Beguiled (7 page)

Unable to meet her eyes, I unfolded the shirt, then moved behind her so I could help her slip it on. Inadvertently, my fingers brushed her skin, and I circled her to begin fastening the buttons. She let me. I didn’t doubt she’d let me do far more if I only ventured to try it.

She watched me so intently, and I trembled so badly I could hardly work the tiny buttons into the holes. The backs of my fingers burned in contact with her collarbone, the flat hollow between her breasts, and the silken skin of her tummy.

It was a mistake. Alice, I should never have—

But I couldn’t utter the words. Even now, I longed to run my hands around her waist and lift my lips to hers. Would she kiss me back, or would she be repulsed? My heart skittered as I imagined touching her the way she’d just touched me. What would it be like to explore another woman’s femininity?

My face heated. The back of my neck sweltered. I felt faint. Finally, I’d fastened the endless row of buttons. I picked up the breeches and bent low, holding them open for her. I avoided looking at the auburn tuft of hair at the apex of her thighs.

Bracing her hand on my shoulder, she stepped into each leg with difficulty. Slowly, I pulled the fabric up her legs, my thumbs brushing her legs the entire way up. She held up the shirttail as I fastened the buttons. My channel tightened when my fingers grazed her curls.

Touch her. Is she as wet as I am? Oh God in heaven, just touch her. Reach between her legs and…

“Belle?” she said, and my heart literally skipped a beat.

My eyes met hers.

Her lips parted, and I hung on the moment, waiting for her to speak, waiting for her to bring up what had happened between us. Her gaze warmed, and her pupils enlarged. She wet her lips with the tip of her tongue. “Nothing,” she whispered. “I mean, thank you. For the clothes. For the food. For…
everything
.”

Fearing what might happen if I didn’t, I stumbled a step backward and nodded. “You’re welcome.”

You’re welcome
? I felt like an utter fool. I had to get out of her presence. I didn’t know what was happening to me. Tense, I walked to the door but stopped. “Pa broke his leg a couple of years ago. I think there’s a crutch in the attic. I’ll see if I can find it for you.”

* * *

As soon as Belle left the room, Alice dropped onto the side of the bed and blew out a sigh. She lifted her hand to rake it through her short hair but stopped at her lips. Closing her eyes, she pressed her cream-coated fingers to her mouth, breathing in the scent and flicking her tongue over the digits to taste
Belle.

Alice knew from Belle’s passionate reaction that she would go all the way with her, and the knowledge that the prim, proper southern lady would spread her legs for another woman drove Alice mad with desire.

Her mouth went cotton dry at the thought of Belle lifting all those frilly petticoats and then beckoning her to touch her—taste her. Alice tried to swallow but couldn’t. She’d seen the look of desire in Belle’s eyes. The curiosity to explore, to not only be touched but to touch as well.

Alice’s clitoris throbbed and ached. God, she’d go mad if she didn’t appease this raging lust. She inhaled. The house was quiet. No one would know if she touched herself. Her pulse accelerated as she reclined on the bed and worked her fingers under the waistband of her pants.

She jolted as soon as her fingers found her eager, swollen clit.
Belle…

Her lashes descended, and in her mind’s eye, she saw Belle’s face. Belle’s lips. Belle’s head disappearing between her thighs and then—

Alice gritted her teeth to keep from crying out as she began to massage her cunny. Fleeting, erotic images of Belle’s lips and tongue teasing her to ecstasy flooded her thoughts.

Every muscle in her body tensed, and she shuddered as she found bliss at her own touch. She hissed a sharp breath through her teeth and stilled when the last jolts of pleasure ebbed.

Footsteps echoed on the attic stairs, and Alice shot upright. Her lust—at least temporarily—assuaged, common sense rushed back. It was wrong and unfair of her to pressure Belle for more. Alice knew it full well, but she couldn’t stop herself.

Her heart sank. It was happening all over again, and she felt powerless to prevent it. While other women
pretended
, for Alice, being with a woman was all real. Utterly, frighteningly real. She could fall in love with a woman. She could spend the rest of her life with a woman. And goddamn it, she could get her heart broken by a woman—again.

The best thing to do would be to keep her hands off Belle. After all, Belle’s husband was away fighting. He’d eventually come home, and where would that leave her, Alice?

She wiped her fingers on the coarse fabric of her breeches and steeled herself. She would not touch Belle again. She could not.

* * *

That night, Uncle Hewlett played a reel on the fiddle while we all clapped and tapped our feet. I hadn’t felt this carefree in a year. Even though it meant having to share our rations, I enjoyed having a full house of laughing relatives again.

But when Alice appeared at the parlor door, leaning on the crutch I’d found her and clad in my husband’s shirt and breeches, everything came to a screeching halt. Literally.

Uncle Hewlett’s bow scratched across the strings, and he lowered the instrument.

My cousins gaped.

I leaped to my feet. “Alice, come in. Join us,” I said, smiling as I took her hands and coaxed her into the parlor. The feel of her fingers lacing with mine caused my heart to flutter. I hoped no one else saw the blush coloring my cheeks.

I introduced her to all the cousins and to my aunt. They greeted her suspiciously. But when I made the introduction to Uncle Hewlett, she offered to shake his hand. I gulped. Uncle Hewlett stared. His gaze flicked to mine before he gingerly took her hand and shook it.

“What is your last name, sir?” she asked.

His dark brow furrowed. “You may call me Uncle Hewlett.”

She shook her head. “I owe you the respect of referring to you by your surname.”

Uncle Hewlett’s shoulders squared. He’d been offended. His jaw set and his eyes narrowed. “My last name is the same as Miss Belle’s pa’s, and I
expect
you to refer to me as Uncle Hewlett.”

Alice gave him a curt nod. “You may refer to me as Miss O’Malley.”

He studied her for a moment. “I’ll do no such thing. In this house, you are Miss Alice. We are, all of us, family here. Do you understand?”

“Yes sir,” she said quickly.

I suppressed a grin, gathering Alice wasn’t accustomed to anyone being more overbearing than she was.

She sat beside me on the settee, and Uncle Hewlett resumed his reel. As the night wore on, everyone gradually accepted Alice’s different manner of look and dress. Doubtless, my cousins thought all Yankee girls acted like Alice.

While everyone else grew more and more at ease, I became increasingly tense. Soon, we’d all be turning in, and I would be getting in bed with Alice again.

I shifted on the settee. The motion of my thighs pressing together made me ache anew. Although I clapped in time to the music, my thoughts were miles away, drifting in the dark where I could be touched…and venture to touch. Behind my closed door and under the sheets, I could indulge my illicit fantasies, and no one would ever know.

* * *

Alice had already gone to our room while I closed up the house for the night. My heart thundered as I climbed the stairs. I couldn’t wait to have her hands on me again. I couldn’t wait to lose myself in the pleasure she gave to me.

God in heaven, what was I doing?

I pushed all doubt away. I needed this. I wanted this.

Alice sat on the edge of the bed, still dressed in Dalton’s clothes.

Trembling, I closed my bedroom door, and then holding her gaze, I twisted the key in the lock. Already, my cunny clenched in anticipation. Cream flooded my channel, dampening my pantalets for the second time today. Why couldn’t I get enough of this? Why had the one time not satisfied me?

Alice stared. I swallowed, summoning courage. “Touch me,” I said, my voice but a breath. “Please touch me again.”

A long, taut silence ensued, and for a moment, I thought she would refuse me. Finally, she pushed herself up and walked across the room to where I stood. My lashes fluttered shut, and I gulped deep breaths of air as she wordlessly began undressing me. Her hands worked hastily. Neither of us spoke as she peeled away my bodice and then unlaced my corset. I started to tell her I had to leave it tied so I could wriggle into it since I had no one left to lace it, but I kept my mouth shut and my eyes closed.

The whalebone and cotton fell away. She released the tapes that held up my chemise, and suddenly my top half was naked. My nipples pebbled as the cool air wafted over them.

Her fingers tugged the drawstring of my petticoat. It whispered down and dropped in a heap around my ankles. She didn’t merely help me out of my clothes. She
exposed
me, and I did absolutely nothing to stop her.

She turned me and pushed my back against the door, her face hovering inches from mine as she untied the ribbons that held up my pantalets. I resisted the urge to stop her, to grasp the waistband and hold up the last barrier between her fingers and my body.

Her quick, harsh breaths fanned my face, smelling of the sweet Muscadine wine we’d sipped. Her hands shook as she pushed my pantalets down. My chest rose and fell, brushing her coarse linen shirt.

I wanted her. I wanted her as I’d wanted Dalton. More. My body shook with the need to touch her, to please her, to open and soften to her.

Her hands threaded into my hair and released the clasp that held up my chignon. I heard it clatter to the floor as my long locks spilled down over my shoulders. Opening my eyes, I watched as she wound one of my black curls around her index finger.

“You’re so beautiful,” she murmured.

Boldly, I took her hand and drew it to my breast. My senses exploded as she cupped me there and then rolled my nipple gently between her thumb and forefinger. Everything inside me careened wildly out of control. When her hand left my breast and skimmed down my belly and between my legs, I instantly spread for her.

What wanton muse had possessed me? Still gazing into my eyes, she slid her fingers through my already creamy folds. Her shoulder dipped slightly as she reached farther, searching, searching—
oh, yes
, finding.

My world tilted. I clung to her shoulders and moaned as she found that wonderful spot inside my channel. I’d never experienced a touch so gentle and yet so effective. Her head descended, and at once, my nipple was in her hot mouth. Her tongue flicked the distended bud, and I wound my fingers into her hair, holding her head captive there while her expert fingers plunged into my eager cunny.

The words she’d uttered the night she’d killed the wounded Yankee resounded in my head. “
Will you do the same for me
?”

Yes, yes, a thousand times, yes
. I was her slave. I would willingly do anything she bade me to do.

The door rattled on its hinges as I rocked my hips in time with her hand. “Yes,” she hissed, and suddenly bliss was upon me.

Shocked that it had happened to quickly, I whimpered and rode her hand as spasms coursed through me with violent abandon.

“Don’t stop,” she said, her mouth now at my ear. “Let it come, Belle. Let it come on my fingers.”

My sheath squeezed her fingers. She didn’t let up. I couldn’t stand it. The pleasure was too much. The throes continued and continued until they finally eddied away.

Tears leaked from the corners of my eyes as I gave in to the pleasure she rendered from my sex. Her hips wedged between my legs, and she pinned me hard against the door. She pushed her lust-coated fingers into my mouth. “Taste it, Belle.”

I should have been repulsed. Instead, I grasped her hand and suckled and tasted and drank the sweet nectar she’d milked from my cunny. I was hers, and she knew it.

When I’d licked her fingers clean, she backed away and shucked her clothing. I watched, fervid to touch her. She undressed like a man, kicking off her boots by wedging on the heel with the toes of the other foot. Reaching behind her head, she yanked her shirt off, neck first. I had her breasts in my hands before she could get her breeches undone.

My impatience to touch her vied with confusion. My mind screamed that this was wicked, immoral. My body had a voice and a will of its own. Her nipples grew taut in my hands. I tweaked and tugged them, fascinated by the differences and similarities in our bodies.

Alice’s teeth sank into her bottom lip. I loved that I did this to her, that I gave her this pleasure. The feel of her firm breasts reignited my own desire.

Taking my hands, she dragged me toward the bed. When the backs of her knees hit the mattress, she sank and pushed herself back, spreading her legs while I crawled onto the bed between them. I couldn’t tear my gaze away from the dusting of hair where her swollen clitoris peeped from between two peachy folds. She spread her legs wider, and her flesh opened like the petals of a rose to expose all her glistening secrets.

Beneath all her bravado, boots, and boyish looks, she was all woman—so delicately feminine—that I stared amazed.

“Put your finger inside me, Belle,” she rasped.

Hesitantly, I reached for her but then stopped. “I don’t know what to do.”

“Yes you do,” she said as her hand clasped mine. She guided it to her center and bucked when I cupped her mound. Her entire body trembled, and she sucked in a sharp breath through her teeth.

I swallowed thickly. Heat radiated from her body. Slick wetness coated my fingers. I’d done this to her. I ached to explore her. My fingers curled into the creamy crevices.

Gripping fistfuls of the covers, she bowed off the bed. “Don’t tease me. Please, Belle. Please.”

My pulse pounded. I felt as if I were outside myself, watching as I knelt between a woman’s legs to pleasure her. Doubt surged. And then she grabbed my wrist with both her hands and pulled my palm hard against her. My eyes widened as my middle finger slipped inside her moist heat.