by Kelly Bowen
He should walk away from this. It was what an honorable man would do, the sort of man that she thought he was. That he might have been.
But he wasn’t honorable. And he wasn’t strong. And he wanted her so damn badly. So, so badly.
“Have you reconsidered?” she asked in French, the beautiful lilt to her words caressing him and raising gooseflesh across his skin.
Very deliberately he grasped the hem of his shirt and pulled it over his head, letting it fall to the floor. He saw her swallow, saw her eyes flicker over his naked torso.
With the same deliberation, he unbuttoned the fall of his trousers, stepping out of them. He was entirely naked, every muscle in his body rigid, every fiber longing for her. She would be able to see the scars on his wrists and ankles, and the scars across his arms and chest. She would be able to see every act of violence that had followed him through Bedlam and then the streets of London. She would see everything that he was.
And she could still leave. Back away from what he was.
Except she wasn’t leaving. Instead her eyes were doing a slow dance over his body, her mouth parted slightly, her silver eyes smoky with arousal. If he had been hard before, he was like granite now, carnal need roaring through his veins.
“I haven’t reconsidered anything,” he growled.
“Yes, I can see that,” she said with a small, self-satisfied smile, and that sultry confidence was the most beautiful thing he had ever seen.
She stepped forward, her hands hovering just above his shoulders. He forced himself not to move. Not to push himself into her touch as her hands settled on his skin, her fingers traveling over his chest first and then his abdomen, tracing each scar. Her fingers skimmed his ribs, her palms sliding over his hips and around his backside.
She hummed in the back of her throat, and it was all the warning that he got before her lips grazed his jaw, moving down to trace the same path across his chest that her fingers had just taken. Her mouth moved across his skin, her tongue swirling around one nipple and then the other, and the pleasure that tore through him almost made him stagger.
She straightened again, her lips finding his, and he deepened the kiss before she could pull away. He caught the sides of her face with his hands, tipping her head back to give himself better access to her mouth, and there was nothing gentle about his kiss. It was hot and greedy, as if he could funnel all the desperate need that she’d incited within him into it. He wanted to drown in her, sink into all her strength and courage and beauty.
Her hands slid from his backside, one hand closing over his erection, the other cupping his balls. He shuddered, groaning into her mouth. She stroked him once and then again, and his head dropped to her shoulder, dizzying pleasure sizzling through him. Her thumb drifted over the head of his erection, and he nearly came out of his skin. He stepped away from her, knowing that she would undo him where he stood if he let her continue. And he didn’t want to come without her. He needed to be inside her when she came apart, needed to feel her wrapped around him.
He reached for the belt of her robe and pulled on the loose bow, watching as the belt slid to the floor and her robe fell open. He pushed it from her shoulders until she too was standing naked.
He swallowed, his mouth gone dry. In the firelight her honey-kissed skin glowed, her breasts topped by peaked nipples, the line of her waist curving gently before flaring over her hips. Just as visible in the soft light were the scars that covered her own body. A long mark that slashed down her shoulder to end by her elbow. Small streaks of pale skin crisscrossed over her forearms. A wide, puckered gash that had healed badly near her hip. He would ask her about that one. But not now.
Instead he sank down on the pianoforte bench, tugging her forward so that she stood directly in front of him. He bent his head and placed a slow kiss at the ruined skin at her hip, his hands sliding up her ribs to cover her breasts. This time it was Adeline who moaned softly. He rolled her nipples between his fingers, and her hands found his shoulders, her fingers digging into the muscle.
His hands dropped, one sliding over the curve of her buttocks, the other caressing the inside of her thigh. She was trembling, her legs not entirely steady, and this pleased him to no end. He wasn’t the only one being undone. He slipped a finger between her legs, stroking through her wet folds.
She gasped, her fingers tightening on his shoulders. “I need more. I need all of you.”
He stroked her again, and she made another small, desperate sound, and his cock twitched in response.
His hands slid around her hips, and this time he urged her forward so that she was straddling him. “Take what you need.”
Her eyes locked on his as she took him in her hand, guiding him to her entrance. She tilted her hips, the tip of his erection sliding into her heat.
“Don’t look away,” she whispered, and seated herself fully.
Pleasure exploded like a lightning storm, crackling through his body and straight up his spine. He thrust hard up into her, unable to help himself, and she whimpered.
He froze. “Did I hurt you?”
“Never,” she breathed. “Do it again.”
He rocked his hips, and this time she met him. Her inner walls clenched around his erection as he slid rhythmically inside her wet heat, setting a hard pace. She laced her fingers across the back of his neck, holding on to him tightly. King caressed her breast in one hand, dipping his head to catch her nipple with his mouth. He sucked gently and was rewarded with a tortured moan.
“I could die right here, right now, and die happy listening to the sounds you make,” he managed.
“Don’t die yet,” she panted, her fingers leaving his neck to tangle in his hair.
He sucked again, and Adeline cried out softly. He slipped his other hand between them, finding her swollen bud where their bodies were joined. He stroked it lightly with his thumb.
“Yes,” she hissed. “Right there. Just like that.”
King closed his eyes and fought for control against the storm of sensations gripping him as he stroked and worshipped his goddess.
“Look at me,” Adeline said breathlessly.
He opened his eyes. Her silver gaze was lust-filled and hooded, her lips kiss-swollen and parted, her skin damp and flushed. She was achingly, unbearably beautiful, and in this moment, she was all his. With deliberate movements, King shifted the angle of his hips and thrust twice more.
“Joshua,” she whispered as every muscle in her body convulsed.
Her fingers curled into his scalp, and small, sensual sounds escaped her lips. He kept thrusting, watching the rapture on her face as pleasure consumed her until he could no longer fight his own release roaring down on him.
He grasped her hips and pulled out of her, his throbbing erection sliding against her abdomen. He reached for his cock, but she beat him to it, fisting him in her palm and stroking him from crown to base.
Her name tore from his lips as he came, intense pleasure such as he’d never known wiping his mind of everything save the feel of this woman. His hips still moved relentlessly, but he couldn’t stop, couldn’t pull away from her touch, couldn’t pull away from her.
Eventually his movements slowed, and Adeline collapsed against him, both of them breathing hard. Neither said anything for a long time, the air cooling their skin. But his pulse hadn’t slowed. If anything, his heart was thundering even faster against his ribs, an unnamed ache gripping his chest and squeezing the air from his lungs. Bits and pieces of the last minutes floated back to him in a haze. The feel of Adeline’s body, the sound of her voice, the words she had spoken.
Ribbons of unease wound through him.
Jesus, what had he done?
Chapter 14
You called me Joshua.”
He had tensed, the muscles in his legs beneath her like steel, his entire body stiff.
“Yes.” She lifted her head, but he didn’t meet her eye. “That is your name.”
He twisted and snatched his shirt from
the floor. He wiped his seed from her skin before he tossed the garment to the side.
“It’s not.” He still hadn’t met her gaze, and she could feel him retreating from her as surely as if he were running for the door. “Joshua Westerleigh is dead.”
“Joshua Westerleigh did not die. He simply survived the best way he knew how, and I, of all people, will never judge you for that. But he is not a prisoner anymore. Not of his name, not of his life.”
“You’re wrong.”
Adeline slid from his lap with a sigh. Her body was still humming with the aftereffects of the last minutes, but a familiar frustration was beginning to creep through her. She retrieved her robe and drew it over her shoulders.
“I am what I am now,” he continued, his voice rough and wooden. “I can’t be who you want me to be. Who you think I am. I can’t just…change.”
“Change?” Adeline said, trying not to let anger color her words but failing. “I don’t ever want you to change from who you are—”
“I am a criminal. A thief. A killer.”
“Yes. All of those things. But you are also a friend. A lover. A protector.”
“A protector?” He stood and fetched his trousers, yanking them on in angry motions.
“Yes. Of Elliot. Of your duke. Of me.”
“And yet I was unable to protect the one person who needed it the most,” he sneered. “I will never go back to being…helpless. Powerless. Vulnerable.”
“And is that what I make you? Vulnerable?” She pulled her robe around her more tightly.
“No.” King stared at her before bracing his palms against the edge of the piano. “You make me—” He stopped and stared down at his hands, as if suddenly comprehending what he had been about to say and not liking the answer.
“Afraid,” she said quietly.
He recoiled. “I’ve already told you I’m not afraid of anything.”
“And you lied. You’re afraid to trust. You’re afraid to need.”
“Fine words from a woman who once said that need leads to downfall.”
“I said in the wrong hands, need can lead to downfall. But needing and trusting someone who—” Loves you, she almost said before she caught herself. She pressed her fingers to her lips, fighting the ache blossoming inside her heart. “Needing someone who cares about you,” she amended, “does not make one weak. It makes one stronger.”
King scoffed derisively.
“I understand that you were betrayed in the most heinous manner. But this facade you maintain, this reputation of being merciless and ruthless and unfeeling, is not all that you are. You’re so much more than a facade.”
“That facade keeps the blades out of my back when I least expect them,” he snarled. “So have a care.”
“No, I don’t think I will, because that makes you no better than the Duke of Buckingham, demanding Rubens to portray him as something he’s not.”
He straightened. “I beg your pardon?”
“That might have been your past. But what about your present?”
“What about it?”
“The ruthless, merciless lord of the underworld would tell me that he feels nothing for me. He would tell me that what just happened was you simply fucking away your regrets.”
He flinched.
“I don’t want you to change,” she said softly. “I want you to take a chance.”
“On what?”
“On yourself. On me. On the possibility of us.”
“There will never be an us.”
She had thought herself prepared for those words, but hearing them sent pain lancing through her heart.
“I want to know what the man standing in front of me has to say. King, Joshua, I don’t really care what it is you wish to call yourself. Tell me what you need. What you feel.”
“Don’t make me do this.” His arms were rigid at his sides.
“I will never make you do anything. This is your choice.”
He cursed and turned away from her, bracing his hands on the edge of the piano. “Then I want you to do no less than what you do for all your clients.”
“Which is?” she asked in some confusion.
“Disappear, so as not to remain a reminder of what was likely the worst moment of their lives.”
She was clenching her jaw so hard she thought her teeth might shatter.
“Your words. Not mine,” he finished. “You have to go, Adrestia.”
“It’s better to send me away before I have the opportunity to betray you, is that it?” She forced the words through her lips.
“In the end, everyone betrays you.” His head dropped, and the muscles across his back flexed.
Adeline swallowed hard against the ache that had risen in her throat and the gaping emptiness that had once again opened in the center of her chest. She could not force her love on a man who did not want to be loved. She could not give her heart to a man who would never take it. She could not make him love himself enough to accept love from another.
Adeline walked to the door, pausing with her hand on the latch.
“Goodbye, Joshua,” she said before pushing through the door. She did not look back.
Chapter 15
King stood in the frigid churchyard, the moonlight that flooded down bright enough to cast long shadows across the ground. The snow had long since melted, and Evan’s headstone glowed an ethereal white, save for the new blooms that sat on top of the stone. They were the same flowers that King had always brought on the same day of the week during the same small hours of the morning. Except nothing was the same, really.
Adeline Archambault had left a void in his life—in his entire existence—that he didn’t know what to do with. King had thought that he would simply move on after Adeline left. That in her absence he would go back to the life he’d known before she’d broken into his study, seized a sapphire, and made him question everything he thought he knew about himself.
He hadn’t moved on at all. He hadn’t even played his damn pianoforte in a sennight because all he could think about was—
“You look terrible.”
King started. He had completely lost his edge. He hadn’t heard Ashland approach.
“And it’s a pleasure to see you as well,” King replied irritably, most of his ire directed at himself. “What are you doing here? It’s freezing and long past midnight.”
“I was looking for you. I stopped by Helmsdale earlier but you weren’t there. Your young footman told me where to find you.” The duke gazed down at the headstone. “In hindsight, I should have looked here first.”
King grunted. He would speak to Elliot about discretion later. “Why were you looking for me?”
“Marstowe is gone.”
“Yes. I heard he left England,” King said with complete honesty.
“I heard the same.” The duke paused. “Your assassin is also gone.”
“For the last time, she’s not a bloody assassin. And she certainly is not mine.” Though she had been, once, for a tiny sliver of time. Regret lanced through him, sharp enough to make him feel slightly ill.
“King—”
“She didn’t kill Marstowe, if that’s what you’re asking.”
“Did you kill him?” Ashland’s breath misted in the cold air.
“No.” Also true.
“Do you know where he—”
“Stop asking questions you neither need nor want answers to,” King snapped.
The duke fell silent.
“I’m sorry.” King leaned on his walking stick, the point spearing some remnants of frostbitten vegetation. “That was uncalled for.”
“You’re angry. Would you care to tell me why?”
“I’m not angry.” Another truth. He was bereft. Miserable. Alone. “And it doesn’t matter. Forgive my lack of civility.”
The duke tipped his head, his expression merely thoughtful. “You’ve always done that.”
“Done what? Lost my composure?” King pinched the bridge of his nose with
his gloved fingers.
“Protected me.”
King’s hand dropped, an ache stirring in his chest. Adeline had once called him a protector. And he had sneered at her.
“I haven’t done anything of the sort,” he said harshly.
“You did it in Bedlam. Bore the worst of the cruelty to spare me the same. Kept me alive on the streets of London in those first years after we escaped.”
“That’s not—”
“I’m not done,” Ashland interrupted. “You’ve shielded me from the truth of what happened the night you saved my life. Credible deniability, you called it, and you’re doing it again right now. Protecting me by keeping secrets.”
“Perhaps,” King said. He didn’t have the will to argue the point.
“But she knew everything, didn’t she?”
“I beg your pardon?”
“Your assassin. She knew all your secrets. The secrets in your past that you have never even told me.”
King gripped the silver handle of his walking stick, the leather of his gloves stretching uncomfortably taut across his knuckles. The hoofbeats of a lone horse on the cobblestones beyond the churchyard echoed through the stillness of the night and then faded. “Yes,” he finally allowed.
“She saw you, then. All of you. The man behind this myth you’ve so carefully curated. And she didn’t run.” The duke stepped in front of him. “She didn’t run so you sent her away.”
“You have no idea of what you speak.” King’s free hand curled into a fist. “You have no right to—”
“And you didn’t send her away to protect her,” Ashland pressed on, ignoring him. “You sent her away to protect yourself.”
The ache in King’s chest intensified into something more unnerving.
“You are a great many things, King, but I never took you for a coward.”
“Watch yourself,” King snarled. “Before you say something you regret.”
The duke appeared unmoved. “Tell me, did you fall in love with her?”
“What sort of question is that?” He despised how defensive he sounded.
“The only one that matters.”
King stared at the man still standing before him.
