Sleeping Beauty by Judith Ivory

Author:Judith Ivory
Language: eng
Format: mobi, epub
Published: 2012-07-18T13:43:35+00:00

Chapter 14

As Coco recovered, she became aware of James, lying beside her on the kitchen floor, digging his fingers through her hair. His fingertips would glide in against her scalp, along the side of her head, till they rode the back of her skull. As they continued on, her hair would tug gently. Sometimes, combing up and out, before he got all the way to the ends, he would bring a handful of her hair against his face. Or his gaze would remain fixed just above her head, his planed features stark in the elongated shadows of lamplight, while she felt her hair slide from between his fingers, gravity taking its weight through his hand.

“What are you doing?” she asked.

He shook his head, then didn’t answer precisely. “This,” he said, lifting a handful, “is the most beautiful hair that has ever existed.” He stopped to touch her cheek, a caress, then let his hand drift to her breast. “And these”—he cupped and lifted one, then the other—“are the most gorgeous breasts.”

She put her arm over her chest, trying as non-chalantly as possible to cover herself. Coco was self-conscious that her breasts were no longer the plump, pert things they used to be. Her body was changing: a small betrayal of nature. Those blessings that she had counted upon once, to draw, to charm, no longer charmed her—she was fuller through the hips than she liked, her skin noticeably less resilient, her breasts, well…not to put too fine a point on it, they drooped.

James pulled her arm and hand away as he had before. “The best part about your breasts is how they move,” he said. “They wobble and shudder in a way that mesmerizes me.”

Coco made a pull of her mouth, a skeptical click of her tongue. “James, they’re…well, pendulous. They sag. I’m old.”

But the young knight disputed vehemently. He shook his head. “They are perfect. They are lush. Mature. Voluptuous. I love them.” He laughed—perhaps nervously, she thought, for having spoken the word love. He smoothed his hand over her, the flat of his palm down her belly. “And your hips, your waist, your feet—I adore your feet—”

“My feet?”

“Oh, yes.” His fingers circled her ankle. He drew her foot up across his chest. She emitted a surprised ah as his tug rolled her, bringing her belly against his scratchy trousers, her pubis against his hip bone. “What wonderful feet,” he said.

She laughed. “You lie.”

“I never lie. Look at this instep.” He ran his finger along the top of her foot. “High, elegant. And this arch. Except for your other foot”—he grinned—“there was never one more graceful. And here.” He traced the veins along her ankle bone. “Little, blue threads, cerulean, like light shining from beneath a surface so delicate and white—your skin is translucent.” He kissed the tops of her toes.

Coco found herself discomposed in the way she was so often with James. “You—you are such a—” She finished, “such a charmer.”

“I never lie,” he repeated.

“Everyone lies sometimes.”

“Well, maybe once or twice, but not to you.

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