Then he began to thrust, slowly, allowing her to accept him. The pain was minimal, a sharp pinch that quickly faded, leaving only a feeling of abundance between her legs, an unfamiliar yet fascinating fullness inside her body. Pleasure simmering beneath her skin, Victoria locked her arms around Finn’s shoulders. Her hips bumped his as her hunger rose, their movements awkward until, with a sudden agreement, they found each other’s rhythm.
Then it was magic.
Angling her bent leg against his thigh, he slid deeper, sending a blistering tremor through her. She must have made a sound because he shifted, going again, harder, the dart of delight increasing.
There, that spot, yes. “Blue.”
He answered with another stroke, tip to base, and another until she had no words left to utter. His speed increased, his exertion pushing them up the bed. He switched between bottomless kisses she struggled to match and gasping, labored breaths released against her neck. His hands were restless, caressing her hip, her breast, her face.
At that moment, they were one.
For the first and perhaps the last time, she wasn’t alone.
It was then she noticed the squeak of the bed, louder even than the sound of their bodies moving together. Finn grasped one of the coiled metal slats and braced himself. Her eyes helplessly followed the flex and twist of his bicep—as if she needed additional incentive to catch fire and turn to ash. “This bed,” he said in a gravelly voice as he dashed a bead of sweat from his jaw, “is not meant for activity of this consequence.”
She stilled, her eyes racing to his. “Here, you’ve never…”
He shook his head, sending damp strands as dark as the sky beyond the bedchamber window skating across his brow. “I’ll slow down.” He rocked his hips against her, his lids fluttering. “We have hours.”
The pleasurable peak she was so close to reaching wouldn’t allow for hours. “I have another solution,” she said and gave him an unanticipated shove that sent them tumbling off the bed in a tangle of slick skin and bewildered awareness, the wrecked scrap of silk that had once been a sheet wrapped around them. She ended up on top, sprawled across him, hands still clutching his shoulders.
He knocked the sheet aside as she blew her hair from her face and met his bemused gaze. “Although I would honestly delight in having you ride me, seeing as you’re impatient…” Without another word, he had her on her back, reclaiming her with a hard thrust that stole her breath and sent a sizzle of ecstasy scorching through her body.
Closing her eyes, she gave herself to him completely, wondering if she’d survive this onslaught.
They regained their flawless rhythm within seconds. Skin flushed, bodies trembling, breathing stuttered, a well-coordinated, feverish dance. Colors burst behind her eyelids as a wave of pleasure rolled from her toes to her knees, pulsing higher with each stroke of his body. She writhed in his arms, biting his shoulder, his neck, to strangle her cries. She was marking his skin, she knew, but she was powerless, nothing but a pounding heart and the roar of blood through tight veins. He whispered something harsh and unintelligible, snaked his hand between their grinding hips, touched her once in that lovely, secret place and sent her to paradise.
She closed her eyes as wave after wave broke over her, her shudders turning to low cries as he kissed her. His body wracked by tremors, he surged a final time, then rolled away at the last moment, disengaging, protecting her when she wanted him there. Surrounding her.
With a hushed groan, he tucked her against him, her head finding an ideal nook on his shoulder. His heartbeat skittered beneath her ear, matching the wild pulse of hers. She wanted to capture him like one of Julian’s paintings, lovely and dazed and content. A lazy panther lounging by her side. She didn’t want to think about sharing this incredible intimacy with another man, one she didn’t love—while wondering if this man felt connected to her simply because he couldn’t read her thoughts.
“Quit thinking,” he murmured in a sleepy voice. “Because right now, my mind is as sharp as a melon. And I hate losing arguments.” He smiled softly, his dimple pinging to life. “Christ, that thing you did with your hips, most inventive and appreciated.”
Flattered to the tips of her toes, she rolled atop him, recalling his comment about riding. His lids fluttered, revealing a heated gaze filled with sudden interest. “I guess we can argue since my chances are good.” She shifted her body against his. “Or…”
“I’ll take ‘or’,” he said and grasped her hips, letting the passionate debate begin.
Chapter 15
A vivid nightmare wrestled him from sleep. One mixed with images of the past and the present. Of the danger surrounding Victoria should her existence come to light. Of his helplessness, his fear.
He woke fully to find the knife he kept beneath the mattress in his hand, and Victoria curled against him, her shallow exhalations skating deliciously across his chest, their fingers linked atop his stomach. Replacing the knife in its hiding place without jostling her, he lay back with a tormented sigh, his thoughts in absolute turmoil. Glancing to the window, he judged it to be just after midnight. Twenty-four hours. They’d spent twenty-four hours exploring each other bodies in ways he’d never hoped to explore. Free from the prison of recording his partner’s thoughts, it was as if he’d never tupped anyone, never given of himself—because half of him, more than half, had always been fending off what were wholly awkward intrusions. Embarrassing intrusions. Unfulfilling intrusions.
Truthfully, he’d felt as virginal as she was going into this.
He palmed the hollow twinge in his chest, a rare burst of insecurity hitting him. Perhaps Victoria’s interest was only carnal—that’s what women wanted him for—when his interest in her was centered deep within, nothing he could shift or change or remove.
Devastation, just as he’d promised.
Love if he judged correctly.
Letting that awful declaration circle for a long breath, he then sent it from his mind like he did the errant thoughts that consumed him as he walked the city streets.
Settling Victoria on her side, he tucked the sheet around her shoulders and rose from the bed. Food. He needed food. Victoria needed food. They would share a midnight repast, his first experience of an ‘after’ with anyone, then he would return her to Julian’s townhouse before the servants were up at dawn. He’d sent a note to Humphrey—she’s safe—no doubt infuriating him and the always lovable Agnes, but there was no need to push the issue more than he already had.
Not when he’d gone and done the silliest thing imaginable. Fallen in love with a woman rightfully set to marry another man. A woman far above him in both gift and station.
Pulling on his trousers, he tiptoed down the steep back staircase to the kitchens, where he pilfered a round of bread, quarter wheel of cheese, three slices of ham, and a bottle of wine. He encountered no one employed at the Blue Moon on the journey. He had an exceptional manager in Benjamin Squires, a former rookery sharper who handled the day-to-day supervision with largesse and the occasional ruthlessness. He wasn’t sure if Benji even knew he was in the building, and for another hour or two, he wanted to keep it that way.
She was awake when he got back, standing solemnly before the window, the decimated counterpane gathered around her shoulders, her hair a molten river down her back. He loved her hair, had delighted in tangling his fingers in the silken strands while wrapping himself around her. Dropping his edible bounty on the bed, he noted that the sky over London’s rooftops was beginning to rotate from ebony to a bruised violet, meaning it was later than he’d calculated. Victoria knew he was there but didn’t turn, so he stepped up against her, unable to keep from touching her. When he didn’t need to make this evening more romantic, an occasion harder for either of them to forget.