“Are you all right?” he asked, breathless.
Sophia dug her hands into the hair at his neck and rested her forehead against his. “Never all right. Never, never. Please, Thomas, don’t stop.”
Hope slid his hands up her thighs and placed them on her hips. He gently coaxed them up and down, up and down, small motions at first that had him gritting his teeth to keep from climaxing then and there.
With his thumb he brushed the engorged space at the tip of her sex, now spread wide to accommodate his girth. As if he’d lit her body on fire, Sophia began to move on her own, rocking her hips against him.
He saw stars as he slid in and out, in and out of her slick warmth. His heart was beating so hard, felt so big in his chest, he thought he might explode. He dug his hand into her hair, fingering her loose curls down the length of her back.
Sophia arched against him, her head falling back as she bared her body to the night. Her breasts moved in time to her hips, and he bent his head to catch a pink nipple between his teeth. She moaned; he pulled back and swallowed.
Heavens, but she was beautiful. The way her skin shone beneath the light of the moon, the abandon in her dark eyes; her hair and her passion and the musky scent of her desire. He wanted her, he wanted her more than he’d ever wanted anything. He wanted her now and he wanted her after, he wanted her tomorrow, next week, next year.
Hope wanted her with him always.
His throat tightened. It was all too much; he couldn’t breathe against the force of his emotion, the force of his body as Sophia swallowed him whole.
Hope was no fool. She was not his, never had been his. All he had was this moment, and their joined flesh. The exquisite sensations thrumming through him.
He felt her tightening around him, the first signs of her release. His pulse drummed in his ears. The tarpaulin fluttered in the breeze beneath their bodies.
He closed his eyes, willing her rising pleasure to blot out his grief.
Thirty-one
Head thrown back, Sophia gazed at the night sky above through the heavy-lidded haze of her desire. She felt so full, so completely lost in Thomas and the rising beat between her legs, she imagined herself bursting into a white-hot spatter of stars, the force of her climax banishing her to the far reaches of the blue-velvet sky.
His hand was at her neck, pulling him toward her. She smelled his desire, sweat mingled with sandalwood, lemons. She tugged at his hair with her fingers, her hips rolling of their own volition over and through and with him.
Thomas was so large with desire it had hurt at first to take him inside her; even now her pleasure was tinged with pain, each stroke a lesson in patience. But with this thumb working her sex where their bodies joined, the pain only increased her desire.
And now he was trailing his lips down her throat, skipping to her shoulder before taking her nipple in his mouth. He ran his tongue over its hardened tip, scraping it with his teeth, oh God, oh my God, I can’t, I can’t wait much—
Pleasure, blinding, complete, ripped through her, her legs bucking against the hardened plane of Hope’s thighs. Sophia cried out, and cried out again, her blood rushing through her in a frenzied explosion of poignant sensation. Her limbs pulsed, painfully rigid against the force of her climax.
Vaguely she sensed herself pulsing around the length of Thomas inside her. He bit back a cry, as if she’d hurt him; and then he was lifting her off of him, his movements quick but gentle as he withdrew. She watched as he covered his manhood with both hands. He winced, face screwed tight with pain as he was overcome by his completion.
His seed pulsed through his fingers; she felt its warmth on the exposed flesh of her thigh.
“I’m sorry,” Thomas whispered, wiping it away with the edge of the tarpaulin. He was breathing hard, his massive chest rising and falling rapidly, the dark, curly hair sprinkled across its expanse tickling the tips of her breasts.
Sophia let out a breath, her heart suddenly heavy in her chest. She reached out, brushing a curl from his temple before taking his chin between her fingers.
“Look at me, Thomas.”
He looked at her from under his dark lashes. She saw her own pain reflected in the translucent depths of his blue eyes. Already she felt her desire rising again, her body’s thirst for him only heightened by their coming together. She’d never known pleasure and happiness like she had with Thomas inside and around and with her. The completeness of it, the sheer expanse of it was terrifying. With his arms wrapped around her and his mouth on hers, she succumbed to who she was, whom she wanted. The worries of the world, the marquess and her family’s falling fortunes, dissipated into the evening breeze. In those moments there was nothing and no one but she and Thomas and the love they shared between them.
Love.
Sophia blinked at the jagged pain that sliced through her chest; her eyes pricked with tears.
“Thomas, I—”
“Don’t.” He held a finger to her lips. “Please, don’t.”
And then he was taking her in his arms again, pulling the tarpaulin over them as he lay atop her. The canvas rippled above their heads in the breeze, blocking out the night sky.
Sophia stretched out her legs, stiff from exertion, as Thomas pulled her body against his. He pressed a kiss into her cheek, her chin, her forehead; he pried her lips open with his own, a depthless kiss, a desperate kiss, as if he knew it would be their last.
She melted beneath the weight of his body, the fleshy warmth of it. She closed her eyes and ran her palms over his shoulders down to his chest, memorizing every inch of his skin, every muscle and curlicue of hair. A tear escaped from the corner of her closed eye, trailing into her hair.
Sophia broke the kiss, pressing her cheek against Hope’s as he wound his arms about her.
“I love you, Thomas,” she whispered.
Thomas started, drawing back to look in her eyes. His were wide and full, gleaming as if they might be wet. His eyes, they were so beautiful; so beautiful it made her ache.
He parted his lips, swollen from kissing her.
“Fire!”
The cry rent the silent night air, a strangled thing that echoed through the endless expanse of the Docklands. Hope’s eyes widened; he threw back the canvas and sniffed the air. Sophia inhaled, the crisp odor of burning wood invading her nostrils; above Hope’s head she saw the dim outline of smoke curling into the night sky.
Thomas snapped upright and was already shrugging into that ridiculous tunic of his.
“Bring water, quick! Fire!”
Sophia’s heart turned over in her chest. If the night’s previous mishaps were any indication, then this fire had everything, everything to do with their plot; she could only pray that Cousin Violet and the earl were far from it, though her every sense told her otherwise.
With trembling fingers, she tried to set her costume to rights, dropping the sleeve of her toga once, twice, damning it to hell on the third try.
Thomas reached over and tugged the sleeve back into place; Sophia barely managed to tuck her breasts into her bodice before Hope was lifting her to her feet. Together they scanned the horizon, the smoke growing thicker now.
“There.” Sophia pointed to an ember of color at the far edge of the void. Plumes of smoke rose to meet the sky; the back of her throat burned just looking at it. She could discern the dim outline of a ship, the tall shadows of its masts strangely angled, as if they were tilting into the water.
Thomas met her eyes.
They didn’t have much time.
Scrambling down the makeshift ladder, Sophia leapt into Hope’s outstretched arms. He caught her effortlessly, his thick arms holding her close for one breathless moment before he set her on her feet.
They took off at a sprint, Sophia working double to keep up with Thomas’s enormous stride. She followed the outline of his shoulders through t
he maze of the Docklands, both of them slowing as their lungs filled with smoke.
For what felt like the hundredth time that night, Sophia panicked. She could hardly see on account of the darkness, and as the smoke thickened she worried she would be lost, and would never get to Violet, and Violet would be caught on a burning ship with no one but that bounder the earl to save her.
“Are we,” she coughed, “getting close?”
“Yes!” Thomas called over his shoulder. Seeing her distress, he slowed his pace and wrapped an arm about her shoulders. “Stay close, Sophia. I don’t want to lose you.”
Shouts rang out around them; the crackle and snap of burning wood filled the summer air, the once-cool breeze now humid with sweat and smoke. Sophia struggled to breathe, her eyes watering as the haze surrounded them. It was too painful to keep them open, and she stumbled blindly at Hope’s side, leaning further and further against him the more her lungs burned.
“Sophia.” Hope drew to a stop. Choking, he took her hands in his face. “Open your eyes. Are you all right?”
“I can’t,” she panted. The smoke was suffocating; she felt faint. “Leave. I won’t leave Violet.”
“No.” Despite the thickness of the air, his reply was savage, sure. “I’m taking. You back.”
“You can’t. Leave the diamond. And what. Of Violet!”
Sophia stumbled back as something—someone—ran headfirst into her chest, knocking what little wind was left from her lungs. She let out a strangled cry; an eerily similar cry rang out at her feet.
Violet. “Violet!”
A stroke of implausible luck at last.
Sophia bent and helped her cousin to her feet, doing her best to wave the smoke from Violet’s face as she coughed and sputtered.
Thomas was at her side in a moment, wrapping an arm about Violet’s waist as she swayed dangerously close to the edge of the dock. “Are you. All right?”
Violet met Sophia’s eyes through the increasingly opaque haze. “We’ve got. To go.” She waved a limp arm in the direction of—well, Sophia frankly couldn’t tell up from down, left from right, so Lord knew where Violet was pointing—but she knew it was away from the French Blue.
Sophia looked at Hope. “But the. Diamond,” she panted.
Violet was shaking her head. “No, no. The ship. Is in flames. And sinking. With William—”
She collapsed against Hope, head lolling on the broad expanse of his shoulder. Violet, who only abhorred swooning ladies more than swooning itself, had actually swooned.
Sophia’s panic returned full force. This was serious. More so because Cousin Violet had referred to the Earl of Harclay by his given name, a name even his sister Lady Caroline did not use in public.
Really, what the devil had happened in the hour since they parted company on the quayside?
Sophia moved to help Mr. Hope carry Cousin Violet, but he waved her away, scooping her into his arms instead.
“But the. Diamond,” Sophia said again.
Thomas shook his head. “Later. Let’s. Go.”
They retraced their steps along the dock, Sophia keeping her eyes trained on Hope’s bare heels lest she lose him in the thickening smoke. She could tell by his sagging shoulders that he was exhausted, but he trudged forward, their pace slowing to a mere crawl by the time they miraculously reached the quay. Sophia’s eyes blurred even further with tears of gratitude. Only a few more feet, a few more steps, and then they could collapse into the hack, and after that it was only a few miles to home, to bed . . .
“The hacks.” Hope’s head snapped left, snapped right. “They’re gone.”
The breath left Sophia’s body as she took in the empty lane before them. She dashed about in the darkness, peering past the warehouses into alleys and hidden alcoves. Nothing. She glanced over her shoulder; the burning ship was now fully visible, the flames licking the top of its mainmast as smoke billowed into the sky, obscuring the moon and stars. Somewhere in the darkness she heard the wailing of a siren; the fire brigade was on its way.
Behind Sophia, Hope cursed none too gently in a language Sophia was grateful she didn’t quite understand. Something about pigs, and Mr. Lake’s—was that bones or stones?
“Wait here,” she whispered, trolling further into the darkness.
“Don’t you dare move, Sophia, it’s not safe. Anyone could be about, what with those ruffians the king and Artois at large . . .”
Sophia ducked through an oiled canvas door that hung between two weathered clapboard buildings, finding herself in a dim, damp alley. Wading into the darkness, Sophia held her hands out before her.
Was that a muffled giggle? A beat later she heard a noise that sounded suspiciously like a man’s playful growl of pleasure.
“Hello?” she called out weakly, coughing. “I don’t want to, er, interrupt . . . whichever activity in which you are engaged . . . but I’m looking for my friends, you see . . .”
Sophia’s outstretched hands encountered a hard, smooth surface, and a moment later the looming shadow of a hack came into view.
“Oh. Oh, thank God.” Sophia went to open the door. “Mr. Lake, I—Mr. Lake!”
He tugged his buckskins over his bare behind, clamoring to the edge of the bench inside the hack. His hair, usually clubbed back in an immaculate queue, was disheveled, sticking straight up around his head like a halo; though he shrugged into his coat, Sophia could see the smooth skin of a well-muscled chest peeking through the lapels.
“I’m sorry to, er, disturb you, but we need to go. Violet is ill—”
Lady Caroline glanced over the slope of Lake’s enormous shoulder. Her hair looked even worse for the wear than her paramour’s. “Is she all right?”
“Yes, I’ll explain everything, but we need to go, now.”
“Right-ho.” Lake held out his hand, sniffing the air. “I say, what’s that dreadful smell?”
By the time they reached Thomas and Cousin Violet, Lady Caroline was hopelessly tangled in her toga after Sophia’s attempts to get her dressed; across from the cacophony of the makeshift dressing room, Lake fumed silently, his forehead gleaming with perspiration in the light of a passing lantern.
“Where the devil did you go?” Hope spat, handing Violet’s limp body inside the hack. “What if we’d been tailed, and attacked on the quay? Don’t tell me—” Hope’s eyes slid from Caroline to Lake and back again, narrowing with suspicion. “Never mind. I don’t want to know.”
Hope squeezed onto the bench beside Lake, called for the driver to keep moving. “No word of the diamond?”
Thomas shook his head. “The ship will sink, if it hasn’t already. Violet told us virtually nothing; for all we know, Artois could’ve run off with the diamond before the fire started, or that Eliason chap could’ve jumped ship with it in his pocket. The French Blue could be anywhere by now.”
Lake pounded the wall with his ham-sized fist, and called for the driver to make haste. “Bloody perfect. We came so close. So bloody close.”
An enormous crack, round and deep as thunder, reverberated through the vehicle, the horses screaming as the cobblestones shook beneath their hooves.
Hope flung out his arm, pinning Sophia to her seat; in her lap, Violet’s head lolled openmouthed, limp. The hack drew to a sudden, violent stop, and in a flurry of movement Lake was leaping from the hack, his voice hoarse as he called to the driver.
What the devil? What happened? What the devil was that?
Sophia shook in her seat at the driver’s reply as the acrid odors of smoke and splintered wood filled the hack.
“Can’ rightly say, sir, but all ov a sudden I seen a big explosion like, out there in th’ river.”
She looked down at Violet, smoothing the hair from her face, and blinked at the unexpected prick of tears. The ship on which Cousin Violet and the earl had hoped to reclaim the French Blue wa
s sunk, or, at the very least, had erupted into a ball of fiery flames.
Sophia reached across the bench and took Lady Caroline’s hand. Her brother was on that ship, as was Sophia’s family’s fortune, their future, too. The dowager duchess sat still as a statue, her long, swanlike neck bent toward the window. Lake and Hope stood outside, hands on their hips, their heads turned toward the black pit of the Docklands.
Sophia wanted to offer Caroline words of comfort, declare her brother was, surely, far too wily to be caught flat-footed on an exploding ship. But in her mouth her tongue felt thick and dry as ash. There would be no comfort for Caroline, not until she knew her brother the earl was in one piece, and in her arms.
And so Sophia merely squeezed her hand. How many times Violet had done the same for Sophia before stepping into Almack’s, or a wedding breakfast attended by far too many eligible dukes, she could not count; but the small gesture had always calmed Sophia’s nerves. An unspoken promise of support, a pledge to gossip shamelessly about said dukes’ foibles and follies when the breakfast was done; it was hope and faith when Sophia needed it most.
Lady Caroline squeezed back. Thank you.
Sophia watched out the window as Hope pressed a handful of guineas into the driver’s palm; a moment later he was at the door of the hack, his blue eyes hard.
“I’ve given the driver instructions to take you home,” Hope held up a hand as Sophia leaned forward to protest, “under pain of death. Lake and I will see to things here. Go home, Sophia, and take care of your cousin. If—when. When Harclay returns, he will come to the house for Violet. You’ll do that for me, won’t you, Sophia? Keep watch?”
Sophia bit her lip. He was right, of course. Thomas was always right.
But as she was always wont to do, Sophia longed to stay. And though she usually longed to stay for the promise of adventure and port, tonight she wished to say for an altogether different reason.
She wanted to stay with him. Her heart ached with it, with the knowledge that this would be their last night together, before they won or they lost and went their separate ways. It would end here, tonight. And she didn’t want to let him go.
The Millionaire Rogue Page 28
