“Oi! What was that about?” the sentry cried after them, but Eoin and Hannah didn’t stop moving until they’d reached the main road, where Eoin’s carriage stood. He waited for Hannah to climb in and then bounded in after her, slamming the door shut.
“Tell the coachman to head to the Black Sheep,” Hannah instructed. “We must speak with the others. Nothing makes sense about what just happened.”
“I agree,” Eoin said as disparate thoughts and emotions whirled inside him like an unstoppable hurricane. But for once,he wasn’t alone. Not only was Hannah by his side, but she’d promised to stay there. And others were willing to help with Eoin’s quest. After a lonely life, companionship was a wonderful, wonderful thing—even if the rest of him felt bruised and battered after witnessing the horrors underneath the Horse and Hen.
“Do you wish to talk about it?”
Hannah’s voice broke the silence that had descended upon them as Eoin’s carriage painstakingly wound through the thick London traffic. Although both the Horse and Hen and the Black Sheep were in Covent Garden, they were at opposite ends, and the snarl of coaches, wagons, and carriages seemed especially slow.
“I am trying too hard to unravel what this all portends,” Eoin admitted. “I should allow time for my thoughts to settle before any serious analysis. Unfortunately, while we’re trapped in this carriage, there’s not much else to do but overthink.”
“Would you like a distraction?” Hannah asked as she shifted closer to him on the seat that they shared.
Eoin looked down to find Hannah staring at him, her green eyes glittering so brightly, it was as if they could generate their own source of light. His heart pounded just as hard as it had during their dash to safety… but this time it wasn’t beating from fear.
Eoin wanted to dip his head and capture Hannah’s pink lips. But surely she hadn’t meant that particular type of distraction.
Not that Eoin had ever indulged in passion of any kind. He couldn’t, with his grandfather monitoring every aspect of hislife. Romance—considering his own parents’ disastrous love story—was particularly forbidden.
“Beast with two backs! Beast with two backs!” Pan cried out happily.
Swounds. Was the damnable parrot a seer?
Although Eoin hadn’t progressed quite that far in his imagination. Yet now he couldn’t help but think of undoing the buttons on Hannah’s linen shirt and slipping his hand inside to capture…
“Pan, hush.” Hannah turned to glare her bird into submission, but the bird did not seem impressed by his mistress’s dark looks.
“Not dinner! Not dinner!”
Hannah arched an eyebrow. “That can be rectified.”
Pan hopped along the cushion across from them, his chest puffed out in offense. However, it seemed that perhaps the threat worked, as the bird fell to silence.
“What manner of distraction?” Eoin asked. His cursed blood rushed to his face as he realized how the question sounded after Pan’s crude suggestion.
Hannah tilted her chin at a coquettish angle. “What kind do you desire?”
Eoin’s throat went utterly and completely dry. Was he just imagining the flirtatious head cock and the throaty quality of Hannah’s voice?
“I—um—I.”
Eoin was articulate. Generally. But now the words that usually flowed so easily wouldn’t come, but the feelings did. A frothy energy had bubbled inside Eoin ever since their desperate escape from the bowels of the Horse and Hen. Now that vigor surged forward with a brilliant, shining force. And for once, Eoin allowed himself to be carried away by emotion.
He gently cupped Hannah’s face. Surprise flared in the grassy green depths of her irises. Perhaps she’d only been gently teasing, but even if she had, she didn’t pull away from his touch. In fact, she leaned forward. And her eyes… her eyes fluttered shut.
Eoin might not be a man of passion, but he instinctually recognized her wordless encouragement. Yet even so, he wished for no misunderstandings.
“May I kiss you, Hannah?”
One of her eyes snapped open, and her lips spread into a decidedly saucy smile. “If you don’t initiate one forthwith, then I will.”
Eoin couldn’t help but grin in return. Nervousness rushed through him but so did desire. Before anxiety overcame his rare daring, he lowered his mouth. Her tongue teased the seam of his lips, and sensation ricocheted through him. When he gasped, Hannah deepened the kiss.
How could friction feel so absolutely marvelous? The mere glide of mouth against mouth shouldn’t produce such intensity. But it did. And Eoin reveled in it.
He groaned, wanting more, needing more. Hannah must have understood his silent pleas—even when he, himself, couldn’t fully grasp his needs. She climbed onto his lap, her legs straddling his, her knees pressed into the cushion at his sides. Somehow, she never broke their kiss as her body slid against his.
Eoin’s hands instinctually wrapped around Hannah’s back—both to ensure she didn’t topple backward in the swaying carriage and to simply touch her. He could feel her delicate shoulder blades underneath her thin coat and shirt, but when his fingers inched downward, he felt lumps from successivebands of fabric. He was so engrossed by desire that it took him a moment to realize that she’d bound her breasts.
