Chapter 13

The stairs were narrow and shaky, and she held tightly onto Kingston's arm. He seemed more confident than he had when she'd first arrived, surer of his actions, happier to have her near. She was happy to be near. Not just because she'd gotten the kiss she'd come for, not only because she'd learned how to use a printing press. Both exciting developments, but she'd enjoyed learning more about him most, making him laugh, giving him perhaps the only compliment he'd never been given. He seemed like a candle, and she had the tinder to make him flame to glowing life.

Three steps from the top, she stopped him. "Were you avoiding me? This last week?"

"Yes."

"Why? It cannot be that you no longer wish to court me. I cannot believe you would kiss me below before all if that were the case. Besides, you are not one to retreat."

"Not a retreat. A regrouping to reconsider my next move."

"And you've determined that now?"

He squeezed his arm tight to her side, wove their hands together. "I believe I have." He started them up the stairs once more and opened the door at the top.

Thick rug beneath the large, beaten, ink-stained desk, three walls of bookshelves packed full from floor to ceiling, a spiral staircase leading up to a balcony that wrapped around those three walls, allowing easier access to the books higher up. Fireplace, dark and empty at the moment, and a rather large sofa behind the stairs. A large desk Kingston strode to, snapping the printed paper she'd made him, and the one he'd made her, right on to the very middle before returning to her side.

Cozy. Neat and—

The door clicked closed behind her, and his arm wrapped around her waist. He pressed her against the door and kissed her hard, kissed her until stars bloomed behind her closed eyes and wicked intention bloomed in her fingertips. They began to explore. First the length of his back, ever-so-lightly as he bit her bottom lip. Then the breadth of his shoulders as he parted her lips with his tongue. Then the line of his stubbled jaw as he devoured her.

She shouldn't allow this. She didn't care.

His leg slid between hers and lifted until his knee pressed against her center. She gasped, speared her fingers into the hair at his nape and held on tight as he trailed his knuckles down her neck, her shoulder, across the expanse of breast. He undid the buttons of her spencer and pushed the garment off, first one shoulder and then the other. It dropped to the ground behind her, and his hands found a new purpose—slipping beneath the edge of her bodice, freeing her breast from her stays, her shift. She shivered when his thumb brushed over her nipple and burrowed her head into his chest.

His arm tightened around her. "Panicking, little bird?"

"I'm not a little bird," she breathed, "but this is new. Overwhelming. So much sensation. I should have known. I never could have guessed." She spread her hands flat on his wide, hard chest. No matter her fears, she wanted his kisses.

He stroked a hand down her hair, resting it gently on the back of her head, his thumb flirting with the pulse at the base of her neck. "You want something desperately. I can tell. Is it to flee or to—"

She crashed her mouth against his for a long searing kiss she broke only to take his bottom lip between her teeth and pull.

He hissed and bound her tight in arms like steel, and then the kiss became all teeth and tongue and heavy breaths, and the dark room he'd been trying to lead her into glowed with the flames of her need. Her breasts ached, and she arched into his hand. So much sensation flooding her at once. If their first kiss had been a soft thing, spring rain on a flower petal, the second one an education as they'd gradually learned one another, and the third for show and claiming, then this one was a scorching summer day. The only way to cool your limbs and head and heart was to strip down entirely and bare your skin to the air.

His kiss stripped her bare, and his hands sought to mold her, first pressing against her back, fingers clawing against the sarcenet of her gown. He picked her up, their mouths joined in hunger, and when the strength of his arms fell away from her body, she found herself on the couch across the room. He straddled her, resting his forearms on either side of her head, then kissed her breast, laved her nipple so it pebbled. She'd thought the cold only could make that happen. But his hands were not cold. They burned hotter than the air outside. She wanted to scorch him, too. She yanked the hem of his shirt up, revealing the taut planes of his abdomen and pressing her palms flat against it. She read books about touching and kissing. She'd thought herself prepared for the feel of a man's skin beneath her fingertips.

She'd not been.

His muscles contracted. So very hard. Strong, capable. And to think such a man kissed her almost into a swoon. Perfection. Somehow, what she'd always wanted—fairytales and romance, a man to court her with a fierce determination that left only one conclusion.

When his hand left her breast to contour her waist she moaned, a weak protest quickly became a raspy gasp as he grasped her to him, flipped the world on its head as he changed their positions. He sat and nestled her into the widespread V of his legs. Beneath her, pressing into her bottom, he throbbed hard and thick, and his voice rasped in her ear.

"I felt so damn pleased to see you today." He caressed her breast with one hand. "And I want you just as pleased right now." His other hand moved lower, smoothing over the contours of her waist to rest flat and intentional on her thigh.

He surrounded her—his salty scent and his hard body, his rough chuckle, and his erratically beating heart. Her head fell back onto his shoulder. She needed to touch, so she lifted her arm and twisted it to cup the back of his head, grasp his silk hair, and anchor herself against the onslaught of sensation.

Air shivered across her stockinged ankle, a sweet relief from her ever-heating body that revealed his new intent to her—he was raking her skirt up her leg, gathering it at her hip until her entire leg was exposed, and he could leave that silk bunched and forgotten there in order to test, to thrill, the ready skin of her thigh. Her inner thigh. His nails made lines there from knee to… well, higher. She'd read many names for that part of her body—cock alley, commodity, fruitful vine, madge, man trap, and muff. She'd thought them merely words before but now none of them felt quite right.

"Do you want me to touch you?" he asked, his lips hot on her ear.

"Yes."

"I want you to show me how." His hand left that space between her legs and settled over her hand where it braced her weight on the couch cushion. He rubbed her palm over her thigh and toward the aching apex of her legs. "Do you feel how soft you are?"

"Yes."

He placed her fingers on her sex. "I know you touch yourself here."

"I don't—" She shook her head, swallowed hard. "How did you know?"

"You seem a well-educated woman. A well-educated beauty." Each word a shaky rasp. "Every inch of you, perfectly kissable. Lickable. Now show me."

She raked her hands through her curls and dipped her finger into the slit between her legs, feeling the arousal she'd known would be there. Then she drew her fingers out and found that little bud and teased it. But it was not like it usually was. Her own touch felt dull, no longer good enough when he was here, and she wanted his hands there.

She grabbed his hand and fit it over her. "You. Now."

He chuckled deep in his chest as his hand took over the rhythm she'd shown him. "Yes, Captain." He kissed her neck, nipped her ear, and let his free hand roam everywhere it could touch. "Soft and sweet." He nuzzled her neck with his nose and breathed hard. "And mine."

Yes, yes. The buzzing in her body spun her like a waltz, and all the candles in the world lit inside her at once and—

A knock on the door.

He cursed, but his hand did not stop. She pressed her own hand against it, her silent plea to continue.

Another knock. Louder, more insistent. "Kingston, open up!" Bailey's voice.

"Bloody hell." Kingston swished her skirts back over her legs.

Her body buzzed, and the feeling that had been building fizzled. She shifted off his lap as the door handle shook. Hell and chaos. Her breast was exposed. She yanked the shoulder of her gown up and covered herself. Wrinkled skirts, bodice askew. Hair, too, likely. A mess.

"Why didn't I lock the damn thing? I knew what I was going to do."

She jumped to her feet. "You what?"

Another knock. "Kingston! I've need of you."

"Quit banging, Bailey. I'll be with you in a moment." He stood with a lazy confidence and cupped the back of her neck in his hand. Dipping, he placed a quick, hot kiss on her lips, then winked. "Ready yourself. I'll get rid of Bailey and meet you on the Strand before the shop."

Her body hummed with unfulfilled desire. She ached. She needed. How would she make it down the stairs with the place between her legs throbbing for something more?

He opened the door a sliver and slipped through, and when the sound of bootsteps disappeared, she slipped out, too. Johnny waited for her behind the shop. Could he tell she'd just been ravished? Almost ravished? Most assuredly he could.

"My lady!" He rushed toward her. "You look as if you've taken a tumble."

She'd certainly been tumbled. Well and good. Mostly. She still buzzed with unfulfilled need between her legs. It put a bite in her reply.

"Making prints is… vigorous work. Take the coach, Johnny. Mr. Kingston has agreed to escort me home."

"His Grace will not like that."

"Then I will answer to His Grace."

"And I will." Kingston's deep voice sounded close behind her. With long strides he came to her side. "Your protection of Lady Andromeda is commendable, but I'll protect her from here."

Johnny's mouth shaped itself into a disagreeable curl for longer than it should have before he bowed. "As you wish, Lady Andromeda." A grumbled reply, full of grit and narrowed-eyed venom.

Kingston merely smiled and waved him on his way before escorting her into a waiting hack. He sat next to her, despite the stuffy heat inside the conveyance, and when they rolled forward, he wasted no time devouring her. His hands in her hair, his fingers scraping across her skin, his mouth hot on her own, igniting her once more. Her body a black ember that, once sparked back into life, jumped into the flame with ease. He pulled her onto his lap and feasted on the side of her neck. She moaned and pressed her backside into his lap, into the hard length of him pushing against her. He had her skirt above her knees and his hand between her legs before she could moan his name. When he slipped a finger into her, his thumb circling her nubbin, she arched and cried out, biting her bottom lip to silence herself, to hide the passion ravaging her with every movement of his hands at her breast, at her center, every lick of his tongue on her neck, her shoulder.

The sensation was shocking when it spilled over her. Muscles clenching around him, muscles turning rock everywhere, on her, on him, and she thought she might cry, thought she might dissolve in the heat of his touch.

He grumbled in her ear as his hands continued working through her body's discovery of pleasure. "My beauty. Every inch of you perfect. I'll make sure you want for nothing, keep you busy, luv. When you wake up in the morning, aching between your legs, you think of me and do to yourself as I do to you. And when you think of me during the day, no matter what time or what you're doing, if I'm not nearby, you find a secluded spot and think of me some more. Slip that delicate little hand beneath your skirts and do what I'd do were I with you. Promise me, Andromeda."

She sighed, her head falling back, granting him more neck to love, reveling in the strength of his shoulder that caught her, held her, supporting and demanding.

"Promise, luv."

"Yes," she breathed, barely able to speak as a softer wave of pleasure washed over her, making her sleepy, heavy, and sated. "I promise."

He held her, kept her upright truly for she had no more bones, and he brushed her hair softly away from her face. "Beautiful."

Somewhere in the ocean of pleasure that her body had become, she found words and set them on little boats into the air. "You must follow Mr. Collins's school of courtship instead of my brother's."

"I should call you out for such an insult. Why do you say that?"

"Because you clearly practice little compliments to pull out on the perfect occasions." It should feel awkward, shouldn't it, discussing literature when the man she conversed with had so recently been learning every texture and outline of her body. It was not. Held in his arms, she felt more comfort than she ever had, more herself than she had in years.

He stretched out his legs, crossing them at the ankles and bracing his boots on the seat across from them as he shifted her sideways in his lap. "No need to practice what comes natural when I'm around you. You liked the book, then?"

"Yes." She rested her head against his chest. "Thank you for lending it to me."

"Would you like another?"

"There's another? Yes, please." She drew a line down the middle of his waistcoat, skimming the very end of her finger over the row of buttons. The top two were undone. Always so mussed, ever wrinkled. What would he look like pressed and perfect?

"Tell me, luv," he said, "who is your favorite character? In Pride and Prejudice."

"Hm." She tapped her bottom lip. "Mr. Darcy."

He grunted. "Of course."

"What does that mean?"

"That women love Mr. Darcy because he is handsome and rich and—"

"He reminds me of myself."

That spun the world around them into silence.

Kingston inched closer. "How?"

"He is… he can be… well, it seems as if sometimes he might possibly feel a bit… lonely."

Kingston nodded.

"And I do not think many know what it is he wants or who he truly is. He perhaps does not even know. Until he meets Elizabeth."

"I'll take up a sword against your loneliness."

She inhaled deeply, taking the words in with the air. She wanted to exhale those words, too, but they would not leave, remained lodged in her soul, became knit with her very being. Silly.

"Who is your favorite?" she asked.

He drew a line down her thigh. "After your revelation, I'm afraid it's Darcy."

She snorted. And laughed. And tried to cover both sounds with her palm. He pulled her hand away from her mouth, kissed her palm. Of course, he wore no gloves.

"Do you know, I think your brother and Mr. Collins are rather kindred spirits."

She gasped and craned her neck to look up at him with pure delight. "They are. Collins has his Fordyce's sermons and—"

"Clearford has his courtship guide."

She chuckled. "I wonder if he's read the book. But you know, Fordyce's is for young ladies, and Samuel is most concerned with teaching young gentlemen so he can marry us off."

Kingston gasped.

"What?"

"Your brother is not Mr. Collins. He's Mrs. Bennett."

"Oh no! You're right!" Laughter flooded from her in torrents as he laughed, too, the gruff rumble of his mirth shaking into her body, his strong arm holding her close until she was worn out and resting on his chest. A different kind of satiation. Not of the body, but of the heart.

He kissed the top of her head. "I'm pleased you read the book. I'll bring you the others tomorrow."

"I'll read them swiftly and return them." Held so tightly, she could not put distance between them bodily, but in this she could fashion a wall, frail though it be.

"No, you won't. You must keep them. And when you need more, you will let me know. I'll supply them."

"You are to be my sole purveyor of reading material, then? I rather enjoy a visit to Hatchard's."

"I'll come with you."

"I've no need of an escort. My sisters are often with me, and I have my own pocket money to make purchases with."

"But I want the honor of providing them for you. We'll form our own little book club, you and me." He kissed her temple.

And she decided not to argue. Mr. Tristan Kingston didn't stop until he had everything he wanted. And he wanted her. (And apparently a book club of two.) And hell and chaos, she didn't even care anymore. Because she wanted him, too.

After today, she could not pretend she wished to avoid his courtship. She not only accepted it, she delighted in it. He made her feel seen and wanted. He made her feel like she was more than a dusty collection of erotic books and elicit slips of paper, a past torn to pieces and a present never moving forward. A broken clock.

He'd given her a candle to see into the dark room before her, and if she opened her hand to it, he'd give her a thousand more, enough tapers to fill the room with light and to make her future not just seen, but glow.

Was she ready yet to open her hand, to walk forward? Encircled in his warmth… perhaps she was.