Let me take care of you, pet. Let me.
And he had—andshehad, too—touched and whispered and mapped each flex of his jaw, the hard ridges of his abdomen, the coarse sound of his cry as he spent himself in her fingers or—once—in her mouth. In the twelve days since the princess had arrived at Pomeroy House, they had found their way to each other in pockets of shadow, in brief unnoticed gaps, and once, a long, slow night of wanting, cresting, wanting again.
Soon they would have an answer from her father. Soon they would be parted.
But not yet. She could have this now. And if, sometimes, pleasure felt like danger—like the anticipation of a knife stroke—she forced her mind away from the pain to come.
She was out the door into the back alley before she could think, and then his hands were on her shoulders and his lips were on hers.
“Thought you’d never look out that window,” he muttered against her mouth. “God, you taste good. Sweet.”
She stood on her toes, gripped his shirt in her fists, and held him close. “Have you been waiting for me?”
“Following you, more like.” He pressed his mouth to her neck, her collarbone, the skin revealed just above her breasts. “Saw you—in the confectionery—ah God, let me undo a few more buttons, darling, and I promise I’ll make it worth your while.”
Her head fell back against the brick. “Anyone could pass.”
“Keep the watch for me,” he murmured. “Please.”
She whimpered as his mouth did something wicked to her ear. His fingers played at the gape of her bodice, dipping into the hot damp valley between her breasts—but he did not move to unfasten her frock further.
She knew he wouldn’t, unless she gave him leave.
In some ways, she was the hungrier, the more reckless. She wanted to lie with him—she throbbed with it, an empty clenching ache between her legs. She had not realized, at first, that the string of tiny bruises on her neck had come from his mouth—not until she watched him do the same to the pale skin of her lower belly.
She wanted him to mark her. She wanted him awfully, irrevocably; she wanted to feel his body a part of hers, take him deep into her own fierce need.
But he held back.We can’t, he’d said, when she’d tried to press herself against his thick length that night in his chamber.Sweetheart—oh God, Ruby—you’ve no idea how much I want to. Only we can’t—hazard the risk.
He was right.
She could stand it. She told herself she could stand it—this temporary madness, the brief luminous pleasure of knowing herself wanted, the stars that burst behind her eyelids when he pleasured her with his mouth and hands.
Temporary. But for now, hers to relish. Hers to take.
“I’ll keep the watch,” she said into his hair. But she closed her eyes instead and let herself savor the rough vibration of his lust-drunk groan.
“Thank Christ.” He flicked her next few buttons and yanked hard at her chemise. “Saw you in the sweet shop when I passed. Don’t know what you were eating—something sticky, I collect, by the way you sucked your fingers after. Haven’t had a sane thought since—ah—”
She’d closed her fingers around his erection through his trousers, and then it was a race—his mouth—damp suction, fevered plea—her fingers moving, more firmly than she would have thought he’d like—except he did like it, she knew that now, knew the pitch and gritted gasp of his culmination—
“Let me,” he muttered, and yanked at her skirts, his forehead pressed to her collarbone. “Let me do this for you. Can’t spend in my trousers—”
“My mouth, then?”
“Ruby,” he groaned and licked the inner curve of her breast. “I’d think I’d died, except God knows I’m not headed for this sort of paradise.” He had his hand beneath her skirts now, but he’d stopped at the level of her garter, his thumb rubbing hot circles into her skin, pressing, seeking. “So pretty,” he murmured, “so luscious. You taste of sugar and liquor—of sun—God, the sweetness of you—”
“Mm,” she said—wordless affirmation—and felt her thighs go slack. The pins in her hair rubbed against the brick behind her head, little points of almost-pain, and she heard one clink to the ground, and then she heard—
“If you approach me with that devil-spawned article one more time, I will cover you in the grease from a pig and let Zenobia eat you while you still live.”
Ruby’s eyes flew open. “Malcolm,” she hissed, “let me go!”
He was already breaking apart from her, his eyes all hot blue desire, his voice a raspy laugh. “I thought you were keeping the watch.”
“You distracted me!” Good heavens, she didn’t even have her gloves on, and the buttons on her frock still felt impossibly small. Perhaps—perhaps she could clamp her straw hat over her décolletage—if only she couldfindher hat, which he’d evidently flung to the ground somewhere in between licking her neck and—and—whathadhe done to her stocking?
He bent, presumably to tie her garter back on.
