Chapter 17

T his time, Tom didn’t drag Gwen out the door but offered her his arm in a more customary manner. She accepted it, wondering just how he thought she could get home on Christmas Day if not in a post chaise.

He led her the short distance to Covent Garden. In addition to being the home of some of London’s most famous theaters, it held one of the city’s largest fruit and vegetable markets. Even on Christmas Day, there were a few stalls open.

Tom walked past them, heading for the cluster of wagons on the fringe of the square. One of the men looked up. “Bloody hell—look who it is!”

Gwen watched as Tom shook hands all around and wished everyone a Merry Christmas. A small crowd quickly formed, and the men of the market looked every bit as excited to meet the heavyweight champ as the children in Green Park had been.

After a few minutes of chit-chat, Tom came around to the point. “Miss Gwendolyn here has found herself in something of a pickle. She needs to get back to Merstham, and she needs to do it today. It’s extremely urgent.”

One of the drivers shrugged. “I’m heading back to Chaldon.”

“Is Merstham on your way?” Tom asked.

“It’s not, but it ain’t too far out of the way. I’ll take you. It’s Christmas, after all.”

Gwen joined Tom in thanking the driver profusely. The next thing she knew, she found herself climbing into the back of a wagon with Tom. It was none too clean and bore signs of the cabbages it had recently transported, but Gwen felt nothing but gratitude toward the driver as she settled into the bed.

She nudged Tom with her elbow. “Thank you.”

He rubbed the back of his head. “I was worried you might be annoyed. I hope I wasn’t too bossy back there.”

She cast him an amused look. “You were a bit high-handed. But I didn’t particularly want to spend five guineas, either. If I’d had any idea you were capable of charming strange farmers into offering us a ride, I would have been the one to drag you out of that inn.”

He laughed. “Money is something of a raw nerve for me. I’m afraid it makes me act a bit odd at times.”

“I was surprised,” Gwen admitted. “Not that I know very much about boxers, but I don’t usually think of them as being thrifty.”

“Most of them aren’t. But it’s a short career, you see…”

He explained how he was hoping to stop boxing sometime next year, that he already had a constant ringing in his ears, and that he wanted to quit before he developed even more problems. He told her about some of the more ridiculous things he’d done to earn money, and they laughed about some of the strange products he’d endorsed.

“What will you do after you retire?”

He shrugged. “I don’t know. I’d like to get out of London. Everybody knows me there. You saw the good part of that today, but the other side of the coin is that a couple of times a week, some drunk idiot tries to start something with me. They figure it’ll be a story they can dine out on, of the time they went at it with the heavyweight champ. It’s tiring, and if I try to defend myself, I risk getting brought up on an assault charge.”

Gwen leaned back in the wagon. She was by nature reserved, but Tom was so easy to talk to. “Where will you go, then?”

He inclined his head. “That’s the problem, all right. There’s no work for me in Stockbridge, where I grew up. Hell, there wasn’t even enough for my brother, Neil. Most of the jobs I could do—working the door at a gentleman’s club or giving boxing lessons—are in London. Which is just the place I’m trying to get away from. But the other thing about living in town is that it’s better for my ears.”

“Really?” Gwen tilted her head, curious. “How so?”

“I don’t notice the ringing nearly as much when there’s sound around me.” He laughed. “I’m probably the only person who’s glad when there’s a barking dog, or someone shouting curses in the middle of the street. But when it’s dead silent, that’s when the ringing drives me half mad.”

She squeezed his leg. “I’m sorry you have to deal with that.”

He shrugged. “Me, too. But we all have our crosses to bear, and I guess this one is mine. So now, all I want is a village that’s as noisy as London, where there’s some work for me to do.” He snorted. “Wish me luck finding that. I’m going to need it.”

Gwen pressed his leg again. The conversation moved on. She told him about Aunt Agatha. About how she didn’t fit into the world she’d been born into. About how all the other young ladies of her class spent their days trimming bonnets or perfecting their dancing steps. And there was Gwen, whose topics of conversation were things like bees or a new recipe for cheese she was eager to try.

Gwendolyn was surprised when the farmer who was driving them called down, asking whereabouts her cottage was. She shouldn’t have been surprised. Given that it was December, the sun had been sinking since four o’clock, and by now it had grown dark. But how was it possible that they were here already? The three-hour drive had passed as if it had been mere minutes.

Gwen made the driver wait while she ran into her cottage and came back with three jars of her best honey. He seemed pleased with this gift, and they thanked him again and wished him a merry Christmas.

Tom had to duck his head to get through the front door to Gwen’s cottage. She quickly lit a few lamps, then poured a scoop of coal into the grate and got the fire going. “This is it. My humble abode.”

He glanced around, his eyes lingering on the shabby sofa before the fireplace, the plain oak table next to the window, and the connecting door that led to her little kitchen. He grinned. “This is grand, Gwen.”

“Thank you,” she whispered. While they’d been riding together in the wagon, they had been so busy talking, it somehow hadn’t occurred to her to discuss what Tom would do upon their arrival in Merstham. They had barely managed to find a ride here; there would be no way for him to get back to London at this time of night.

His thoughts appeared to have taken a similar direction. “So, I know we need to be more careful. This is your home. You have a reputation to maintain in the village.”

“That’s true,” she acknowledged.

Tom waited a few beats. When she did not elaborate, he said, “Maybe I should get a room at the inn. Or do you think your brother might come here tonight?”

Honestly, Gwen thought that unlikely. Joseph was not what you would call a hardy sort. She suspected he would remain sniveling in his bed until every trace of pain had disappeared from his head.

But the truth was, this might be Gwen’s last chance to spend the night with Tom. She didn’t want to let it slip through her fingers.

And so, she fibbed, “You never know with Joseph. I would feel more comfortable if you slept here tonight. If you don’t mind,” she added hastily.

He nodded. “I don’t mind. Not at all.” He gestured to the sofa, which would be at least two feet too short for his long frame. “I can make do right over here?—”

“There’s no need,” Gwen burst out. “I have a spare bedroom.”

A pregnant silence filled the room. Why had she said that? It was true that she had a spare bedroom.

But she didn’t want Tom to use it.

“Ah. I see.” He shook himself. “I’ll just?—”

“Although,” Gwen forced herself to say.

He looked up sharply, eyes both bright and hesitant. “Although?”

She could feel her cheeks flaming. “Although we are quite isolated here, and I’ve given my maid, Mariah, a few days off to visit her family. No one would know if we were to, er…”

Now his eyes were gleaming. “If we were to?”

“Share a bed.” She swallowed. “It would also be very practical.”

He took a slow step toward her. “How so?”

“It would be safer, were Joseph to show up,” she improvised as he stalked closer. Her heart was now pounding in her throat. “And more cost-efficient, too. We’d only need coal to make a fire in one bedroom. Seeing as you’re so thrifty and all.”

He came to stand before her and raised one of his huge hands, gently tracing the shape of her jaw. Tipping his forehead down toward hers, he said in a husky voice, “I’m feeling especially thrifty this evening.”

Without warning, he scooped her up high against his chest and carried her into her bedroom. He had to set her down so she could light a couple of lamps in the darkness and light the fire as well. When she turned around, she saw that Tom had already stripped to his shirtsleeves, tossing his coat over the back of her reading chair. She was struck by the feeling that, although it was novel, seeing a man in her intimate space, Tom somehow looked right standing there.

“Come here,” he growled.

Gwendolyn went. His lips claimed hers in a ferocious kiss, one she returned enthusiastically. They undressed hurriedly, clawing and yanking at one another’s garments until all of Tom’s warm skin pressed against hers.

He dropped to his knees before her, filling his hands and then his lips with her breasts. He groaned as he fondled her there. Gwen’s breath began to come in pants, and she felt the place between her thighs growing slick for him.

After a few minutes of torture, he slid one of his big hands lower until he found the place that was pulsing for him like a heartbeat. He teased her bud with his thumb and hooked a long finger into her, massaging the front wall of her passage in a way that made her gasp.

He rose to his feet. “You’re ready.” He lifted her and carried her to the bed.

That was when everything started to go wrong.

“Oof,” he said, bumping his head against the wooden headboard. He slid down. “Let me just… God damn it.”

He had banged his shin against the footboard. The bed, which held Gwen perfectly, was comedically too small for Tom’s six-and-a-half-foot frame.

He drew his legs up so he was lying on his back, knees bent at almost a right angle, and Gwen couldn’t help letting a giggle escape.

Tom grinned back, taking no offense. “Not built for the likes of me. But never mind. You can kneel on the bed, like we did last night.”

Gwen eagerly swung around, lifting her bottom in the air and assuming the pose. Tom groaned, caressing her backside with eager hands.

But he couldn’t seem to line his straining cock up with her entrance. The bed was just too short.

“Drat!” he said, struggling to find a workable position. He tried bending his legs, but then his knees prevented him from getting close to the bed. He looked so adorably frustrated that Gwen laughed.

Tom narrowed his eyes at her, but he was grinning. “You think this is funny, do you? We’ll see how much you’re laughing when I’m forced to leave you unsatisfied.”

“Here,” she said, attempting to tug him down crossways on the bed. “Lie on your back. I’ll be on top, and— aieee !”

She squealed as Tom scooped her off the bed so easily you would have thought he’d grabbed one of the feather pillows. She wrapped her legs around his waist as he strode across the room. “I have a better idea,” he said darkly as he carried her to the corner of the room.

Gwendolyn clung to his neck, mystified. “Tom? How are we going to?—”

He cut her off with a kiss, pinning her between his body and the white plastered wall. When he lifted his head, his grin was wicked. “That’s the nice thing about being the heavyweight champ, bun. I don’t need a bed. I can do you against the wall.”

Gwen frowned. “What do you mean, do me against the… Oh .”

Gwen’s confusion started to ebb as he reached down to align himself with her opening. She groaned as she felt his cock slipping inside her. From this angle, he felt impossibly thick, and he made her feel impossibly full but in a good way.

“Tom!” she gasped, squirming against him. “Aren’t I too heavy?”

“Nope,” he said cheerfully, sliding out and then pressing back in again. He closed his eyes, bliss stealing over his face. “Damn, Gwen. You feel so good !”

Gwendolyn could relate. From this angle, Tom’s pubic bone ground against that special spot between her legs with every thrust, and the hair on his chest chafed her sensitive nipples. There was also something unbearably arousing about the fact that he had scooped her up and was literally taking her against the wall. She had already thought him a magnificent male specimen, but this demonstrated his vigor on an entirely new plane.

Tom had begun to thrust faster. “Is this all right?”

“It’s all right,” she cried, digging her nails into his shoulders. “It’s more than all right. Oh, God, Tom! I think I’m going to…”

Heat flared in his eyes as he bowed his head to capture her lips in a ravenous kiss, swallowing her sounds of pleasure. With a growl, he scooped one arm beneath her bottom, hoisting her up. With the other hand, he captured both of her wrists, pinning them to the wall above her head. This had the unexpected effect of making her even more desperate for him. It made her feel… coveted. Desirable.

Like she was worth ravishing.

She found the perfect angle to rub against him with each thrust. He broke off their kiss. “That’s it, Gwen. Use me. I want to watch you come on my cock.”

She made a strangled sound. “I’m so close! Please, Tom. Please!”

With a snarl, he surged against her, pinning her even more firmly in place. He ground his hips in a circular motion, rubbing her precisely where she needed it.

Sparks shot behind her eyes. “Tom!” she screamed. “Tom, I’m?—”

She didn’t manage to finish that sentence, on account of the tidal wave of pleasure that crashed over her. But between the nonsensical words tumbling from her mouth and the uncontrollable quaking of her thighs, she suspected he knew exactly what he had done to her.

He released her hands to seize her hips in an iron grip. Now he was thrusting as fast as he could as Gwen’s hips thumped against the wall behind her. Not that she minded in the least. She clung to his shoulders and did her best to make sure he found as much pleasure as he’d just given her.

His arms hardened to iron beneath her fingers. “Gwen!” he gasped. “I… I… Oh, fuck !”

Then it was his turn to shout profanities while his hips bucked helplessly. Gwen wrapped her legs tightly around him and stroked his shoulders as his shudders slowly calmed.

He lowered her trembling to the floor but only to scoop her up again and carry her to the bed. Their joining had been frantic, but the kiss he pressed against her lips was startlingly tender.

“Are you sure you’ll be comfortable here?” Gwen asked, struggling to picture the guest bed, and if it might be any larger. “If you like, you could?—”

“I’m staying right here,” he said firmly, slipping underneath the quilt and pulling her against him. “I’m not going anywhere.”

Gwen snuggled into his chest. Feeling warm and content, she fell asleep in Tom’s arms.