Chapter Seven
LEO DIDN’T REMEMBERwalking to Prudence’s hotel. Didn’t remember the cadence the soles of his shoes beat upon the road. But suddenly, he was in the passageway, knocking on her door.
She flung the door open, her hair unbound, but still in her day dress. She was in the middle of preparations for his arrival. They stared at each other. Blood thrummed in his ears, in his fingers, and then, only in his cock.
Already drunk on her, he passed the threshold and took her into his arms, kissing her as desperately as a drowning man gulped for air. He closed the door with his foot and guided her slowly backwards until she hit the wall of the foyer, missing the doorway he’d aimed for. It didn’t matter. She hooked a leg around his arse, and he was so very glad that she was tall, and so very glad she was flexible.
The wrought iron hooks, intended to hold hats and woolen coats, were above her, and he guided her hands up to grasp them, meaning that he wanted her there, wanted to bare her body to his ministrations. Instead, she grasped them, hitching herself higher, until both of her legs were clasped around his waist.
He could feel the slit of her drawers open against his trouser front. As he couldn’t remember how he’d arrived at her hotel, he didn’t remember fumbling with buttons, but in moments he was seating his cock at her wetness, nipping at her lips as she panted into his mouth. It was ecstasy, it was necessary, it was lifeitself. And he plunged in, and she moaned his name, and nothing existed outside of them.
The two of them were one and the same, two halves incomplete without the other, and he was no longer sure if he was fucking her or if she was fucking him, and they were together in this rhythm, building and creating, straining and wanting. Her pace quickened, and he pulled back to look her in the eye, wanting to see her fall apart. Needing her to see that it was him that did it.
Her gray eyes met his and the thread that bound them knotted, pulling them closer. And she came, staring into him, and he came, shaking and pushing and turned inside out.
There had been no other time in his life where his mind had been so occupied. Where the very depths of his inner self had been explored. Not like this. And not by anyone but her.
He pulled out gently, and her legs relaxed, and she slid down, her feet on the floor. Their foreheads pressed together, both of them out of breath and unsure. He touched her cheek with his thumb, and she looked up at him, this time, aware and in control.
“We didn’t use protection,” she whispered.
The shock of his lack of control hit in waves of disbelief. How could he be so careless? “I’m sorry. I am so sorry—”
“It isn’t only your fault. I’m just as much to blame. I couldn’t think—”
Leo shook his head. “—Neither could I. Normally—”
Prudence nodded. “Normally.”
He mirrored her gesture and nodded, unable to say any more. Not needing to say any more.
“Kentucky bourbon?”
“Please,” he said, noting that his hands shook. Why was he trembling as if he were cold? He was warm. Too warm. And hisbody was both overtaxed and wanting. He felt like a walking paradox.
Prudence led him into the drawing room, and he adjusted his clothes along the way, sticky and messy as he was. He was looking forward to the warm indoor plumbing here in this suite. She poured them both two fingers of brown liquor and handed him the heavy cut-glass tumbler.
He couldn’t think of a toast, but she said nothing as she clinked the bottom of her glass to his and took a long swallow. She shook her head as the burn no doubt made its way down her throat. He was so foregone that he couldn’t even drink his own, instead watching her, almost jealous of the whiskey that made its way inside her. He was a full-blown lunatic. Find him Bedlam, because he needed to be locked up. He indulged in his own drink while she collapsed into the sofa.
“I suppose we should talk about it,” she said.
Leo fortified himself with the remainder of his drink. He didn’t want to talk about the possibility of a child, or what it would entail. Of course, he was an honorable man, and though neither of them wanted to marry, he could see coming to some kind of arrangement—
“You can’t be following me around London every time you see me with another man.” Prudence’s voice was tired, as if she didn’t really want to say the words she’d just uttered.
Leo’s mind stopped, skidding like a horse at a cliff. “I beg your pardon?” Had he really been entertaining scenarios of marriage, and she was worried about his behavior in front of Eyeball?
“Yes. If we are going to keep our affair discreet, you can’t be charging after me like a jealous husband.”
Leo’s mouth opened and closed. He had not been prepared for this discussion. Nor did he think it entirely necessary. His reaction had been... instinctive. “I find,” he said, wishing theywere never having this conversation, “it difficult to keep control when you are concerned.”
Her brows went up, and by the languid smile that came over her face, he could tell she was both entertained and very flattered by this information. Information that made him very uncomfortable. At his very core, he was in control. He had to be that way, it was molded by his character, by his circumstance, and now by his career. To be caught up in—whatever this feeling was—stretched the very limits of himself. And he didn’t like it.
“I would very much like to avail myself of your bathing suite.”
Prudence knocked back the remainder of her drink. “May I join you?”
The flavor of honey was left in his mouth from the Kentucky bourbon, and the sound of her voice echoed that dark sweetness. He nodded, still feeling bewitched and unsettled, and very, very willing. He wanted to see her nude, he wanted to glide his hands over the softness of her skin, watch her damp curls dry while his fingers coaxed them.
