Three steps, that was all it took. He was still kissing her as he waved his arm behind her, clearing the tabletop. The sound of breaking porcelain and splashing water reached his ears but had no effect upon his ardor. He didn’t give a damn what he broke.
He would gladly pay Theo whatever he wanted for replacements.
It was worth it.
He would pay it a thousand times over. Ten thousand times. One hundred thousand times, easily.
Just for this one moment. This one, last chance.
He lifted her and settled her rump atop the newly cleared table.
Her arms were still looped around his neck as she jerked her head back. Her eyes were dazed and luminous. “You broke the wash basin.”
“I don’t give a damn,” he told her. “Do you?”
Her tongue darted over the lush fullness of her lower lip.
He longed to chase it.
“No,” she said.
And then, they were kissing again. He pushed up the skirts of her Miranda costume, leaving it pooled about her waist. He wanted nothing more than to tear it in two, to leave it in shreds on the floor. But he knew he needed to govern himself. He had committed enough destruction this night.
His hands found her thighs, warm and soft through her silken drawers. He parted them, stepped into her. His cock was straining against the fall of his trousers. Aching to be inside her hot, tight cunny.
But he wanted to prolong this. To make it last.
Because if it was the last time…
Nay, he refused to think it. How could this be the last time he would make love to her, kiss her, touch her?
He broke the kiss again, gazing down into her upturned face. This was not about mere passion for him. Wanting her, desiring her—it was about love. He loved her, and he still wanted her as his duchess every bit as much as he had on the day he had asked her to marry him.
“I love you, Johanna,” he said.
But she did not say the words back to him. He had not expected it, of course, but he could not lie and say the omission did not hurt. She still did not trust him. He had earned her skepticism on his own.
She said nothing at all. Instead, she pulled his head back down to hers for another kiss. And this one was longer than the others which had come before. It was slow. Hungry. Deliberate. Her tongue was in his mouth first. This time, she was the one to claim.
He liked it. God, how he liked it.
He liked it too much.
When she caught his lower lip between her teeth and tugged sensuously, he could not stifle the moan she wrung from him. Nor could he stop his hips from rocking into hers. His aching cock glanced over her heated center, separated by the barrier of far too much cloth.
Too many layers keeping him from what he wanted most.
Too many walls denying him what he needed.
“Johanna.”
He said her name aloud and into her lips like a prayer, rocking into her as he did so. Her legs wrapped around his waist. Every thought other than her was erased from his mind in that instant.
She was all he saw, all he felt, all he tasted. Her every little mewl of desire, the way she writhed against him, her curves and her sensuous skin, her scent, her arms around his neck. Rose petals and orange and sweet, delicious woman.
The woman who owned his heart.
This time, he did not pause to fret over the damage he might cause, the repercussions. He caught the bodice of her Miranda costume in his hands and he dragged them apart. Fabric rent. The chemise she wore beneath it ripped simultaneously, stopping only at the edge of her corset, which he removed with ease.
Thank God.
Her breasts sprang free, into his waiting, greedy hands.
She tore her mouth from his on a gasp. “Felix, what have you done?”
“I believe I may have ruined Miranda’s dress,” he said, unable to summon up a modicum of contrition.
He would do it again, just for the chance to hear his given name on her lips. And just to behold the glorious, erotic sight of her pale breasts, revealed by the glow of the room’s electric light. Her nipples prodded the air, stiff and hungry. He wanted to suck them until she screamed.
He took one in his mouth, dragging on it. Then the other, biting the hard little bud until she moaned and arched into him. And then, he could not wait a moment longer. His right hand moved from her outer thigh to her inner, and then beyond. To the slit of her drawers.
To the seam of her sex. His fingers brushed over her, parting her curls, her flesh. She was sleek and wet and hot. So very inviting. He found her clitoris next, circling it with teasing strokes until she was gasping his name, thrusting into his hand. Until she forgot all about her ire at his willful destruction of her costume.
He would buy her another anyway. He would buy her a thousand of them. And he would tear one off her every night if she would let him.
He knew she would never let him.
But he could not allow that to intrude upon this moment. He kissed his way from her breast to her throat, all the way to her ear, his lips grazing the delicate shell.
“I will always love you,” he whispered as he slid his finger through her drenched folds until he found her entrance.
He slid inside her with ease, and she made a sound of need. Her cunny gripped him, flooded him. She was ready, and he could not wait. He bit the fleshy lobe of her ear, licked the hollow behind it where she smelled of rose petals.
Her hands were on him.
She never said the words back to him.
She didn’t need to. He loved her enough for the both of them.
He would have told her, but the capacity for speech was beyond him. She had undone the fall of his trousers, and her hand was on his eager cock. Stroking him. Her fingers curling around his shaft was enough to drive him over the edge. Her grip tightened. He sank another finger inside her, moving them in a slow and steady rhythm.
He lifted his head, wanting to watch her. He could not deprive himself of the sight of her pleasure rising. Her cheeks were more flushed, her kiss-darkened lips slack. Her eyes were glazed with desire. He committed her to memory this way: coming beautifully undone for him.
His.
Forever his.
Burying his hand in the silken remnants of her chignon, he tugged her head back, holding her still, trapping her with his gaze. He kissed her softly, slowly, in stark contrast to the fury of the passion blazing through him. On a sigh, she kissed him back. One of her arms was around his neck, holding him tightly to her.
If he had his way, they would never be apart.
He could not bear to lose her. To never see her again. How could he? He had already lost the woman he loved once. To do so a second time would be nigh impossible.
He would never recover.
He told her so with his lips and tongue.
She continued stroking him, making his ballocks draw up tighter. Need licked down his spine. And still he kissed her. If this was to be their goodbye, it would be a long one. A lingering one.
God, how he never wanted it to end.
But his restraint was fraying. Her caresses were driving him wild. So, too, her tongue writhing against his. She pressed her body nearer. He wanted to get lost in her. To breathe her in. Consume her. Possess her.
He broke the kiss, staring down at her, his breathing harsh.
“Enough,” he bit out, removing her knowing hand. “I want inside you.”
“Yes,” she breathed.
He drove into her with one swift thrust. He was deep, so deep. It was a homecoming. They both gasped when he began to move, pumping his hips in a slow, deliberate rhythm. She was so slick, so tight, her heat all around him, and she felt so good, so right. He told himself to prolong this moment too, but his body would not listen to reason.
There was no reason.
There was only hunger.
Her legs wrapped around his waist. He kissed her, his hand still buried in her hair, the other on the sweet curve of her hip, holdi
ng her in place as he withdrew almost entirely, only to sink home inside her again. She arched into him, her breasts rising like offerings.
He accepted. Lowered his head. Licked over one nipple as he thrust harder.
She moaned. Her nipples were so sensitive. Her cunny so wet. He was going to lose himself and spend inside her if he was not careful. Control, he reminded himself. He had spent inside her once before, and he could not do so again.
He increased his pace again, fucking her so hard, the table moved across the floor with a clatter, slamming into the wall. They were going to destroy this blasted dressing room, and he did not give a damn. If he had his way, there would be nothing left. Not a stick of furniture untouched. Nothing but him and Johanna, naked and sated.
He found his way back to her mouth as he slammed inside her, and their lips fused on her cry as she tightened on him, spending. A new surge of wetness bathed his cock, and as the shudders radiated through her body, he reached the point where he could no longer hold off his own release.
He withdrew from her, gripping his cock tightly, as he came so hard, he could not suppress his own growl of release. He tore his lips from hers, breaking their kiss as he spent all over her thigh. His heart was thundering in his chest, and he could scarcely catch his breath.
The sight of her on the table, her breasts and cunny on display, all cream and pink, her legs spread, his seed on her skin, was unbearably erotic. She was breathing every bit as harshly as he, her expression dazed. He leaned against her, pressing a tender kiss to her forehead.
His love for her had never been stronger.
Nor had his need to somehow overcome the walls between them.
A knock sounded at the door.
“Mademoiselle Beaumont?” called a feminine voice.
“Yes, Jenny?” Johanna answered, eyes going wide, her voice still throaty and low with the aftereffects of the passion they had just shared.
“I heard a commotion,” said the woman on the other side of the door.
“Everything is fine,” Johanna reassured her, though there was a hitch in her voice that suggested the opposite.
Her stricken sky-blue eyes met his, and he saw all the doubts and shadows lingering there. He wanted to chase them away. If only he knew how to.
“Are you needing my help?” asked the woman, ever persistent.
Cursing, Felix stepped back from Johanna, adjusting himself and fastening his trousers once more. He extracted a handkerchief from within his coat and used it to wipe the traces of his seed from her thigh.
Johana clutched at the tattered ends of her costume, gathering them around her protectively. “No, Jenny,” she called. “I will not be needing you tonight. Thank you, you may go.”
“Johanna,” he said, thinking he should apologize for the ravenous fashion in which he had taken her. Bloody hell, he had made a wreckage of the room and of her as well. Her hair was mostly unbound now, spilling over her shoulders. Her dress was ruined. The table had smashed into the wall, and the pitcher and basin were upended, their shards in the midst of a puddle of water.
“You may go as well,” she told him, the sated glow of lovemaking gone from her countenance.
“Allow me to escort you to your carriage, at least,” he said.
“No,” she denied, sweeping from the table and out of his reach once more. “That was goodbye, Felix. I cannot keep doing what we are doing.”
“I agree.” He stepped toward her. “Marry me, Johanna. The offer still stands. There is every indication that your brother is in London. I heard from the Duke of Arden today, and it is the reason I came to see you. I will do everything in my power to keep you safe.”
She stilled, her complexion going pale. “Drummond is here?”
“According to reports from double agents within the Fenian ranks, he is,” Felix told her. “Please, Johanna. If you will not allow me to protect you, go back to Lark House. Arden will see to your safety.”
She pressed a shaking hand to her lips, as if to stifle a sob.
How he wanted to take her back in his arms, to comfort her. But he did not dare. She still did not trust him. That much was obvious. And he had no wish to push her further than he already had.
“I will wait for you outside and escort you to your carriage,” he said grimly. “It is the least I can do.”
But she shook her head, determined. “No, Felix. I will face whatever I must, as I always have. Alone.”
Everything in him wanted to fight her. But he could see the determination on her beautiful face. And so he did the only thing he could do. He relented.
“I’ll be damned if this was goodbye, Johanna,” he told her, and then he turned on his heel and stalked from the room.
He was going to find Theo and ask that he make certain Johanna had an escort from this night onward. If she would not accept his aid, he would have to make certain she was safe by other means.
As his footsteps carried him away from her, he could not shake the feeling that he had left a part of himself behind. He despised the sadness in her eyes. And he hated himself for being the one who had put it there.
Chapter Eighteen
Three nights had passed since Felix had come to Johanna in her dressing room and they had made love. She had heard not a word from him in the days since. Much to her everlasting shame, she searched the audience for his face each night.
But each night, like the one preceding it, he had not been there.
She should not have been surprised, she supposed, for she had told him to go. She had refused his marriage proposal, had told him that last, frantic encounter had been their goodbye. And though he had been adamant it was not, she had no expectations of him.
Why should she? Though she loved him, she could not trust him. And even if she could, a duke could not marry a woman like her. She could not change her past. She would always be Rose Beaumont, always Pearl’s mother. And she would always be the sister of his enemy.
This was for the best, she told herself as she made her way down a dimly lit theater corridor. Tonight was no different than any of the others which had come before. They blended together, an indistinct river without end. Drummond would stay away from Felix and Verity, and Johanna would have her life as she had always known it, living on the stage.
Unable to shake the sadness permeating her ever since their last encounter, Johanna emerged from the Crown and Thorn, into the little alley where her driver typically awaited her. The play had carried on a bit later that evening thanks to a problem with the limelight, which led to a tardy start to the show. Shivering as a wall of cool air hit her, she scanned the alley for her carriage.
Suddenly, something hard pressed into her back, and a familiar voice was at her ear. “Do not scream, Jojo, or I will shoot.”
“Drummond,” she said on a gasp.
Felix’s warning had been correct.
Her brother was here. In London. And not only had he found her, but he was holding a pistol to her back.
The dread and the fear which had been her constant companions since the day he had reentered her life came crashing down upon her. For a moment, her knees gave out, and she would have fallen to the street had he not caught her in an unforgiving grip, holding her steady.
“Not a word,” he warned.
Her heart was pounding, her mouth dry. She looked all around her, trying to find someone—anyone—who could help her.
“If you call out, I will put a bullet in you, Jojo,” Drummond said.
How coldly he could call her by her hated childhood sobriquet and threaten to shoot her at the same time. She did not dare put anyone else in danger.
“Mademoiselle Beaumont,” called out a voice from behind her.
She turned to see Mr. Nelson, one of the stagehands who had been markedly attentive for the last few nights, standing in the theater door. His expression was concerned.
“If you give him cause for concern, I will shoot him too,” Drummond whispered, lodging the pistol’s barrel mo
re firmly in her back.
“Have a good evening, Mr. Nelson,” she called back, keeping the tremble from her voice by calling upon all her honed skills as an actress.
She pinned a false smile to her lips.
Mr. Nelson held his hat in his hands, looking from Johanna to Drummond, then back to Johanna. “Who is your friend, Mademoiselle Beaumont?”
“Mr. Silas Walker,” Drummond said smoothly, as if he were not threatening her life at that very moment. His tone was chipper, as if he had not a care. “A friend of Mademoiselle Beaumont’s from New York. Have a good evening, sir.”
The gun nudged her once more.
“Have a good evening, Mr. Nelson,” she added. “I will see you tomorrow.”
Mr. Nelson was frowning, but he jammed his hat on his head and tipped the brim to her, before disappearing back inside the Crown and Thorn once more. The door had scarcely closed when Drummond started propelling her forward.
“Where is your carriage?” he demanded.
She glanced around the alley, desperate to find some way of escaping him. But there was no one else about, except for a handful of waiting conveyances and their drivers. She could not bear to put anyone else’s life at risk merely to save hers.
She had no doubt Drummond would shoot her if she tried to escape.
“It is waiting for me just over there,” she managed to say, pointing in the direction where her driver awaited her.
“You will walk calmly to it,” Drummond ordered. “You will smile and act as if nothing is amiss. If you alert your driver in any way, I will shoot him in the head. Do you understand?”
She swallowed down a knot of pure terror. “Yes.”
“Good. You will tell the driver you are no longer in need of his services for the evening. And then you will return to me. If you attempt to communicate anything to him in any fashion, he will die. Now walk, Jojo.”
Johanna did as he asked, feigning nonchalance. She approached her driver, smiling as she went, keenly aware of her brother watching her every move. She did not dare attempt to show her driver she was under duress for fear Drummond would make good on his threats. Her driver did not appear suspicious. She had already paid him for the evening, and he seemed only too happy to be on his way.
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