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Balanced on his knees, his toes dug into the ground for stability as he leaned back.
She pulled up slightly, her eyes devouring his face with a wicked smile on her lips. “I’ve missed you.” Her hips started to swivel, sending his cock deeper into her.
“Bloody hell, you don’t know what missing is.” His hands clamped onto her hips and he lifted her, then set her down the length of him. A second time. Third. Fifth. Eighth. He lost count. Lost the world around him.
Nothing but Pen in front of him. Nothing but driving up into her again and again. Nothing but steeling himself against coming until her body found its release.
Her hands clasped around his neck and she leaned backward, the angle of her body allowing him even deeper access into her. Her hips found rhythm on every down sweep, nonsensical moans filling every exhale.
She sped and he slammed into her hard, sending her over the precipice. Her scream merged with a roar—his own—that filled his head as he exploded into her. Blackness and light converged in his head, his excruciating release taking control of every muscle, every thought.
Her body curled onto him, her hips still jerking as spasms hit her over and over, her nails still clawed into his back for support.
Heaven help him if he were to survive a lifetime of this.
But survive, he would.
“Why is it like that?” Her words muffled into the crook of his neck.
“Like death has surely come?”
She nodded into his shoulder, her lips kissing his skin.
“I can’t explain it. It’s the same for me, but it’s not usually like this.”
He could feel her smile against his skin. “I’m glad I’m not the only one.”
He kept her body locked onto his and shifted them, sitting and leaning back against the trunk of the tree. Through the long branches of the willow the far-off torches outside the manor house sparkled, helping to ward off the onslaught of darkness.
Her head lifted from where it had nuzzled into the crook of his neck and shoulder, and she set her face in front of his. “I didn’t understand it before, Strider. What you went through—suffering years of it. The desperation of how to survive all alone. That year we spent on our own—I always had you to depend on—and I didn’t understand.”
Her lips pursed. “But I understand it now. How alone you were. Everything you did to survive—the man it made you into and how you managed to keep that core of good in you—everything that Mama June wanted you to be. It was always in you. Always. No matter what you had to do. I understand now that when you are alone in the world with not a coin in your pocket—hungry, desperate—just what you would do to survive.”
His head jerked back, startled, and he grabbed the sides of her head, searching her face. “What did you do, Pen?”
“Nothing that I was prepared to do.” Her head shook. “Fortune intervened and I was spared from the rookeries, from selling my body. Spared. But I was on my way there—and I would have done it. I would have done anything to survive. It didn’t matter what I believed in—the good that I thought I was. Morals don’t put food in a belly—they don’t erase that gnawing hunger that makes one desperate. Made me desperate. I was walking right into the belly of sin, willingly. Desperately.”
He pulled her into him, hugging her. That she had thought—considered for one second—she’d have to sink to that desperate level curdled his belly. Rage seared into his veins. Rage at himself for believing his men were watching over her properly. Rage at his men. Rage at Flagton for forcing her into such desperation.
His hand wrapped along to the back of her head, his fingers burying into her hair as he clutched her to his chest. “I’m so sorry. I never should have left you.” He pulled back, finding her face but not letting her free from his arms. “Where have you been? Daphne Bannon—who is she?”
“Oh no—Flagton.” Her body snapped straight as her look shot up to him. “Percival cannot know what happened to me. He kicked me out of the townhouse and swore he’d have the magistrate set a hangman’s noose about my neck for stealing—I changed my name—but he—”
“He’s gone, Pen.” He threaded his fingers through the loose blond hair along her temple. “He and his mother scurried like rats onto the first ship they could find back to the Americas.”
Her body went limp against him in relief. “You had something to do with that?”
His mouth clamped closed as he shrugged.
She sighed, her head shaking at him. She pulled up slightly and set her hands on his bare chest. “Daphne Bannon—I made a friend—for the first time in my life, a real friend. And she gave me a job. She runs a business—a moving shop of sorts that caters to the ladies of theton.She procures collections of items and the ladies buy them. It’s quite amazing what she has created—a business that doesn’t need a store—that is brought directly to the ladies. She holds events at Vauxhall Gardens and she has a waiting list of women that would like to attend the fêtes.”
His eyebrows lifted. He still didn’t trust this Daphne. “And just what exactly do you do for her?”
“She pays me to haggle with the vendors. I help arrange the collections of items, catalog them, help her set pricing on them. And I was about to help show off some of the wares at the next show—which was supposed to be tonight.” Her bottom lip pulled underneath her top teeth. “Strider, I’ve abandoned her. She was counting on me to help today and then at the event tonight and I am here.”
“I am sure Jasper has already found and explained the situation to her—he was given margin to make your disappearance right in any way he could. If she’s a good businesswoman, she’ll claim a tidy sum that she’s owed by your disappearance.”
Pen chuckled. “She is a good businesswoman, so prepare yourself for that bill.”
