Nora felt her cheeks warm and her heart flutter. “A—AndThe Pirate? You haven’t taken up a life of crime on the high seas in the past few years, have you?”
Thomas chuckled. “Hardly. I become quite seasick on anything larger than a rowboat.” Another thing she hadn’tknown about him. She pondered all the things they’d missed and hadn’t learned about one another in their time spent apart. How different were they from the people they’d once been—and how well would the people they were now mesh together? Were they even compatible? To her, it had once felt as if they were complementary halves of the same whole, each one making the other stronger, more fulfilled. Now…who knew what changes time had wrought.
Nora excused herself with a thoughtful sound and finished preparing the tea, pouring it, and setting out a small selection of scones and biscuits the maid had delivered from the baker just that morning.
“What could the word ‘pirate’ possibly mean?” she pondered aloud as she nibbled one of the crumbly shortbread biscuits. “If your suspicions are correct and the first book alludes to me, the second, to you, the third to…us…” Nora’s cheeks flared; “then what does ‘pirate’ have to do with anything?”
Buzzing thoughts and the sounds of slowly savored tea and sweets filled the kitchen. Nora had long ago retrieved parchment and writing implements so the two of them could scratch out their thoughts before dismissing them and dashing them off with violent spatterings of ink. The light filtering through the kitchen’s sole window had grown dim by the time Thomas finally stood and stretched his back. He’d removed his coat to save it from ink and his broad arms and trim waist were on display. Nora did her best to cast only glances beneath her lashes at him, but it was nearly impossible with her body screaming at her to stare her fill.
“Perhaps we should set this aside for tonight,” Thomas suggested with a bit of a groan. Sitting hunched over a table for long hadn’t done his bones and muscles any favors.
“You may leave for Ivy House if you wish; I will continue working.” She looked back down at the marked-up page before her until Thomas placed his hand over hers.
“You’ve done enough for today; the mystery will keep ‘til morning.”
“I’ve nothing better to do with my time,” she replied, forcing the words out through her tight throat.
“Don’t you?” Thomas asked in a tone just above a suggestive growl, his blue eyes fixed on her and deepening in hue by the second.
“Thomas!” she chided him only half-heartedly and dropped her quill. She supposed that was as good a time as any to finally address things. “What happened last night in the library—” She stopped abruptly.The library at Ivy House.It was decorated with nautical bits and bobs, not to mention the artwork. Several ships in various forms existed in that space…and Nora and Beth had always called them pirate ships.
Nora lurched to her feet, so surprising Thomas with her sudden upward trajectory that he actually took a step back.
“The library!” she all but shrieked. “At Ivy House!”
The mixture of concern and puzzlement in his face gradually transformed to one of understanding. “The ships…” His handsome face split into a grin. “You are bloody brilliant, Nora.”
She couldn’t help herself. Nora stood on her toes, threw her arms around his neck, and brought her lips to his.
Chapter Eight
Thomas tasted of shortbread and sugared tea as Nora took the lead in their kiss. Her tongue teased the seam of his lips only once before he allowed her in. At the same moment, his arms wound around her and fisted in her gown, hauling her against him in a forceful, needy embrace. The banked heat of their earlier meeting flared to life once more and Nora felt every one of the flames as they licked her skin and set off a torrent of molten desire in her core—especially when she felt the press of his long, thick member rapidly hardening against her.
She couldn’t help the small yelp of laughter that escaped her throat when Thomas swept her into his arms with one arm behind her back and the other hooked beneath her knees. Nora relaxed into his hold and slung her arms around his neck, peppering kisses along his jaw as her heartbeat increased with every passing second.
She hadn’t realized they’d left the kitchens until she felt the slow bobbing of his body as he climbed one flight of stairs after the other.
“Which bedchamber is yours?” he demanded tautly.
“Second on the left,” she replied with a nip to his earlobe, her fingers tightening in the short hair at the nape of his neck.
He swept her down the hallway and used his boot to nudge open the door. The room was cold without a fire blazing in the hearth and Nora shivered—both from the chill and thrumming anticipation.
She was set on the edge of the bed and Thomas chuckled.
“What was that for?”
“I just realized, all the times we’ve done this, not once has it been in a bed.”
Nora looked up at him from beneath her lashes. “Then it will be something to remember.”
Thomas held her back flush to his front, the heat of his skin searing every curve from her neck to the swell of her bottom. His hard length was nestled there in the valley of her buttocks, so tantalizingly close. His arm was banded tightly around her ribs while the other palmed and kneaded her right breast. Teeth and lips feasted on the spot where her neck melted into her shoulder and Nora’s head fell to the side with a moan of pleasure.
She sucked a breath between her teeth when he caught the needy bud of her nipple between his fingers. Her thighs twitched and trembled with the zing of awareness darting from that point to her dripping core.
“I like that,” she said on an exhale.
“Do you…?” She could feel Thomas’s smile against her skin. He repeated the motion before cupping her other breast. He proceeded to caress and pinch, circle and pluck until her hips were bucking back into his groin.
