CHAPTER 29: CHAPTER TWENTY NINE

Ines stared at him, her heart doing a slow, heavy, painful beat. She was trapped. His hands were on the desk on either side of her, his body a wall of heat in front of her. She was pinned by her own inquisitiveness.

And she had just asked the most dangerous question on her list.

"What does it feel like to kiss a woman?"

Carcel did not move. He did not pull back. If anything, he leaned in, just a fraction of an inch, his voice a low, dark rumble.

"What does it feel like to kiss a woman?" he repeated.

It was not a question. It was a statement. He was acknowledging her query, and the sound of it, spoken in his deep, masculine voice, in this dark, silent room, made it sound a thousand times more scandalous than when she had written it.

"It depends," he said, his voice rough, "on the woman he is kissing."

It was an evasion. A non-answer. Ines, despite her terror, felt a flash of her earlier frustration. This was not helpful. This was not the specific, detailed information she required for Mr. Arthur Pendleton.

"I mean," she clarified, her voice a reedy whisper. She had to force the words out. "What would it feel like... to kiss the... the ’attractive woman’ you mentioned earlier? The one... the one with the... the ’claws’?"

She was asking, she imagined with a jolt of horror, what it would feel like to kiss her.

A long, agonizing silence stretched. He did not answer. He just... looked at her.

His gaze, which had been locked on her eyes, slowly, deliberately, dropped. It fell to her mouth.

Ines stopped breathing.

He stared at her lips. He stared at them as if he were a man dying of thirst and she were a cup of water. He stared at them as if he were memorizing their shape, their color, their texture. Ines’s lips began to tingle, to burn, as if he were physically touching them.

Finally, when she thought she would faint from the lack of air, he spoke. His voice was a low, strained, hypnotic whisper.

"When lips touch," he murmured, his gaze still fixed on her mouth, "all of your senses... they fill up. As if... as if they are melting. It is not just a touch. It is... heat. And it is... softness. And it is... a taste."

Ines’s own lips parted on a silent, shaky breath. She was trembling.

"When a hot tongue," he continued, his voice dropping even lower, becoming a gravelly vibration, "enters a woman’s mouth... and it twines with her slightly trembling tongue..."

His gaze, dark and heavy, finally lifted from her lips and locked with hers. He was staring into her, his eyes like black fire.

"...even her soft, sensitive inner flesh... quivers."

His eyes held hers. He was not just describing this. He was imagining it. He was describing, in erotic detail, exactly what he was thinking of doing to her, right at this very moment.

"When the tip of the tongue," he whispered, his gaze so intense she felt she was drowning in it, "touches the tender flesh inside... it feels as if you are claiming every part of her. As if you are tasting her. All of her. It is... a promise. Of what is to come."

Ines’s eyes were wide with a combination of pure shock and a wild, terrifying, curious fascination.

Is that... is that truly how kissing feels? her mind reeled. It was... it was nothing like the books. The books spoke of "chaste pecks," and "sweet, gentle hungry kisses." This... this was...

"That’s... that’s too explicit," she stammered, her voice a high-pitched, breathless squeak. She was scandalized. And she was, to her absolute horror, intrigued.

"It’s more like... like..." she couldn’t bring herself to say the words. It was not a kiss. It was...

A small, dangerous, and utterly devastating smile touched the corners of Carcel’s mouth. He had seen her shock. He had seen her wide-eyed, terrified curiosity. And he was, she realized, enjoying it.

"Like sex?" he finished for her, his voice soft.

Ines went completely, totally silent. She was a statue. A bright red, trembling, mortified statue.

He had said it. He had said the word.

"Yes," he continued, as if he were discussing something casual. "Kissing can be even more erotic than sex. In many ways. It satisfies not only the primal, physical desires... but the emotional ones, too."

Ines’s mind was a whirlwind. Primal desires? Emotional ones?

I couldn’t even imagine that, she thought, a wave of despair washing over her. This whole time, my writing... it’s been so... so mechanical. I wrote ’his lips crushed hers.’ I had no idea what that meant*. I would have just kept writing like a fool, mechanically, without knowing anything.*

She put her hands on the desk, intending to push herself away, to escape his proximity.

"Thank you," she said, her voice shaky but firm. She was trying to end the session. "Thank you very much, Carcel. That was... very informative. I am... I am glad I heard it from you. I am going to bed now."

She began to slide off the desk.

"Let me give you a tip about men this time," he said.

She paused, halfway off the desk. "Huh?" she said, confused. "Oh. Okay. A tip?"

She was still in "student" mode. She was expecting another piece of verbal advice. She was not prepared for his hands.

He left his hold on the edge of the desk. In one, sharp, fluid movement—the movement of a soldier, all speed and contained power—his hands were on her.

He grabbed her waist.

His large, hot, strong hands spanned her small waist, his fingers digging slightly into her ribs, his thumbs resting on the soft flesh just above her hip bones.

And he pulled.

A small, shocked "Oh!" was torn from her lips.

She was pulled from the desk and flush against his body. There was no space between them. Not a sliver of air. Her thin, silk-covered body was pressed, from her knees to her chest, against his hard, warm one.

She stumbled, her hands flying up to his chest to steady herself. Her palms splayed against the solid, warm muscle, covered by his thin linen shirt. She could feel his heart, a steady, thump-thump-thump, beating against her hand.

Her head was tilted all the way back. She was staring up into his face, his unreadable, shadowed, terrifyingly handsome face. The smell of him, clean soap and warm man, filled her senses.

He looked down at her, his expression grim. His voice was a low, strained growl, and she could feel the vibration of it through his chest, right into her hands.

"Never," he commanded, his hands still clamped on her waist, holding her to him, "stay alone with a man in such clothing."