A giggle shot through the orange-hazed room, followed by a fuller chuckle and then a shushing sound. Without my consent, my gaze flashed to the direction of the noise. A couple moved through the doorway, tangled up in each other and kissing.
The blonde woman was thin and unassuming. Her milky white skin was almost completely covered by a plain navy burlap sack of a dress, save for her arms and neck.
The man, wasting no time, was already halfway out of his shirt, whipping the puffy white fabric off and letting it fall to the floor. He had a hat on, swooping and bulky. As he pulled it off, letting dark curls fall down his shoulders, I instinctively knew a few things to be true.
First, I was in the past. That much was clear from the lantern light and ridiculously dated clothing.
Second, the man I was looking at was Abram. I knew that sculpted chest. I knew those strong arms.
And Abram, given the tremble in the girl’s voice, was clearly about to get lucky.
But why was Satina showing me this? I knew Abram had a past. He told me he was a cad (or whatever grandpa language he used to let me know he used to sleep around). Did this stupid witch really think that giving me front row tickets to a time Abram made a girl regret her choice of bed buddy would be enough to make me turn on him?
“What if Father hears us?” The girl gasped as Abram slipped the dress off of her shoulders. It fell the way you would expect something large enough to hide every curve might—completely and all at once.
The girl was left standing in only a white slip, which was still more clothing than you would see in Milan this season. But I could tell that, for her, this was a line she had never crossed before.
“Father should be the furthest thing from your mind right now,” he said, kissing her neck. He moved down her untouched skin, his lips wrapping around the softness of where her shoulder met her neck.
His fingers, as skillful as a surgeon’s, pulled at the lace of her slip, loosening the fabric.
The girl shook all over as her breasts were exposed. Her eyes filled, and instantly I recognized something in them. I had been a girl who had never been naked in front of a man once. And the feeling that overtakes you when you finally are, that mix of regret and excitement, is something you never forget.
“Do you have any idea how much trouble we’ll get into if—”
Her words stopped as Abram’s moved down to her breasts, his mouth circling her nipples. She bit her lip, feeling the warmth overtake one of her most sensitive areas.
And then I bit my lip.
Oh God, I could feel it. I could feel everything he was doing to her, every sensation and emotion coursing through Satina’s body.
I felt his lips on me, his tongue flicking at and hardening my nipples. Satina wasn’t satisfied to make me a voyeur to whatever was about to happen. She wanted me to be an inactive participant as well.
His hand ran up her back, and I shuddered. His palm, steadying her back, steadying her insecurities. It was more than just the physical sensation I was indulging in. I felt all of her anxiety, all her excitement. All the trembling, worry, regret, fear, longing, and connection; it all belonged to me too somehow.
It felt—it felt like the first time all over again.
“Father will—”
With his free hand, Abram ripped the rest of her slip away, revealing the entirety of her supple body to the open air. She was cool and trembling, afraid of what he was about to do, and desperate for him to continue.
His fingers searched her thighs as his mouth explored her abdomen. I stifled a breath as his tongue ran across her naval. Slowly, her inhibitions were falling away. Everything she had been taught, all the truths about what a proper lady was supposed to be, melted away under the heat of his touch.
The strangeness subsided for me as well. Her feelings were my feelings. Her sensations were my sensations. And it would be a lie to say I wasn’t starting to let myself get swept up in them. Abram had a way of doing that to people—apparently even through the memories of times past.
My chest tightened as his fingers found their way into her. The moisture that came with her excitement pooled around his touch, and if I would have been able to moan in my current state, I sure as hell would have. Every sex dream I had ever had paled by comparison.
Even now, seemingly before his lifetimes of experience, Abram was skilled in the art of pleasure. Though he wasn’t touching me, I felt him deep within myself. His hands were a symphony of sensations, each one more precise and exhilarating than the last.
I tried to remind myself that this was a spell, that the creature responsible for this may very well have been bleeding me dry and that this was nothing more than a magical ruse to keep me occupied.
But if it was a ruse, it was a damn good one. I felt myself lunge as Abram kissed the girl, letting his tongue slide where his fingers had just been.