Chapter Eight
The tea had allowed her to maneuver Nicholas away from the most secretive parts of her lab, but he still asked too many questions. Felicity had been wracking her brain trying to think of a way to distract him further, when their hands touched—and there was that bizarre bolt through her.
Like lightning.
That was how Tressa had described her attraction to Matthew Kent. She’d said the passion between them was all-consuming.
Suddenly, Felicity knew exactly how to distract Nicholas. She didn’t feel passion for him—she didn’t feel passion for anything, except bringing back Margaret—so the experiment would have to be modified to accommodate for that lack, but she supposed kissing would still do the trick.
She’d never kissed anyone, but it seemed simple enough. Certainly with fewer steps than building the Philosopher’s Stone, and she’d already half-managed that.
Nicholas set his cup down, motioning to the many shelves and books. “What is all of this, anyhow? What are you working on that’s so urgent? Perhaps I could help.”
Felicity closed the distance between them. “Never mind that. There’s a different experiment I’d like your help with.”
“What’s that?” Nicholas’s eyes widened as she put her hand on his shoulder.
She did not blame him for his surprise—she’d never initiated such contact with him before. Not like this. That’d been a mistake, because his muscles damn near rippled under her touch. She cataloged the firmness of his body and the way her heart sped up as she touched him, reminding herself to add it to her notes later.
But now she had to proceed to the experiment. She drew a breath to steady herself. Considered closing her eyes, and then decided that was illogical, because what if she missed his lips? Eyes wide open, Felicity rose up on the balls of her feet, and let her lips brush against Nicholas’s.
There! She had kissed him.
A second later, she pulled from him, weight going back down on the balls of her feet, studying him for a reaction. Now what? When did the distraction happen? He didn’t seem very affected—he kept staring at her, slack-jawed, eyes wide.
Experiment failed.
Fine then. She’d inform him he had to leave, and if he didn’t agree, she’d…she’d chase him out with the burner. Or something.
Except, as she watched him, contemplating this, a sea change occurred over his features. She was not good at reading expressions, but even she could tell this was different. She could practically feel the tension crackling in the air.
Then he tugged her to him, holding her so near she fell against his hard, muscular chest. She ought to protest, because she had not begun this contact. Yet the words wouldn’t leave her mouth. Her breath came faster, and there was a rising heat within her.
She liked him being this close.
That was unusual, indeed.
She had no time to examine that sensation. Because in the next instant, Nicholas’s fingers slid underneath her chin to tilt her head up, and then his lips smashed down upon hers.
It was nothing like the kiss she’d given him. She had obviously not received proper instructions from Tressa. Because this, this must be a kiss. Even she, who remained resolutely determined to never feel passion, could recognize the danger of this.
Because kissing was something more than simple pressure of lips. Whatever Nicholas was doing—whatever scientific process he was working upon her lips—was too good. Too perfect. Oh heaven’s bells, his mouth slanted so perfectly over hers. She seemed to know intrinsically where to place her hands, to press her palms against his shoulders, steadied by his strength.
Just when she thought she’d got the hang of this—when she too was kissing, like he’d showed her—his tongue darted out. She opened her mouth because that seemed like the only response he could possibly be wanting, and he rewarded her indeed by using that tongue to do devilishly wonderful things. All previous assumptions that tongues were only good for humble things like drinking tea or eating crumpets went out the window, proved to be incomplete by his new assertion. The dance of his tongue against hers was a far better use.
She’d have to make note of that, too.
His lips left hers, and she let out a murmur of protest. But this was the one area where he seemed to know more than she did—because now his tongue had moved to that little spot underneath her ear, which she certainly hadn’t realized could feel so deliciously wonderful. And there was a very intriguing hard bulge between his breeches, that when she shifted to rub against, she felt the loveliest sensation between her thighs. So much so that she let out a little whimper of appreciation, which only seemed to spur him on.
Now, his hands moved downward, to cup her breast. Tressa had spoken about this—but she had not mentioned it would make all logic fly so soundly from her head. She knew her desire to lean into him was a common reaction to his increased proximity, but she couldn’t think of a plausible explanation for why she longed to confide in him about her struggles to reanimate Margaret.
Felicity ought to be thinking of how she could move him out of the laboratory.
She ought to be ending this.
Instead, she moved against his hand, urging him closer, wishing that there was not the voluminous black bombazine between them. His thumb against her nipple sent a shock through her—she could only imagine what it would feel like without these clothes.
And she wanted to feel that.
She wanted to be close to him. To experience passion.
That thought startled her so much she jumped back from him. Passion meant emotions, and decisions based not on logic, and an upset to her routine. So much had already changed in the last six months. Death had already taken the best parts of her life; passion would not get the rest.
Nicholas didn’t follow her—he stood there, his breathing ragged. That hard part of his anatomy—erection, she supplied, reminding herself that correct terminology must be used for factual representation—made the fall of his trousers look quite tight.
“Felicity,” he said, starting to come toward her.
But if he did that, she’d kiss him again. What had started as a method of distraction had left her more frazzled, and questioning everything she’d just experienced.
She backed up, almost running into the table where she’d tried again and again over these last six months to create an Elixir of Life for Margaret. Palingenesis through the Philosopher’s Stone was noted in several alchemical texts, but no one seemed to know how it had been achieved.
That was what she should have been focusing on.
Not these new—scary yet so undeniably good—sensations.
“Well, then,” she managed to get out, reaching up to straighten her hair. It was, as always, a wild mess she couldn’t possibly hope to contain on her own. Her maid would have a fit.
“I did not expect that,” Nicholas said, that slow smirk that was so customary on lips—lips reddened from her kisses. “I mean, I wanted it, but I thought you—”
He had wanted her to kiss him? She blinked, trying to process this all, but coming up short. This was new too, and she didn’t want the new. She wanted the old, the familiar, the same as her life had been for years.
She had too much to think about now. “That was enough experimentation, I think. You may go now.”
Something flashed across his face. Pain, she thought. Hurt, too. Tressa had not mentioned men would be dejected when you asked them to leave. Felicity had never thought she had the capacity to wound Nicholas. He’d always thought so highly of himself, and brushed off all her comments.
“I—” Nicholas shut his mouth, apparently as confused as she felt too. “I’ll never understand you, Felicity Fields.”
Then he was gone. Out the tunnel to the garden, she noted abstractly, when he could have just exited through the study.
So she was alone. Instead of thinking she’d completed this little exercise quite well, she felt sadness. Loneliness, like she hadn’t felt since Margaret passed.
She did not like this, not at all. The world was changing around her, and she did not know how to bring things back to rights.