Chapter 13

Her back hit the wall, but she did not feel the rumble of the blow through her body. Every ounce of her attention had been diverted to her lips. His lips. That meeting place between them which had become hot and wet and urgent.

A growl of thunder ripped the air around them. Or had the growl come from his throat as he licked a droplet of water from her neck? His tongue on her—like lightning through her body. The sky glowed yellow as her eyelids fluttered closed on a moan, and he parted her legs with a knee. A rough lift that pinned her better than before as his hands caught up her wrists and snapped them together against the wall above her head. He pressed his thigh—hard with muscle—against her very center, and as she had done in her dreams, she rolled her hips to meet that thrust, heard the rumble of desire in her own throat.

Dangerous, this. Entirely nonsensical. This man did not want her.

But he did. No more denying it.

Now, fogged in the memories of past pains, he sought her for comfort. She needed comfort, too, had never guessed this could offer it. His lips everywhere, his hold rough, his fingers seeking ways past the barrier of her damp bodice.

"Have you been hiding all this while?" His words hot against her ear. "Simply so I can find you?"

What did that mean? Her brain could not wrap round the question, not with him touching and kissing, not with the world shaking their small, dark shelter.

He kissed her temple. "Hiding your smile and your laugh, your courage and your well-organized mind." He kissed the tip of her nose. "Hiding, too, how much you like kissing. I've found you now. Apologies it took so long. You were right before me, after all. But what shall I do with you? Now that I've seen. Now that I know." He kissed her lips then, and she opened for him, savoring the invasion of his tongue into her mouth, pulling down her hands, reaching for him, finding his wet waistcoat. She balled her fists into it and pulled him closer, pulling the meat of his thigh tighter against her center. Pure pleasure made her gasp.

And the gasp made him snap. His hand that had pinned hers above her head moved down, ripping the shoulder of her gown down her arm, freeing her breast, and his hips rolled against her belly.

So many new sensations. The air on her nipple, then his hand there, squeezing, teasing. Then his lips and tongue, tasting until she tangled both her hands in his hair and held on because her legs had started the long process of simply giving up the day he'd arrive at Norton Hall, and now they finally, entirely, had. Only his leg thrust between her legs, his hands on her, and her hands in his hair kept her upright.

His entire body, too, molding itself to hers as her wet skirts had molded to her legs. As if no muslin or silk separated them. Only her body falling into his and his body, large and hard, keeping her safe.

A boom of thunder.

It unleashed her. Finding her strength in a flash of lightning, she surged up on tiptoe and bruised his lips with her own, tore at his bottom lip with wanting teeth, and ripped one hand from his hair to touch him everywhere she could reach. The strong column of his neck, the broad planes of his linen-plastered shoulders, the crisp hair evident between the white V of his undone shirt. Down his torso she explored, across the sharp ridges of his abdomen to the heavy line of wool at his waist. To the bulge there, long and hard. The storm had banished all thought, all doubt, so she palmed it, wanting to take its measure, and his hips bucked, pinning her hard against the wall once more.

Ah. The gherkin. No, no. She could no longer use that phrase. Needed something less silly now.

"Lady P," he choked out. "Not. There."

"Does it hurt? I was under the impression it felt rather nice when—"

"Yes. Feels bloody perfect." His voice like gravel. "Those lessons. About intimacy. With the matrons. Thank God for them. Do as you please."

She flattened her palm over him, then squeezed.

"Hell," he choked out. "I'm yours." The last two words barely audible as his head fell back on his neck. Still, he held her one hand against the wall, his strong fingers a manacle for her wrist. But the biting pain of bone and brick brought pleasure. Pleasure too where his other hand caressed her breast, teased her nipple.

Did she give it back in equal measure? She rubbed her palm up and down his member. Shaft? That was the wrong word, certainly. Much thicker than an arrow shaft. And quite larger than the sizes the ladies had demonstrated on that object the day before. She moved her hand up and down as his thumb caressed back and forth over her nipple, as his hand squeezed gently.

She moaned, tried to focus. Difficult with the room rocking about them, the boats banging against the hard edges of the docks. The shush of rain, the growl of thunder, the slosh of water—every sound narrowing the world, blurring it until everything but they two ceased to exist.

"What… what do you call it?" she managed to say.

"Call what?" He sounded as if he answered from another universe, as if speaking had never been more difficult.

"Your"—she squeezed—"this?"

"Cock." The single word guttural.

"Ah. Fascinating." And perfect. For this man had much to crow about. A chuckle died in her throat as his hands at her wrist and on her breast tightened, squeezed, demanded her attention, and she shook away the fog to look into his bright eyes.

"Say it," he demanded. Then his lips curved into a sultry grin. "I'd like to hear you say it."

No need to ask what. She licked her lips, preparing them. As if she had not said the word already a thousand times. But… different this time. With him. Here. Her hand just where it was. His hand, too.

She closed her eyes. "Cock." She squeezed his at the same time she spoke, and before she could open her eyes, he crashed his mouth into hers, consuming her with a kiss, stealing her every breath and thought.

The world that had been disappearing just moments ago? Gone entirely now, replaced with the world he made in her body, the buzzing need originating at her breast where he teased her nipple and striking south to gather between her legs. Beneath her hand his cock twitched and hardened even more, and beneath her lips, he moaned her name, his hand tangled in her hair clenching tight.

"God damn," he hissed, never breaking the kiss. "God damn, I'm going to—" He jerked, his hips rolling up into her hand as she squeezed his length as well as she could with the wool of his breeches in the way. He jerked again, his hips rolling again, his every muscle harder than stone, and when that stone turned limp, he released her hand, bracketed her head with his forearms against the wall at her back and rested his forehead against hers.

As they breathed together, her hands moving up to trace the outline of his prickly jaw, the thunder grew distant, disappeared entirely, and the violent sloshing of the boats in their docks stopped, too. Peace descended.

Then so did Mr. Bailey.

Ben.

He dropped to his knees before her and pinned her once more to the wall, this time with a strong, immovable hand at her hip. The grin he slipped her as he tilted his head back to catch her eye rocked the boathouse, shook the very foundations of the earth. Wicked and promising. Wild and determined. His hand shackled round her ankle as it had around her wrist earlier, smoothed its way upward over the silk of her stockings, across the naked skin of her thigh. Then back down. His fingers made an electric storm of her body, and when he lifted the hem of her skirts to pin them against her hip, she shivered, bucked, needed. With damn muslin gathered at her hip, he pinned her there, too, then with one deliberate and devilish wink, he ducked his head beneath the heavy, wet slant of her skirts.

And placed a kiss just above the curls at her very center.

She swallowed hard, her head falling against the wall, her palms flattening against it, bereft of anything else to do.

His kiss lingered for longer than she would have thought possible, but then his lips lifted from that lowest stretch of belly, and his breath tickled her lower. Much lower. Where her fingers had played while dreaming of him. The books had taught her what to expect next.

And he did not disappoint, his tongue dragging across her mound. Some noise she'd never made before squeaked from between her lips, and her nails dug into the wood at her back.

Madness.

"Not madness," he chuckled. "Don't overthink it now, Lady P."

She'd spoken aloud, and she did so now, though her lips barely moved. "S'what a rake would say."

Another chuckle. Then another lick, a suck, and then his big warm hands at her center, too, finding that pearl of pleasure which seemed to wind her high and tight.

She should think. She should… what? Flee? She should say no instead of moaning his name.

But none of those had been scheduled. So why not shatter beneath his touch?

"Stop thinking." Had any voice ever sounded so dark and delicious?

Nothing for it but to obey. To stifle all thought as he rubbed a thumb just so and then—she gasped his name—slipped a finger inside her.

"Ben." She trembled, her legs fading once more.

"So lovely and wet."

They both were. Nothing like soaked linen over tight muscle, apparently, to make a lady moan. She brushed her skirts out of the way as well as she could to clutch at his shoulders, to dig fingernails there and bruise him as her wrists surely were. To mark him as she gasped again, as he slipped another finger inside and kissed her, moved that thumb just so very right.

No guilt here or worry. No ticking clock or straight lines or ledgers. Only a man and a woman, the glory of skin touched and the promise of heavy breaths as her pleasure built as the storm had, rolling across her. Unavoidable, powerful, illuminating.

She broke like the storm, too. With a cry that shook the skies. She curved around him, collapsing, and he gathered her, sitting, placing her in his lap and holding her tight as her trembling rage of a body gentled into strummed silence.

As she laid her head on his shoulder, she mumbled, "How do I always end up here? Your lap. Odd."

He kissed the top of her head. "It's the perfect Prudence Perch."

She snorted. But did not get up.

What now?

Didn't want to consider that. Not yet. Later.

Now, she'd—

The wall behind them shook, and they startled upright, his arms around her becoming chains, impossible to break. The wall shook again. No, not a wall. A door.

"Unlock the door," Norton demanded. "Now."

"Bloody hell." Ben tilted up her chin. "Quiet."

"He knows we're in here."

"Yes, but—"

She wiggled out of his hold, stood, and called out, "Just a moment, my lord. The door is, um, stuck."

Stuck behind the weight of a glaring man's big body. Bailey looked as if he would not move, arms crossed over his chest, legs stretched out straight in front of him. "Sod off, Norton!"

A muffled gasp.

"Language, Mr. Bailey," Prudence said.

He jumped to his feet and towered over her. "Like your language earlier, Lady P? I do like the way your lips shape the word co—"

"Lady Prudence, I assume everything is perfectly proper behind this door?" Lord Norton demanded.

Not at all, actually. Every bit of proper had drained into the lake quite some time ago.

"Y-yes," she managed to answer anyway.

Mr. Bailey snorted, his gaze dropping to her shoulder, to her—

"Curse it all!" She yanked the torn sleeve of the gown back up her shoulder, fit her naked breast back behind the barrier of shift and stays and gown. She was a mess. Entirely and utterly, and—"Oh! Mr. Bailey, you've ruined me." She hissed the words, keeping her voice low.

"Not yet." He smirked. "But—"

She rushed around him and flung open the door, letting Norton stomp inside as she fled into the clean sunlight, her feet silent on the soft, wet grass. "I'm returning to the house now it has stopped raining." She waited for no answer, only ran all the way up the lawn and into the house, never stopping until she was safe behind her bedchamber door.

Her heart felt heavy and light as a dry leaf all at once. It could drop like a stone to the bottom of the lake or fly off into the heavens, leaving her behind. She pressed both hands against her chest and slowed her breathing. Hearts had schedules, too, beating in a steady rhythm, predictable and safe.

But hers would not fall into predictability, routine. Not now when she could close her eyes and feel him everywhere.

She may have, in kissing Mr. Benjamin Bailey, unintentionally riled a bear.

Kissing? Ha. Ravishment, more like.

And a bear? Ha. A pagan god who would set the world on fire to get what he wanted.

And, contrary to all she'd thought true, Mr. Benjamin Bailey, Ben, wanted her.