“This again.”
He gave her a rueful smile. “Yes, this again, as you so elegantly put it. You don’t know him as well as I do.”
She raised a brow.
“I don’t want to know what that look insinuates, but I can tell you this. I have never seen him look at anything or anyone the way I saw him look at you. And”—he held up a finger before she could interrupt—“even more telling is that I have never seen him disobey an order. None of us disobey orders. We wouldn’t have made it as far as we have if we were in the habit of ignoring our superiors, but Arundel, well, he is the sort who is by-the-book all the way.”
“I hear words,” she said, “but I’m not certain they have any point.”
“The point,” he said, through clenched teeth, “is that it speaks to his affection for you that he is willing to disobey orders and risk his place in the Royal Saboteurs. For a man like Arundel, that is a true mark of love.”
“How romantic.”
Galloway gave her the ghost of a smile. “What do you care for romance? You’re a practical woman. I could see that within a minute of making your acquaintance. If you want to marry him, just tell him to get the license and call the banns. You seem to have no problem demanding everything else.”
“I don’t want to marry him.”
“Bollocks. You want him, and you can’t have him any other way.” He gave her a wary look. “I don’t make the rules. Talk to your neighbors if you don’t like it, but you know as well as I that if there’s any sort of perceived impropriety between a man and a woman, it’s always the woman who pays. And I do believe you have a shop to keep open. You can’t very well do that if people won’t patronize it because you have a reputation as a scarlet woman.”
“I’ll never give up my shop.”
“Then marry Hew or give him up. There’s no other way.”
She scowled at him.
“I’m beginning to feel some sympathy for Cassandra of Troy,” he muttered.
Chapter Twenty-One
Hew didn’t know how long he’d slept. He had been in a deep sleep and then he was wide awake.
Belle.
He remembered his wound a moment before he might have jumped out of bed and forced himself to lie still. He’d been in pain so long, he’d become numb to it, but now he allowed his mind to assess it. His side still hurt, but it seemed to be the dull throb of healing rather than the sharp pain of infection. He imagined all the soft parts of him that had been ripped asunder being knitted back together by that miraculous process that the human body employed.
All in all, he was feeling better.
Except for the lead ball in the pit of his stomach. That awful heaviness had weighed him down since the moment Belle had walked out of the hotel room. Logically, he knew she could take care of herself. She’d survived a quarter of a century without him. But she hadn’t had Pennywhistle’s men after her or her family. Not until he had stepped—very well, been carried—into her life.
It annoyed him that he’d fallen asleep without knowing if she was safe. He supposed he was weaker than he’d thought. It annoyed him even more that his last thought before falling asleep and his first thought on waking were of Belle.
Hew cut his gaze to the window. The heavy drapes had been drawn. He remembered looking out the window before falling asleep. Had a hotel maid done that or had Will returned? And if Will returned, where was Belle?
He pushed back the covers and began to rise when he heard a small sound and froze. His training took over, and he assumed a defensive posture. Someone or something was in the chamber with him.
The fire burned low, and the room was in shadow, but a quick scan of it didn’t reveal any lurking threats. His gaze passed over the bedclothes and then went back again. He’d thought that lump was a pillow or covers he’d thrown back, but now he wondered...
Hew reached under the covers and moved his hand toward the lump, stilling when he touched warm flesh. Warm, naked flesh. His hand slid up what he now perceived was a thigh until it cupped the soft curve of a hip. A woman’s hip, thank God, as this would have been rather awkward had Will been the one sleeping beside him. Careful of his injury, he leaned over and drew the covers down, revealing Belle. Her head was turned away from him, and he could make out the shadow of her hair on the pillow. More than that, he could detect the scent of tea emanating from her. She must have been at the warehouse, as he’d suspected. Will had found her and brought her back.
Thank God. The heaviness in his belly seemed to melt away...replaced by a heaviness a bit lower.
Where was Will now? More importantly, why had Belle climbed into bed with him? He might have chalked it up to concern for his wellbeing or even desire for comfort. Perhaps, knowing Belle, she remembered he had given her the bed and was determined to use it.
But that didn’t explain why she was naked.
And in the wee hours of the morning, with a warm woman in his bed, Hew was not inclined to think too carefully about what it all meant. It had been years since he had slept with a woman. Years since he had woken with a naked woman sleeping beside him. Call it need, call it instinct, he slid back down and moved closer to her. He told himself he only wanted to lie beside her, but that didn’t explain why he put his hand over her waist and pulled her closer. That didn’t explain why that same hand moved upward to cup one small breast.
She made a sound of pleasure and snuggled closer to him, her bottom rubbing against his cock. His bare cock. His hard cock. He’d undressed before bed as well, leaving his robe at the foot of the bed for easy access when Will returned. But right now, he was naked; she was naked; and they were alone in a bed.
As much as Hew would have liked to continue fondling her, he wasn’t completely delirious with desire. “Belle,” he whispered. “Belle.”
“Hmm,” she said and snuggled against him.
“What are you doing in my bed?”
“Said I could have the bed,” she murmured. He smiled. So he’d been partly right.
“Why are you naked?”
A pause as, presumably, she came awake and became aware of the situation. “Do you like it?” Her voice was low and still gravelly from sleep.
“I think you can feel how much I like it.”
She moved her bottom, and he grasped her hips. “None of that or you won’t be a virgin much longer.”
“I keep telling you, I don’t want to be a virgin any longer.”
Before he could think what to do or say to that, she turned in his arms and threw a leg over him. Her warm sex pressed against his cock, and her mouth sought his.
The hesitations in the back of his mind fled, and he kissed her back. He’d been wanting this for so long. He’d been wanting her for so long. It seemed a lifetime he’d wanted her, though he’d only known her—what? a week? Hew couldn’t remember his life before her. And he didn’t want to imagine his life without her.
“Stop thinking so much and kiss me,” she said, moving her lips to nibble his ear. “You are always thinking.”
His hands were exploring her body, desperate to sample it before it was snatched away from him. She was so warm and the way she moved against him was so clumsy and, at the same time, incredibly erotic. She may not have ever done this before, but Hew already knew she would catch on fast.