Ives picked up the notes. He smoothed them, then carried them to the lamp.
“I trust they are good,” Lance said.
Ives set them back on the table.
“Good, and not printed on that little press we found in the cellar, that is,” Lance added.
“They all look to be genuine.”
Lance peered at them. “You are sure? Some of these fellows are experts with the burin.”
“I am sure.” He walked to the door. “I am leaving now.”
Lance just smiled at him.
“If you cannot sleep, Lance, you might spend the time doing something more worthwhile than wondering about my inexplicable lack of propriety. You might, for example, clean your pistols.”
***
Padua heard the door to the dressing room open. She heard boot steps, then saw the tall shadow at the dressing room’s threshold. It disappeared, and muffled sounds came out of the other chamber.
Her body grew sensitive to the sensation of the sheet’s fabric against her bare skin. Her breasts swelled and firmed as anticipation teased her.
Ives reappeared and walked to the bed. He was naked. He stood beside her. He drew off the sheet and looked at her.
She looked at him too. The small lamp’s light washed him in a golden glow that defined his form in highlights and deep shadows. His eyes appeared as deeply green as a dense forest’s foliage. His face, always so handsome, held the hard angles that reflected his desire.
She wondered what game he would choose to play, or if there would be a new one. It surprised her when hejoined her, and wrapped her in a commonplace embrace. His gaze moved over her face slowly while his fingers twisted lazily in a strand of her hair.
“There is nothing ordinary about you, Padua. Not even your beauty.”
It was not said like an easy flattery, but instead thoughtfully while he subjected her to that gaze. She believed he really meant it, even though no one before Ives had ever called her beautiful.
He rose up on his arm, so he could watch his fingertips trace along her body. She had expected hard, even violent passion, so this meandering caress charmed her. Then she realized what he was doing. He was making memories, much as she had done several times now. He was storing this night in his head where he might visit again.
It touched her deeply that he sought to do that. He had not liked it when she broke things off. Perhaps there had been more to it than wounded pride, the way she had assumed.
He kissed her slowly, deeply, wonderfully. Her heart stretched and filled until it ached. His caresses began guiding her out of the everyday world, toward the rare existence that she experienced when he controlled her pleasure. He knew her very well now, knew her body and how to make the pleasure sweet, then maddening, then so powerful it shattered her hold on herself.
He used all his skill, as if he wanted her to remember too. The intimacy deepened along with thepleasure, the two so intertwined that they became one. It awed her, moved her, so that her heart held on to both desperately, just as she held on to him.Yes, her mind chanted, accepting everything she experienced, even the sweet ache that colored the beauty with sadness.
He came over when the first tremors of her release tantalized her. He bent her knees, then lifted her legs over his shoulders. Braced on his arms, he looked down between their bodies and watched how he entered her. He closed his eyes at the sensation. “Yes.” His own affirmation echoed hers.
She watched what it did to him. She never had before. She watched how the pleasure both hardened his expression and transformed it. She watched how his gaze both ravished her and adored her. She saw how he sought signs of what she wanted, and made sure he answered her need.
Yes, she breathed as he moved in her.Yes, aloud now, when he thrust harder. She laid her palms on his chest above her, and his heartbeat pulsed into her body.Yes, she cried as wildness set in and her mind narrowed until it knew only him. Then she even lost hold of him, and the pleasure tightened and broke and screamed.
He waited for her on the other side, his heart pounding beneath her palm, his breathing ragged. He moved her legs down and lowered onto her with a never-ending kiss on her neck.
She filled her embrace with him, and her head withhis scent and sounds, and her soul with his care.Have you fallen in love with him, Padua? It is not the same as desire or passion. Yes, not the same, but not so different. Not separate.Have you fallen in love with him?Yes.
CHAPTER23
For two nights Ives and Padua waited. Two nights Gareth held vigil in the alley. For two nights nothing happened. On the third day, Ives made a decision on a matter he had been debating. He rode to the Home Office, and called on Strickland.
“Do you want to catch a whale?”
Strickland’s eyes lit. “Hell, yes. Nothing would advance my career faster. Do you have one in your sights?”
