Chapter 33

CHAPTER 33

A rchibald cursed himself for a fool as he scooped Izzie off the desk and into his arms. He couldn’t do anything right. For starters, he’d failed to keep her safe and had obviously failed to catch whoever it was who had designs upon her life.

Then he’d let her see him looking like a common blacksmith. So much for his carefully constructed fa?ade of being a gentleman. She knew the awful truth now.

Then, he’d been in such a panic upon learning that she’d been attacked, he’d gone and made things ten times worse by grabbing her with his grubby hands and pressing her against his soot-stained work clothes. By the time they reached his office, he’d calmed down enough to realize his mistake.

But then, he’d taken too long about it and failed to comfort her.

He felt worse than useless. But much to his surprise, Izzie wasn’t shouting and upbraiding him. As he settled on the desk in the place she’d just been occupying with her in his lap, she made a sound of relief, wrapping her arms around his shoulders and burying her face in his sweaty neck.

“I’m sorry,” he said because he was fairly certain he wasn’t smelling like a rose.

“This is so much better,” Izzie whispered. “Please, just hold me. I always feel so safe when I’m with you.”

Although he was sure she would come to regret it when she realized how grimy he was, he wasn’t about to ignore a direct instruction, so he wrapped her firmly in his arms. She was trembling like a newborn fawn, which destroyed him, but he tried to stay calm, rubbing her back and murmuring that he would never let anything happen to her.

After a few minutes, she said in a small voice, “I thought it was over.”

He could not bear the bleakness in her voice. “As did I.”

She sniffed. “What do we do now?”

“Whatever we have to do,” he said without thinking. “Anything it takes to keep you safe.”

She sighed. “And at least we have the means to do it. I shouldn’t complain. I know how fortunate I am. It’s just… being the princess locked away in the tower sounds romantic in a fairy tale. But I must confess, I was looking forward to going back out into the world.”

“Naturally so,” Archibald said, holding her close.

“Staying locked away for two weeks isn’t so bad. But I can’t help but wonder how long this is going to last. A month? A year? The rest of my life?”

Archibald wished he had an answer. “We’ll find whoever is behind this.”

Izzie sat up, rubbing her eyes. “Your men did manage to capture three of the assailants today. Perhaps they’ll reveal something upon questioning.”

As she withdrew her hand from her face, Archibald saw with horror that her cheek was coated in a fine film of coal soot, transferred, no doubt, when she had pressed herself against his waistcoat. He had chosen its dark color specifically so it wouldn’t show dirt, which meant he hadn’t realized how filthy it was.

He began fumbling with the buttons. Izzie looked up at him, confused. “Archibald?”

“Sorry,” he said, peeling off the offending garment and dropping it on the floor. “I—”

“ Yes ,” she said, tugging his shirt from the waistband of his trousers. “This is what I need.”

He frowned. “This is what you need? What do you—” The answer occurred to him when her hand stroked over the muscles in his stomach, and her lips found his jaw. “Izzie! I only meant to remove my soiled garments so as to make myself less offensive. I wasn’t suggesting that we… that we…”

“Well, I am,” she said, pushing his shirt up over his head and tossing it aside. She made a sound of approval, stroking her fingertips over the planes of his chest. “I want to forget about what just happened.”

“But Izzie,” he protested, “we can’t make love on my desk!”

She was kissing his neck, which was not helping his resolve. She reached down and caressed the bulge that had unsurprisingly sprung up between his legs. “Are you sure?” she asked, voice full of mischief. “Because it seems like this could work.”

He groaned, his head lolling back. God , that felt good, and of course, he wanted what she was suggesting. There was never a moment he didn’t want to make love to this woman…

She giggled in his lap, then tugged her skirts up to her thighs so she could straddle him. Again, this did not help his sense of resolve.

She began unbuttoning the jacket of her traveling costume. “See? This will work splendidly.”

He was struggling to come up with reasons why they shouldn’t do the thing his cock was absolutely desperate to do. “What if… what if someone comes through the door?”

She tossed her jacket on the floor, then unbuttoned her skirt and peeled it off, leaving her in only her fine white chemise and stays. She bit his earlobe, which made him jolt with pleasure. “Do your employees normally come barging into your office without knocking?”

“No,” he admitted. She scraped her nails gently across his nipples, and his whole body shuddered. It was impossible to think while she was doing this to him…

“What if… What if somebody hears us?” he managed.

Just then, the din of a cannon being bored out started up on the forge floor below. From this distance, the sound wasn’t earsplitting, but it would certainly drown out whatever they were doing in the office.

She was undoing the buttons of his falls. Archibald made a final effort to be good. “I’ll make a rumpled mess of you, and then everyone will know… will know…”

She wrapped her soft, sweet hand around his cock, and every thought fled his brain except getting inside of her. She began stroking him up and down, paying particular attention to the head of his cock, just the way he liked. “I’m already a rumpled mess,” she whispered. “Take off my stays.”

“I… I shouldn’t.”

She guided his hands to the ties in the back. “You know you want to,” she teased.

He did want to, and his fingers were already fumbling with the ribbons. “I’m going to hell,” he muttered, tossing her stays on the floor.

She giggled. “No, you’re not. We’re married, for goodness’ sake.” She reached down to push his trousers out of the way, and—God help him—he lifted his hips to assist her.

Pulling her chemise up and out of the way, she carefully aligned herself so she could grind the little pearl between her legs against his cock. Her eyes went hazy with pleasure, a sight Archibald would never tire of seeing, not if they were married for ten thousand years.

“That’s it, Izzie,” he said. “Make yourself feel good.” He began kissing his way up her neck. God, she looked beautiful in her snow-white shift. The teasing glimpses he got of her rosy nipples through the thin fabric were as tantalizing as seeing her naked.

“It does feel good,” she gasped. A teasing gleam came into her eyes. “But what about you?”

“Don’t worry about me.” He wanted to make sure she found her pleasure. His could wait for afterward.

“Are you sure?” She reached down and massaged the head of his cock, wet with a clear liquid drop that had seeped out, and his vision scrambled. She laughed, delighted. “It seems to me that you could use some attention, too.”

“I’m fi… fin…” The words died on his lips as Izzie rose up on her knees, brought him to her entrance, and slowly slid down over him. She was tight and wet and slick, and she felt like heaven . “Oh, my… Fuck , Izzie,” he gasped. “That feels so good .”

“Does it?” she asked breathlessly, sliding up and down his length.

“So g-good,” was all he could manage to say, as his brain had turned to mush.

She proceeded to ride him. He tried to hold out, because the pleasure was exquisite, and he wanted this moment with her to last forever.

But the desperation soon overcame him. “Izzie,” he gasped, “can I… do you mind if I—”

“Of course,” she said without even knowing what he was asking.

Babbling incoherently, he stood, lifting her in his arms, and reversed their position so she was seated on the desk and he was standing between the vee of her legs, his cock still thick inside of her. He started thrusting in her, fast and hard. “I want… I n-n-need…”

“Yes, Archibald,” she said, caressing his shoulders. “ Yes .”

He pounded into her, his climax building. He was worried he might be handling her too roughly, but she murmured nothing but encouraging words in his ear, and when she dug her nails into his buttocks, he exploded inside her with a cry.

It took a few minutes for the room to stop spinning. Archibald found he had slumped against the desk. He pushed himself up. “Sorry. I must be crushing you.”

“I like being crushed by you,” Izzie countered.

He leaned forward, kissing her deeply. “Your turn,” he whispered, voice pitched low.

He proceeded to kiss his way down her partially clothed body, pausing to suckle her nipples through the thin fabric of her shift. By the time he knelt before her at the foot of the desk, her cheeks were glowing, and she was squirming with anticipation.

Pushing her shift out of the way, he pulled her up to the edge of the desk and eased her legs open. He pressed a trail of kisses up the inside of her thigh, but just when he almost reached her core, he pulled back to give her other leg the same treatment. Mewling with displeasure, Izzie wove her fingers into his hair and directed him to the spot she wanted to be kissed. Archibald’s lips curved into a smile as he complied.

As Izzie had suspected after their wedding night, she didn’t seem to reach her climax through penetration alone. Archibald didn’t care. He genuinely liked doing this for her, kissing her in the little spot that gave her the most pleasure. They had also found some positions where it was easy for him to reach down and rub her while they were making love. Those were also nice. He loved feeling her come apart when he was inside of her and having her tremble in his arms.

He was starting to figure out what pleased her the most, so he started off lightly, teasing her with the tip of his tongue. She was already fairly far along and soon began making blissful sounds. Flattening his tongue, he massaged her on that special spot, then glanced up to see her reaction.

Her gorgeous blue eyes were incoherent with the pleasure he was giving her. As he caressed her, her back arched and she began to babble, “Please, Archibald! Please, don’t stop! I need to come!”

He redoubled his efforts. He knew he was on the right track when he felt her thighs tense beneath his fingers. Surely enough, the next instant, her legs began quaking around his head. He slid his hands around her hips, holding her in place so he could draw her pleasure out as much as possible. When her thighs clamped around his ears, he knew it was time to gentle his tongue.

As always, Izzie was boneless afterward. Archibald scooped her off his desk and took her place, depositing her in his lap. He kissed her temple. She lay her head upon his shoulder, still breathing hard, eyes closed and a look of contentment on her face.

After a moment, she opened her eyes and smiled at him. “See? Now I’m not sorry I came.”

He laughed. “At least something good came out of your excursion.” Something occurred to him. “Say, what were you doing up this way?”

She stretched her neck. “What do you mean, what was I doing up this way?”

“I can’t think of any places you’d want to visit up here. It’s all industrial. There’s not much in the way of popular attractions.”

“Archibald!” She tickled his side, causing him to squirm. “Do you really not know?”

He captured her wrists, planting her hands against his chest. “No.”

She blew a lock of hair off her forehead. “I was coming here! To Nettlethorpe Iron.” At his blank look, she made a sound of frustration. “I wanted to see your workshop, you silly man!”

He froze. “My… my workshop? You were coming to see…”

“Of course! I’ve only been begging to see it all week.”

He struggled to process the fact that, on her first opportunity in weeks to leave the house and go somewhere, the place she had wanted to go was his workshop .

She kissed his cheek before climbing out of his lap. “Well, I suppose I’d better see it today. Goodness only knows when I’ll be able to leave the house again.” She scooped her stays up off the floor. “Help me get back into these, will you?”

Archibald obediently began fumbling with the laces. All the while, his mind was scrambling for an excuse to keep Izzie out of his workshop. It was bad enough that she had seen him covered in grime on the factory floor.

If she found out that his life’s purpose was something as pedestrian as making screws , it would be the death knell for the budding regard she seemed to have for him. And, although he knew that eventually she would find out and come to despise him, he couldn’t bear for it to happen quite so soon. He wanted as many weeks and days and minutes to bask in the glow of her affection as he could possibly scrounge before he entered the dark, cold night of her disdain.

Once they were both dressed, she took his arm and towed him toward the door. “Which way is it?”

He pulled her to a halt. “Izzie, I’m so sorry, but I think we need to get you back to the house with all possible speed.”

Her face fell. “Surely we can spare a half hour!”

He shook his head. “Whoever is trying to kill you knows exactly where you are right now and exactly where you’re heading. It’s an ideal opportunity for them to prepare an ambush. The longer you linger here, the more opportunity they’ll have to set their trap.”

Her shoulders sagged. “I hadn’t thought of that.”

“I’m sorry,” he said, and he was, in the sense that he was sorry she was disappointed.

Her blue eyes were pleading, which all but destroyed him. “I couldn’t have the tiniest peek? Just five minutes?”

In truth, five minutes probably wouldn’t make much of a difference. Not that he was about to admit as much. He pressed her hand against his heart. “There is nothing I prize more highly than your safety.”

She heaved a theatrical sigh. “I suppose you’re right. Well, then. Let’s return the princess to her tower.”

He led her back through the offices and down to the factory floor. Archibald noticed that four of the forge’s wagons, which were normally used to bring in loads of the coke charcoal needed to fuel the blast furnaces, had been pulled up alongside the carriage. A group of around fifty men were milling about.

“What’s all this?” Archibald asked.

“Her ladyship’s escort,” a caster named Josiah Digby said. He swung a sledgehammer up on his shoulder. “I’d like to see them try to take her.”

There was a chorus of agreement. Archibald noticed that most of the men were carrying sledgehammers, pickaxes, or shovels.

“Thank you,” Izzie said tremulously. “Truly, thank you for risking your lives to protect me. Speaking of which, how is Jack?”

“He’s fine,” Digby said. “Surgeon gave him a few stitches. But it was a glancing blow.”

“I volunteer to step in front of the next knife!” someone in the back called, and everyone laughed. Archibald took it that word had spread about Jack’s reward.

Archibald opened the carriage door and offered his hand to help Izzie up. “Shall we?”

Izzie nodded crisply, and he was pleased to see resolve in her eyes as she accepted his hand. “We shall.”