Cat sighed. “I stole the key out of his desk when I was in his office looking for something.” Nora didn’t need to know that what Cat had been looking for was something of Edward’s to break or damage or steal. “I guessed what it was for because I’d seen the door.”
She felt Nora stiffen beside her. “You’ve been in Edward’s room?”
Cat grimaced. “Er, yes.”
“Uninvited.” It wasn’t a question.
“What of it, Nora? He came into mine often enough.” Cat shivered with disgust at the memory.
“You mustn’t do that anymore, Cat. He’s—well, he’s particular about his privacy.”
Cat snorted—he was deranged about it. “I won’t,” Cat lied.
It was better for everyone if Nora never knew that Cat had prowled Edward’s room every night when he’d been out of town in Manchester. She’d done it out of boredom, generally moving his possessions around—he was unexpectedly tidy for such a great slob of a man—and stealing whatever seized her fancy: like a whopping roll of banknotes she’d found under his mattress. She’d never had so much money in her hands in her life. So she’d dropped it into her dressing gown pocket along with a diamond cravat pin, two pairs of gold cufflinks, and his ivory hair brush. Later she’d wondered later why she took the brush and threw it into the rubbish bin in the alley beside the house.
She’d also discovered the door.
Nora sighed. “Go on with your story.”
“I didn’t get up the nerve to unlock the door before Edward came back.”
“When, Cat?”
“I finally got up the nerve one day when he was at work.” She twisted toward Nora, even though it was too dark to see her. “I’d never imagined such a place existed, Nora. That bed and everything is white and black—so stark. And then I looked in the armoire.”
“Oh, Cat,” Nora said, stroking her shoulder. Cat snuggled closer.
“I ran out of the room as fast as my feet would carry me but I forgot to lock the door so I had to go back again.”
Over the following weeks she’d gone back twice—always during the day when Edward was working and his valet was off on some errand. She was no longer frightened of the things in the wardrobe, although she was still a little disgusted. Mostly, she was intrigued. So intrigued she’d been rubbing the spot between her legs that Edward had tried to touch that first night, amazed at the wonderful things that occurred when she persisted.
“Go on, Cat. How long have you been watching?
“A week ago I hid under his bed after dinner. I went up early claiming a headache and I only had to wait barely an hour before he came in. Nelson undressed him and they’d talked about something or other and then he’d sent the man off. I watched his bare feet—they’re disgusting and hairy—move toward the hidden door. Once he’d closed and locked it, I went to see if you’d gone to bed.” She paused. “I’m sorry, Nora, but when nobody answered my knock I went in and found the bed untouched. You weren’t in your painting room and—” Once again she shrugged. “That was when it dawned on me, that you and Edward were lovers.”
Nora was so still it was like she’d left her body behind and gone somewhere.
“Nora?” she asked, ashamed at the frantic note in her voice.
“Yes, Cat?”
“I wasn’t mad at you, except I wished that you’d told me. You know I would have been glad. I only wish you’d married him and then you could carry his wretched baby.”
Nora said nothing.
“It’s all right, Nora, really. I’d say I forgave you, but I wasn’t even angry. About him, at least.”
“Oh, Cat,” Nora said quietly, and Cat wondered if she was crying. “What we’ve been doing is not all right, but it is still extremely gracious of you.”
Cat preened at the slight praise and continued. “Anyhow, the next night I hid under the bed in that room and waited.”
There was a long pause and then, “I see. And when was that, Cat?”
“Five nights ago.”
“Hmmm. And you’ve been there every night since?”
Cat could tell by her voice that she wasn’t exactly pleased. “I’m sorry, Nora. I know it was terribly gothic of me to sneak around and spy into your privacy.”
Nora gave an odd chuckle. “Well, Edward is your husband, Cat.”
She shivered. “Don’t remind me.”
“Oh, Cat,” Nora said. “What are we going to do with you?”
Cat couldn’t help sniffing Nora’s hair and neck while they were lying so close together. She smelled wonderful. Faint lavender overlaid by sweat and, she now knew, the tangy scent of sex.
Suddenly a terrifying thought struck her. “Are you going to tell Edward?” Nora didn’t answer immediately. “Please, Nora. He’ll beat me.”
That made Nora laugh. “He would not.”
She was right. “Only because it would harm the baby,” Cat said sulkily.
Nora didn’t argue.
“He’ll force me to some horrid place in the country.”
“Yes, that is likely true.”
“Please don’t tell him.”
“Cat, I won’t lie to him if he asks—I never lie to him.”
“I know,” Cat said spitefully, “I heard all about you these five past nights.”
Nora stiffened beside her and Cat immediately regretted the ugly insinuation.
“I’m sorry, Nora, really! Please don’t—”
“Shhhhh.” Nora kissed the top of Cat’s head and she felt herself melting at the gesture of affection. Was that odd?
“I can’t believe Edward would think to ask such a thing in a hundred years,” Nora finally said. “Just put the key back where you found it. Immediately.”
“I will,” Cat promised, conveniently forgetting to mention she’d already done that after having her own copy made on one of her secret jaunts. Jaunts that were now over, thanks to Tedward.
“And I want you to promise me you won’t go in there again.”
“Nora!”
“I mean it. Promise me or I will go to Edward right now.”
Cat knew she meant it—she’d never met a person as loyal and obedient as Nora before—at least the way she was to Edward. “I’ll promise, Nora, but—”
“But what?”
“But I want to know more. I want t-to do some of those things. Not the whippings,” she added quickly, shivering. “But some of the other things looked . . . nice.” They looked a lot more than that, but Cat kept the business about rubbing herself almost raw to herself. “Nora?” she asked when the other woman said nothing.
“Cat, you know Edward would be very happy to teach you the things you saw tonight. You don’t have to do all of them—or even any of them. There are an infinite number of ways to make love. Sex is one of life’s greatest joys and Edward is a wonderful lover. He would be gentle and make you very happy.”
Cat’s stomach pitched at the disgusting thought. She willed herself to say what she wanted but she was too much of a coward. She was more afraid than anything in a long time, not since that very first night when Edward had put his enormous breeding organ inside her, making her worry she would break inside or tear in half. Of course five nights of watching Edward and Nora had taught her that Edward had been exceptionally restrained with her. She shivered at the memory of how brutally and frequently he had—fucked—Nora. Even in her mouth and back there.
Thinking that word—fuck, which Edward used incessantly, along with other, even more crude terms—made the tingling between her thighs even more difficult to ignore.
“Cat? Would you like me to talk to him for you?”
“No!”
They both jumped at the abrupt word.
“I won’t,” Nora soothed. “But you really should approach him yourself and—”
“It isn’t him I want, Nora,” she gritted her teeth and squeezed her eyes shut. “It’s you.”
Chapter Twenty
Nora was glad it was dark because she cou
ld not imagine what her face might have given away: simple shock?
Or would it have been something less flattering—like greedy pleasure that this gorgeous, nubile young woman would never want Edward the way she did?
“Nora?”
Cat didn’t sound like her usual, confident self and Nora could imagine how embarrassed she was right now. She was like a virgin experiencing sexual attraction for the first time—at least it sounded that way. Nora chewed her lip. She needed to be careful what she said—she needed to say the right thing. She needed—
“Nora?”
“It’s all right Cat, I’m sorry—I’m not shocked or disgusted, I was just considering what to say.” She realized the girl had pulled away when she made her disclosure and pulled her closer. “Come here,” she murmured, kissing her head again. She didn’t know why she felt so much older than her. Cat was only six years her junior and she was a pregnant woman—an experience Nora had never had and likely never would.
A tentative hand on her thigh reminded her, suddenly, that she’d gone to bed naked.
She swallowed audibly in the darkness. Now what do I do?
Cat’s hand slid up her leg, her fingers unspeakably soft and timid, not stopping until they touched her mound and she sucked in a sharp breath.
“Nora?”
“Yes, Cat?”
“You can tell me no if you don’t want me to, but I was—” she broke off and her insecurity and misery stabbed at Nora’s heart.
“You can touch me wherever you want.”
This is a bad, bad, bad, bad, bad idea, a voice in Nora’s head shrieked.
“Really?”
Say no.
“Yes, really. Is it my piercing you want to touch?”
She heard a gulping sound and then a hoarse whisper, “All of you. I want to touch all of you.”
Nora’s heart thudded at the lust in the other woman’s voice. It was the same reaction she had whenever she knew somebody wanted her—it was her fatal flaw: she simply could not deny a person she liked—male, female, it made no difference to her—the pleasure of her body. It was, she knew, not normal.
Cat’s hand crept further and Nora spread for her, her core already pulsing with anticipation, because—yes—she was an immoral whore.
Cat slid a finger across her shaved mound—which Edward sedulously groomed—and sucked in a breath. “You’re so soft.” Her finger lightly touched the ring. Edward had sucked her piercing for a good hour tonight and it was sore, but she forced herself to lie still and take Cat’s tentative touches.
“Edward likes to tongue it and suck on it,” Cat said in a tone that suggested she wanted to know what that was all about.
“Yes, he does.”
“Edward seems rather obsessed by your body.”
Nora laughed softly. “Yes, he is.”
“That must be nice—to have somebody want you so much.”
Nora was about to tell her that she would find that one day herself when she remembered that Cat could never, ever, be unfaithful to Edward. It didn’t matter if he no longer went to Cat after she’d given him his two children. Edward guarded what was his—those things and people he considered his possessions—more jealously than any person Nora had ever met. He would never let Cat go. He would likely kill Nora if he caught them right now.
Naturally the thought of incurring his anger aroused her.
Cat’s finger dipped between her swollen lips and swept up and down, from the base of her peak to her opening.
“That feels good, Cat,” Nora praised.
Cat’s hand shook and Nora heard her gulp.
“Would you like me to touch you—with my mouth?” Nora offered.
You have crossed the point of no return. The voice in her head sounded like what God must sound like—or what her father had always sounded like when speaking God’s word.
Yes, of course she’d crossed a point of no return; since when had she ever shied away from anything?
❈❈❈
Cat wanted Nora so bad she couldn’t stop shaking.
“Shhh,” Nora soothed as she pulled the blankets back. “Can I take this off?” She asked, her hands lifting Cat’s hideous nightgown.
“Yes, please.” Her voice was a whisper but her body thundered.
Nora’s hands were deft and quick and she lifted the gown and Cat ducked out of it. She was naked with another person for the first time in her life. What would Nora think of her body? It looked nothing like her own—sleek, pale, and perfect. Her own breasts were too big and floppy and—
“Beautiful,” Nora murmured as she cupped one of Cat’s breasts with her cool, soft hand.
Cat’s shivering intensified and the place between her legs clenched and clenched and—
“Poor kitten,” Nora whispered against her nipple, making Cat cry out. “You need to come so badly.”
Her head grew woozy at the crude word, which Nora was speaking to her. She hadn’t realized she’d spread her legs until Nora said, “What a lovely invitation. May I touch your stomach?”
Cat startled at the question, stunned anyone would want to touch her rapidly thickening body.
“Yes, Nora. Please,” Cat added.
Nora positioned herself between Cat’s thighs, pushing them wider, making her feel—wicked, exposed, desirable.
Cat felt warm breath on her belly and then Nora’s hands.
“Mmmm,” she hummed, massaging Cat in a way that felt . . . worshipful. “May I kiss you—lick you?”
Cat thought her head might spin off. “Please,” she croaked, sounding just like a frog.
First Nora’s lips touched her navel, kissing softly, teasingly. Then her tongue flicked inside the dimple, again and again.
Cat moaned as Nora’s mouth and tongue drifted down and down, not stopping at the mass of hair that covered her. Instead, she buried her nose in Cat’s swollen crease and inhaled deeply. “Mmm, you smell so sweet.”
Cat’s face and throat and chest burned with embarrassment at the primitive, animal action, but she spread wider and tilted her hips without even realizing it.
Nora chuckled softly. “So eager,” she murmured, her hands moving to Cat’s lower lips and parting them.
Her mouth, when it finally touched Cat, was like that last drop of water that made the dam break and she shuddered, the now familiar pleasure rippling through her.
Nora tongued her less sensitive flesh, avoiding the source of her pleasure—which was almost painful to the touch, now—while Cat rode out her climax.
It was different with somebody else, she realized groggily as Nora continued to lick and kiss and caress and Cat drifted in a state of boneless pleasure.
Nora’s mouth never stopped moving, licking, sucking, and plunging her tongue into there, the place where only Edward had ever been.
Cat moaned and pushed against her, wanting her deeper. Nora’s finger joined her thrusting tongue and began to pump in and out of her while her mouth moved to Cat’s clitoris—the word sounding unspeakably dirty even in her mind.
Soon Nora was using two fingers, plunging into her while sucking. It wasn’t long before Cat experienced a familiar building in her pelvis; she was going to have another orgasm.
“Yes,” Cat murmured, arching and spreading, encouraged by Nora’s groans of pleasure to thrust against her, enraptured by the feeling of her hot, soft, sucking mouth that brought her up and up and up and up and—
“Ah, God. Nora,” she cried out, muffling the words with a pillow, ripples of pleasure carrying her toward bliss.
This was what it was meant to be like: this.
Chapter Twenty-One
For once, Nora managed to slip out of the house without one of the Thomases following her. She simply did not want them reporting to Edward that she’d visited Lord Anthony Howell, a prominent politician and the son of one duke and uncle of another. Edward would know immediately the only way that Nora would have met such a man.
So, she’d put on her old gray
cloak, which Mary had stuffed in the far back of a wardrobe and hurried toward the prestigious address on the letter.
She had plenty of money to hail a ride, but she needed to walk after last night. If she was wise, she’d keep walking as far as she had to in order to get out of Edward’s reach.
Cat had fallen asleep after a shocking number of orgasms and Nora had hated to rouse her, but she needed to at least get dressed. If Cat was found asleep in Nora’s bed that could be easily explained—everyone knew them to be friends. If she was found naked in Nora’s bed …
She’d been adorably shy, her deep flush making her even more beautiful. Nora had enjoyed Cat’s body, which was lush and sweet and responsive, but the worshipful look in Cat’s eyes had made her question the wisdom of what she’d done more than ever.
“Cat,” she’d said just before the girl left. “You must hide this from Edward, you know that—don’t you?”
She’d smiled, her lovely face radiant, “It will be our secret, Nora.”
Nora had wanted to cry—and start packing; she’d have more luck hiding a volcanic eruption in the house than Cat’s euphoria. If ever Nora had seen a well-pleasured woman, it was Cat that morning.
She chewed her lip as she scurried along, dodging early morning delivery wagons, domestics, and a host of other people heading to work. Nora had decided she’d best be able to hide her excursion the earlier she left. She often painted in the morning, so she’d left a note on the bed for Mary telling her she was painting and did not want to be disturbed. And then she’d frantically searched for the key she’d never used before and locked the sunroom door. Not that she was sure what that would achieve in the—albeit unlikely—event that Edward came looking for her. If Edward wanted in and she didn’t answer him, he’d break down the door. No part of her, she knew, was off-limits in his mind.
Nora knew before she even walked up the steps to Lord Anthony’s town house what had happened: a black wreath was on the door and all the drapes were drawn. It was a house of mourning.
Nora’s eyes glazed with tears; she was too late. She squeezed her eyes shut, aware she must look odd standing on the middle of the sidewalk staring up at the house, but unable to move.
His Harlot (Victorian Decadence Series Book 1) Page 19