Page 118 of The Boxing Baroness

It was a modest kitchen which had been stripped of everything except for a huge table that looked too big to fit through the door.

“I need you,” he growled in her ear, his head swiveling to survey the room, his gaze falling on the table. He turned her and marched her backward. “Up,” he ordered, his hands cupping her bottom and lifting her.

She’d thought ahead and changed into a dress before washing for dinner.

He flipped up her skirt and petticoat, and his nostrils flared as he looked from her naked body to her face, and then back again. “I’m afraid this will be a bit uncivilized.”

Before she could answer he flicked open his breeches, shoved her knees apart, and positioned himself at her entrance.

They groaned as he sank into her.

“Oh, Marianne . . . how I have missed you.” He held her full for a long moment as his erection throbbed inside her. “Lean back,” he ordered gruffly. “I want to watch.”

She lowered herself to her elbows and he tucked her skirts higher, exposing her to his view. “Yes,” he hissed, his eyes on the place they were joined while he penetrated her with deep, measured thrusts. “So beautiful.”

Marianne shuddered when he began circling the source of her pleasure with his thumb, skillfully driving her to one climax, and then a second, his pumping becoming wilder and less controlled before he gave in to his need and hilted himself deep inside her.

He heaved a sigh of intense satisfaction as the last spasm gripped his body, then smiled down on her with sated eyes. “There I am—behaving like a beast again.”

She laughed weakly and lay back on the table. He lowered her skirts and then buttoned up his breeches before flopping down beside her, their legs dangling off the table.

“Do you think Elliot will find us?” she asked once their bodies had cooled and their breathing returned to normal.

“I have no rational reason to believe so, but I do,” he said. “Elliot has been involved in government work for years. He never tells us what it is that he does, but whatever it is, it often requires long stretches out of the country. I think he knows how to take care of himself. If he’s late, there is a good reason. But he will join us . . . eventually.”

“And when do you wish to start waiting at the inn?”

“I’ll go tomorrow—but you needn’t come with me. If Dominic shows up early, I will tell him that I’ll bring him to you.”

“No, I want to go with you.”

“Are you sure, Marianne? He might not show up until the appointed time, which means over two weeks of waiting.”

“I have nothing else to occupy me,” she said. “Well, not during the daytime, at least.”

“Temptress.” He chuckled softly. But his humor dissipated. “I don’t know what he might do,” he said. “He might ambush us outside the inn, for all I know. Which means I shall warn the others, so they won’t be left wondering if we don’t come back.”

Sin turned to her and reached for a stray curl, tucking it back with the others. She had not run or trained since Lille and her face was already rounder, softer. It suited her.

“I wish you weren’t caught in the middle of this,” he said.

“I wish the same for you.”

He took her hand and laced their fingers together.

“Part of me hopes he stays away until the day we’re supposed to meet,” she admitted, her hazel eyes locked with his green ones.

“Me, too. But then I think of Ben, and I am torn between my selfish desire for you and my need to see my brother.”

They never talked about the person at the heart of this entire adventure—his brother—and she hadn’t wanted to raise the subject. She hoped Dominic wasn’t manipulating Sin, but she wasn’t optimistic.

“You don’t think he is alive, do you?” Sin asked, reading her thoughts in that eerie way he had.

“I hope he is.”

“But you don’t think so.”

“I honestly don’t know, Sin.”