He didn’t. That kiss was the closest he could come to her. And right after, he ran.
Sometimes she despaired of all men.
She watched him escape out the front door and then turned away. There was nothing for it but to retire upstairs to her room where Joyful waited for her.
“How is everything?” Pip asked as Joyful unlaced her.
“Not as bad as I feared. Havin’ Mr. Sullins along sure helps. I think it was the surprise of things, not that they’re bad people. I’m jus’ not what they expect to see.”
Pip nodded. As early as it was, she slipped into her nightclothes and robe and let Joyful go for the night. Her uniform for the next day hung in her clothes press, and the packet of information sat on a desk by the window. But Pip didn’t bother with it anymore. She sat in a chair by the window watching carriages and cabs trundle by and wishing she had acquired a lady’s accomplishments like stitching or piano to pass the time. A book was out of the question. She would never be able to concentrate. So, she sat in her armchair and waited to hear sounds from the adjoining bedroom. She waited for Beau.
She waited for three long hours. She’d almost given up and gotten into bed when
she heard his voice, then Sullins, and finally the door closing to the hallway. Sitting quite still, she drew in careful breaths, trying to calm the dread that crawled in her belly right alongside the anticipation. What if he said no? What if he simply left? This was the only way she could think that he would accept comfort, that she would be comforted. She had to take the chance.
Standing up, she slipped off her dressing gown, leaving her in a simple nightgown with no more embellishment than small roses embroidered at the neck and hem. She ran her fingers through her hair, wishing it were suddenly long and lustrous, and she walked to the connecting door and opened it.
He should have looked more surprised when she walked in. He was seated in a wingback chair wearing nothing but his breeches, even his feet bare. He was nursing another brandy.
“I hope you aren’t becoming too fond of that,” she said. “I hear it dulls your senses.”
He tilted his head. “That is the idea.”
She waited, but he kept silent. She waited until she grew angry.
“I’m as frightened as you are, Beau.”
“You should be. You do not know what you’re getting into.”
She huffed. “I imagine not. But I’m worried more about you. I do know how you feel.”
He just kept considering her. “Do you?”
She refused to back down. “Is there anything more painful than hope?”
When he didn’t answer, she should have finally stalked off, given up. But she saw his eyes. She saw the devastating dread, the fear, the confusion. He rested on the same knife’s edge that she did.
“I’d rather not be alone,” was all she said.
And amazingly enough, it was all she needed to say.
Their coming together was cataclysmic. Before Pip could take a breath she and Beau were intertwined, his hands so tangled in her hair that pins pinged across the floor and his mouth on hers demanding entry. She gave it, knowing the feeling of desperation, the fear that everything would be lost. She knew that sometimes a port in a storm wasn’t a quiet harbor.
They were nothing like quiet. They scrabbled at each other, desperate to be beyond clothing, to be skin-to-skin where nothing could wedge in between. Their kisses were frantic, deep, tongues dancing, lips bruised and mouths wide for invasion.
Pip felt tears gather at the back of her throat and tried to ignore them. Beau didn’t
need tears. He needed solace.Sheneeded solace. She needed mindless sensation and intense emotion. She needed Beau’s skin under her hands, his beard chafing her cheek, his hands pulling off her gown as frantically as she fumbled with the buttons of his falls. She needed to explore his shoulders with her hands, tracing muscle and tendon and bone, sift her fingers through the curly hair that was sprinkled across his chest.
She needed to free him from his breeches so she could capture him, so she could torment him, so she could measure the length of him and cradle him, just as he was claiming her body with callused fingers and satin mouth, as they both met chest-to-chest so she could tease her breasts against the rough hair on his chest. She desperately wanted him inside her, so deep she couldn’t lose him ever again.
By the time they tumbled onto the bed, they were both naked and glistening with sweat. Beau had her breast in his mouth, worrying at it with lips and tongue and teeth. Pip arched up to him, desperate for more even as she did her own conquering of his shoulders and chest and belly, delighting with the unfamiliar texture of hair on a chest and legs, anxious to visit the delightful textures at his groin.
She still couldn’t believe the size of his rigid length, iron sheathed in satin, so alive to her touch, so warm against her fingers. She reveled in the power of his thighs, the sensitive skin at the back of his knees, the growling sounds he made when she explored. For those few minutes, when she had him in her arms, she no longer felt alone. And for those moments, even knowing how tenuous the union was, it was enough.
And then, as if he heard her need for union, he nudged her legs open and reached down to tease her, his fingers just rough enough against her most sensitive core to incite fireworks. She found herself whimpering as he set loose unbearable pleasure, almost a pain that was desperate for a solution. For completion.
“Be about it, sir,” she growled herself, reaching between them to take hold of him with authority.
