was too good for words. “We have all the time in the world.”
They didn’t. Not truly.
She had put her own fears before all else and cost them precious time. But then Fyodor had said naught against it.
How strange. To have grown so used with dispensing freely with the man’s Christian name ought to have made her feel ashamed. Good wives did not encourage such closeness with their husband’s enemies. Good wives certainly did not invite said enemies into their beds. Well, might be enemies was too harsh a term; but certainly, Nikolai did not like Fyodor, and he had told her in no uncertain terms to stay away from him.
She truly ought to step back, but instead, Sonya wrapped her arms around his neck and pulled herself on her tiptoes. She kissed him with a distinctive air of awkward enthusiasm, praying all the while she would not disappoint him. Broad hands smoothed their way down her sides until they came to rest upon her hips, fingers splaying out, catching the silk of her skirts and bunching it. But he never strayed from their kiss, seemingly satisfied with the slow rhythm.
One day longer and she would be once again behind the bars of her hutch, in the well-meaning, but ineffective care of her kin. She would be Countess Rostova, with an invisible faded bloom of happiness pinned to her breast. The desperation hounded her, pushed her into a desperation. Who knew how long until she had such a chance again. She kissed Fyodor harder, feeling the slight slant of his mouth as it moved under hers.
Her arms fell away, hands seeking warm flesh when her head began spinning. Muscle jumped beneath her touch, honed, well-defined, holding something of the baroque decadence in the smoothness and strength of that reaction. It put her in the mind of a print she had seen; one of Carracci’s, espied in the library, as she was browsing through the selection on offer, just after having gotten married. At the time, she had been nigh but scandalised at the sight. The image had depicted an amorous Achilles in the embrace of his captive, Briseis, their intimate parts close together. She recalled closing the book with a sharp snap and walking away flustered.
As fingers threated through her hair, however, she found the strength of her impression spoke not to horror, but to curiosity. She knew well enough the tale of the Illiad, how Achilles had plundered Briseis’ home and carried her away. Perhaps she had been mistaken on the point of their liaison; perhaps like herself Briseis had felt some measure of relief in Achille’s embrace, illegitimate though it was.
Fyodor drew away at lengths, allowing the both of them a reprieve. His Addam’s apple bobbed with a thick swallow, accentuating the area. Sonya lowered herself to her usual height, watching with interest. Thus far, no irreversible change had come upon her. And she longed to embrace the change as much as she feared it. If only she might put it into words. But somehow, her tongue felt heavy within her mouth, stopping all coherent speech from forming.
Instead of being carried off to bed, though, she found herself on the receiving end of one last warning. “If you remain uncertain, now is the time to speak up.” His eyes, wildly blue, bore into her very soul.
He did not say it lightly, she felt. Thus, Sonya could not dismiss it lightly either. She afforded him the gratitude of considering her options for the last time, his unexpected gesture feeling both painfully chivalrous and utterly needless. “I am content with my choice.” Content was perhaps not the best word to use. She would far better appreciate eliminating the niggling sense of guilt which shadowed every delicious moment between them. But that was an impossibility. Sonya opened her arms wide. “Come to me?” It seemed to her only fair to return the favour and offer him a choice.
Obedient, he did, with an “Always,” upon his lips.
Thereafter, he hoisted her up in his arms as though she weighed no more than a feather.
Sonya leaned her head against Fyodor’s shoulder, hiding her face away from sight. It made it somewhat easier to endure their stepping over the last remaining threshold and into foreign territory as far as she was concerned.
Then, there were cool sheets beneath her and a warm body above hers. And Sonya, caught in the vice-grip of an unexpected feeling of rightness as they aligned, could no more think there was anything amiss in the world, let alone within her own bedroom, in the moment she shared with Fyodor. Not one thing.