Page 49 of Once Bitten, Twice Mine

“If I were to reach beneath your pure, white skirts, would I find you slick?”

Her cheeks heated with embarrassment as she nodded again. Valeria maintained eye contact as she smugly lifted her skirts to hip level. Her bloomers were on, but she still felt exposed.

“Hold your skirts up, and don’t you dare let them fall, or else I will leave and call Madame Gavreau back to the room.”

Caroline nodded, taking her skirts from her and holding them at her waist. They were so voluminous she could no longer see Valeria, but she felt as the other woman slid her bloomers down her legs, truly exposing her to the room. Part of her wanted to drop her skirts because no one had ever seen her there before and it felt wrong, but she desperately wanted to know what Valeria would do next.

“Good, cara. Keep your skirts up, I’ve got you.”

Caroline tensed as fingers that weren’t her own found her most intimate place through her delicate curls, but she didn’t push them away. “Oh, you are dripping for me,” Valeria purred.

Caroline squeaked; there was nothing for her to say as Valeria swiped her finger across her seam. Any attempt at a denial was useless when Valeria could feel the truth. She gasped as Valeria’s touch intensified over the bud between her thighs that she only touched late at night when she knew she was entirely alone.

“You’re so responsive. You’re desperate for pleasure, aren’t you?”

Caroline gasped as Valeria drew firm, steady circles around her. It was both too much and not enough as pleasure brewed within her that she wasn’t quite sure what to do with. Never before had she felt anything so intense. All she could do was brace herself against Valeria so she didn’t crumple to the floor like the dressing gown.

“You’re in your wedding dress about to fall apart on my fingers. Not your fiancé. No one else has ever made you feel like this.”

Caroline cried out, not caring that Madame Gavreau was on the other side of the door. Nothing mattered other than the inferno raging inside of her. Her knuckles turned white as her fingers dug into Valeria’s forearm.

“You must never forget that above all else, you are mine. Even if I hadn’t gotten to you first, you are still mine, and you always will be. Forever.” Her thumb kept up her steady circles even as her other fingers moved down to her entrance.

Caroline froze. While part of her longed for Valeria to continue, she couldn’t allow it. “Wait,” Caroline said, squeezing Valeria’s forearm with all her strength. “You can’t.”

“Why not?” Her tone was harsh, but her fingers stopped their approach. Unfortunately, the steady circles also ceased.

“I need to keep my maidenhead.” Her eyes flicked down as she explained her reasoning. Edgar loved her, and they were towards the end of her engagement, but her life wasn’t yet secured.

If it was Edgar before her wanting to pierce her maidenhead, she would have let him because he was the one who needed to do so. She didn’t look forward to the possibility of bleeding on her wedding night, but it was a necessary evil to secure her life. He was expecting an untouched wife, and she would give him any evidence she could.

Her eyes darkened. “And why should he have what is rightfully mine?”

“Because I need him.” When Valeria looked thunderous at her explanation, she scrambled for a better justification. “I need his money to help keep the estate going. To fix the house and pay the servants. I can’t give him a reason to take everything away when I’m so close to having everything.”

Valeria was silent for too long before she sighed, with a resigned look on her face. “Then I will relinquish what is rightfully mine to him. He may have your maidenhead, but I am the one who had you first.”

Valeria returned to her task, this time rubbing the small circles around the apex of her thighs much faster to make up for having to stop. And maybe even to get back at her a bit for not allowing her to breach her, but Caroline couldn’t find it in her to care. If Valeria wanted to take some of her rage out on her, she didn’t care as long as she was allowed her pleasure this time.

“You’re the only person I’ve ever wanted,” Caroline gasped as she felt lips leaving a gentle kiss on her thigh. “I’ve thought about you every day since we parted.”

Caroline’s muscles seized as her pleasure crested. It felt like she was being reborn. Like everything in her life had been inconsequential before that moment. Touching herself never felt like that.

As her pleasure waned and her bloomers were replaced, she dropped her skirts to see Valeria kneeling before her, her pink tongue darting out to clean that hand, and somehow her teeth peeked from her mouth. The last of Caroline’s pleasure was doused as she realized what she had just done.

Caroline suspected Valeria had been killing people in her village, and she still writhed in her arms like a strumpet. What did it say about her that the same mouth she kissed so eagerly had also been drinking the blood of the people in her village?

Tension filled the air as the spell between them broke and Caroline adjusted her skirts.

“Your modiste is growing restless out there.”

Caroline scrubbed her face with her hand. So much of what she had done was entirely careless. There was no way the woman hadn’t heard what had transpired. The very last thing she needed was gossip getting back to Edgar about the things she did behind his back.

Surely, Caroline wasn’t the first bride to get up to such things during a fitting.

“You can leave now.”

Valeria snorted. “Don’t think you can give me orders, cara.”