Page 97 of A Rare Find

“And perhaps licking?” she asked. “They might have licked each other.”

“Very possibly licking,” said Georgie. “Licking and sucking.”

“Have you?” she asked, heart skipping. Imagining Lord Phillip and Charles Peach in the ferns was one thing. Imagining Georgie…it was something else entirely. “Have you…thrust?”

“A few times.”

“Licked?” She got to her knees.

“Also. I’ve engaged, too, in a bit of sucking. And rubbing.”

“And you like doing it? Or having it done to you?”

“Both.”

“May I?” She touched the top button of their coat.

“Please.” They stretched their arms above their head.

She straddled their waist and undid the buttons with trembling fingers. They sat up to shrug out of the sleeves, their face an inch from hers, eyes dark with shadow. The bodice of her gown whispered lacily against their silk waistcoat, and her breath caught.

“Your plan,” they said, hoarsely, “it’s for my sake, my birthday. If you don’t want it for your sake too…we should stop.”

She swallowed. It wasn’t only her fingers trembling.

They were watching her intently.

Deliberately, she set to work on their waistcoat, pushing the cool buttons through the narrow holes. They slid out one arm and, with a jerk of the other, sent it flapping into the dark.

Their braces went next, shoved over their shoulders, and their shirt, which they tugged from their breeches. She lifted up as they wiggled out of those, and when she settled back down, they were naked beneath her.

She was breathing hard.

What now? She wasn’t sure. Sometimes you tried first, though. You tried before you were sure.

“May I lick your nipples?” It was a question she couldn’t have imagined asking last year, last month. Even now, her face burned.

But ever since she’d seen those nipples sparkling with water as Georgie splashed in the fishing pond, she’d wanted them under her tongue.

“Lick anything at all,” they said.

She wanted their nipples between her teeth too—she discovered that soon enough. The soft gasp she elicited from Georgie as she bit at them made moisture gather between her thighs.

“How do you feel about breasts?” she asked, sitting up, stroking their collarbones, trailing her fingers down the center of their chest, over their warm, smooth skin. Their breasts were much smaller than hers, tipped with those tiny, jaunty nipples. Rakish breasts. She’d like to devour them.

“I want to feel yours,” they said.

Their abdomen tightened as they curled to sitting, hair falling over their eyes as they unpinned her stomacher. She wiggled her arms from her sleeves, shivering.

They were unlacing her petticoat, her stays, and then it was only her shift, her drawers, and stockings. She pulled her shift over her head.

Their hands closed on her breasts. “Your breasts feel wonderful,” they told her, and she gave a shaky laugh.

“I meant how do you feel about yours, not mine.”

“Hmm?” They were caressing her, attention trained.

“Your breasts.”