Pushing away her hair, he grabbed the back of her neck and buried his head into the soft curve of her throat, determined to leave his mark on her body. He sucked on the skin of her throat hard, pulling the skin in past his teeth.
She gasped. Digging her nails into his shoulders, she rode him.
Holding her waist, he gritted his teeth and jerked her down harder, wanting to go as deep as her womb would allow.
She cried out and rocked against him, her body quaking.
He couldn’t hold it, either. He spilled into her wetness.
Konstantin choked and pulled out. Still shuddering, he finished spilling his seed all over her stomach, his cock pulsing and his core tightening.
He yelled out.
In between ragged breaths, Konstantin slowly wrapped his arms around her. He had to learn how to better control himself around her. Burying himself in the softness of her skin, he confessed in complete exasperation, “I spilled some of my seed into you.”
Her head popped up from his chest, her hair wildly crossing the side of her face. “How much is some?” she demanded.
A nervous laugh escaped him. “Not enough to make me panic.”
She adjusted the linens over herself and shook her head. “This is so unlike anything I have ever done with my life. I am usually very…sensible. I pride myself for my being respectable. I am respectable.”
He smiled and tilted his head so as to better see her face, trying to decipher if she was pleased with the statement or not. “Do you have any regrets?”
A breath escaped her lips. “In truth, I have less regrets about this than I did when I married my husband.”
His brows went up. “Was I that good? Or was I that bad?”
A laugh escaped her. “I only knew my husband for a week before I married him by special license.”
He let out a low whistle. “And I thought we waltzed past introductions a bit too quickly.”
She winced. “I was young and didn’t want to marry my cousin who was practically banging on my door. Everyone expected me to marry him. But I wanted a respectable man. One who could provide me and my parents with the financial lifestyle we never had separate from the Gunther family. Given my husband’s popularity, when he asked me to marry him by special license shortly after we met, I panicked and gave in. I knew nothing about men.” She huffed out a breath. “I still don’t.”
He smirked. “Why do I feel this conversation has returned to me?”
She shoved at him playfully.
He nudged her playfully back. “Are you hungry?”
“Beyond famished.”
“Good. I will get dressed.” He pointed at her. “I ask that you stay in bed. I doubt your clothes are dry anyway.” He tipped himself out of bed, landing on the floor and paused, realizing he’d never shared a morning meal with a woman after a night of sex. Knowing it, he turned, leaned down and quickly kissed her on the lips. For good measure. “I will be back.” He dressed and in between the final straightening of his appearance and the buttoning of his waistcoat, he glanced toward her, sensing she was watching him.
Those dark sultry eyes met his. She gushed into a smile.
It was a smile he had waited his whole life to see. It was a smile that promised him anything he wanted despite who he was. “I blame you for this,” he said, pointing at her. “You seduced me.”
She quirked a brow. “I did no such thing.”
“So says the lady who insisted I climb into bed.” He smirked and grabbing up his pocket watch, tossed it to her, letting it land on the bed beside her bare foot. “Keep it safe whilst I am gone. God forbid it fall behind another chair.”
She laughed, sat up and dragged it toward herself.
“Should I try to get your garter back from our neighbor?” he added.
She rolled her eyes. “Let him keep it. Heaven knows where it has been.”
“Lucky bastard. How is it he gets a garter and I do not? I want one.”
She tsked. “Will you feed me already?”
His mouth quirked.
A half hour later, he returned to the room with a massive wooden bowl filled to the rim with stew and two wooden spoons shoved into it. He closed the door after himself and locked the door. Turning back to her, he announced, “They did not have much.”
“You make it sound like a terrible thing,” she chided. “As hungry as I am, I will eat anything.”
He paused.
She lay on her stomach, leisurely naked, opening and closing the silver casing to his watch with slim fingers. She smiled, brushing away long, unbound hair from the side of her face and adjusted the linens over her waist.
It was like walking in on a woman he had been married to for years.
His chest tightened. This would never last. How could it? She was an aristocrat with four children and he was a reformed criminal. He shoved the thought aside, refusing to think about it.
He strode toward her and sat on the edge of the bed next to her, setting the bowl beside her. “Tell me what you think.” He prayed the food was half-decent.
She sat up, dragging the linens to cover her breasts. Dipping the wooden spoon into the stew, she leaned over and daintily scooped it up toward herself. Her lips closed around a mouthful before sliding the spoon back out. A muffled groan escaped her as she half-closed her eyes. “’Tis divine,” she murmured. She hastily scooped up another heaping spoon. And another. And another.
He was glad she approved. Because after counting out what he could afford, knowing that they were leaving to Saint Petersburg tomorrow, he only had enough to purchase another meal and two tankards of ale. If they were lucky.
Even though he was hungry beyond breath, Konstantin nudged the bowl closer to her. “When you are done, I will eat whatever is left.”
She paused in between another mouthful, then swallowed and lowered the spoon quickly back into the stew, leaving it. “Forgive me.” She slid the lone bowl back to him, licking her lips. “You should eat.”
She was such an angel to him. He smiled and slid the bowl back toward her. “No. I am fine. Finish as much as you can.”
“After you have some.”
He shifted against the bed they sat on, knowing full well it was the only bowl they would have until evening. “I am not hungry.”
“Are we back to arguing about the chair?” She pursed her lips, took up the other spoon and scooping up a heap full of vegetables and meat, held it out to him. “Open your mouth.”
Now he felt like he was two. Why did he have to like her? “I will eat after you finish half the bowl. Agreed?”
“No. Not agreed. By then it will be too cold for you to enjoy,” she pertly returned, still holding out the spoon. “Now eat.”
“You barely had a few bites.”
“Whilst you had none.” She held the spoon closer to his mouth. “Do it knowing I want this for you more than anything in the world. Knowing I want you big and strong so you can rescue me from more garter stealing thieves. Pleeeeease?”
He sighed. This woman was going to take over his entire life. He leaned in and pulled the offering into his mouth. The savory, thick saltiness of chewy meat, potatoes and peas made him melt and half-nod in appreciation. “That is good,” he said in between chews.
She grinned, a dimple appearing on her left cheek and quickly re-immersed the spoon into the bowl, filling it again. She held it out, her dark eyes brightly searching his face. “More?”
He held her gaze, glimpsing what she might have been like at twenty. Bright-eyed, ambitious, kind and daring despite her station in life. She was going to make him kneel to her. Never mind the Midnight Bane, she was going to make it impossible for him to walk away from whatever was happening between them. He could feel it in his chest. It was something he’d never felt in the presence of a woman.
He slowly took the spoon from her hand and returned it to the bowl. He tugged her fingers loose from it. “Kiss me.”
She paused.
He leaned in. Brushin
g aside her long hair from her bare shoulder, his fingers skimmed the softness of her skin. “What is happening between you and me?” he whispered. “Is this even real?”
Her lips parted. “It feels real,” she whispered back. “I want it to be real.”
He heatedly searched those dark eyes. “Good. So do I.” He gently captured her lips, giving into the idea that this could be the beginning of something incredibly special.
Too special to even try to name.
* * *
Evening
They had only left the room twice throughout the day. Once to share another meal and a tankard of ale at one of the wooden tables downstairs and the other time to soak in the bathhouse together, where they washed each other’s hair and lathered each other in soap in between ardent kisses and sex. The remainder of the day, they lounged in each other’s arms and talked like friends of old, discussing their childhoods, and how life had not exactly turned out the way they had hoped. They laughed at the words Cecilia couldn’t pronounce in Russian as Konstantin playfully traced Russian words onto her bare legs. They also made love. Repeatedly.
Getting robbed was the best thing to have ever happened to her.
Cecilia nestled against Konstantin’s nude warmth as she watched the last of the light fade from the lantern with the curling of smoke, leaving them in complete darkness. Tomorrow evening, when they arrived into Saint Petersburg and called upon the theatre for her son’s address, everything she had shared with Konstantin would shimmer away into a dream. She would have to return to being what she really was: a titled lady and a mother.
It wasn’t fair. For the first time in her life, she wished she hadn’t been born a lady.
Konstantin brushed a finger across her arm in the darkness. “After we find your son, I will not be able to stay in Saint Petersburg. I have to leave for London.”
She swallowed against the tightness overtaking her throat. Even he knew their time together was at an end. Although a part of her ached, she had to cease pretending she was an ordinary woman. She wasn’t. She had a duty to her title, the estate, to her daughters and to her son and all of their respectable names. What she wanted did not exist in the realm of the ton. It never had and it never would. She had known that since she was fifteen.
He smoothed her hair away from her throat. “I would like to see you again in London. As soon as you return from Russia. Is that possible?”
She paused, her heart pounding. “You want us to continue this?” she whispered against him in disbelief. How could they?
“Of course I want to. I…” He paused. “Are you telling me you are no longer interested?”
She pressed her cheek harder against his chest, cherishing how genuinely distraught he sounded. Maybe this didn’t have to end. Maybe they could quietly meet on the outskirts of London from time to time. No one needed to know. Men of the ton did it all the time. What made them special? She wanted him. She wanted this. He made her feel beautiful. He himself was beautiful. “We will find a way to see each other. I promise.”
A smile appeared in his voice. “Good.”
In the darkness, between her own pulse and his, the words ‘Eternally yours at midnight’ popped into her head. She sat up against him in the darkness. “I forgot to ask. Your watch mentions the hour of midnight on the casing. Is there a story behind it?”
He shifted her body better against his own. “The watch belonged to my father. It was given to him by a woman he was supposed to have married. Unfortunately, she died before that happened.”
Her stomach dropped to her knees. “I’m so sorry to hear it.”
“Her name was Miss Bane.”
“She was English?”
“Yes. My father’s family thought her beneath his status, given he was the son of a well-known merchant, but he always financially struggled. Miss Bane was a governess from London, visiting her brother in Russia when my father met her at a festival. She was older than my father by about ten years. Much like…” He stilled, his fingers suddenly digging into her skin.
She swallowed. He didn’t have to finish. She knew exactly what he was thinking. She blinked up at him, making out the shadowed outline of his face. “Surely, it is a haunting coincidence.”
He hesitated. “I do not believe in coincidence.”
Curious, she set her chin on his chest and ventured to ask, “What do you believe in?”
“Destiny and that love can go beyond death.” A breath escaped him. “My father eventually moved on, many, many years later, and married my mother, but even my mother often told me that the largest part of my father’s soul always belonged to Miss Bane. My mother simply learned to live with it. Apparently, my mother lost every child during the first five years of their marriage until I was born. Unlike the others, I chose to arrive into the world during the annual festival of Maslenitsa at exactly four minutes to midnight. Eerily, it was the same festival and hour my father had met Miss Bane. It haunted him. Growing up, I could sense whenever he looked at me, he expected me to announce that Miss Bane sent me with a message.”
He fingered her skin gently. “My father and I were very close. I idolized him. Despite his profession, he was a very good man. He taught me everything. From pulling out a chair for a lady to breaking a man’s nose.” He nodded. “He always claimed incredible things happened at midnight and that I was proof of it.” His voice cracked. “Deny it as I may, you and I met at midnight when you opened your eyes to me for the first time.” He slid his hand down her back. “’Tis fairly obvious what Miss Bane and destiny has in mind for us.”
Her heart squeezed.
He tightened his hold on her. “As my father always used to say, even if you do not believe in destiny, you will in time. Because everything happens for a reason. Which means, we will not be able to escape whatever destiny has planned. Even if we want to.”
She pressed herself harder against Konstantin, closing her eyes in an effort to memorize the sound of his heart and the feel of his skin against her own. In that moment, she wanted to believe destiny was real and that nothing would keep them apart. Even though she knew, once they were both in London, everything would.
* * *
The following morning
Life had become so bizarrely perfect. It made a man wonder if something was about to go wrong. Not that it would. He had destiny and midnight on his side.
He stretched himself fully awake and dragged Cecilia’s warmth closer against his own body. He kissed the curve of her throat, noticing he left amorous marks all over her skin. Half of which he didn’t even remember making. It was a long night. “’Tis morning,” he murmured against her skin, trying to wake her up. “We should peer in on the time. Our stagecoach leaves at noon.”
She stirred and suddenly tightened her hold on him, digging her chin into the crook of his arm as if unwilling to let go.
He nuzzled her throat again before slipping his arms out from around her. He sat up. “We should get dressed.”
“No. Wait.” She scrambled up and out of bed, her bare feet thudding against the floorboards. She turned toward him, completely naked and announced, “I need you to dance with me. Before we do anything else.”
His brows rose as he perused her nudity. “I think I have corrupted you beyond measure.”
She leaned over the bed and grabbed at his bare arm, shaking it. “I once read that the women in France dance in the arms of their lovers naked. I want to try it.”
He never saw this coming. Not from her. Pushing himself off the bed, he landed before her naked and held out his arms. “If it were any other woman, I would have said no.”
She grinned. “Thank goodness I’m not any other woman.” She reached up and primly set one hand on his shoulder and took his hand into hers and pressed herself close, her warmth.
He lowered his gaze to her face, trying to focus on her and not that they were naked. He curved his other hand around her waist and set it against the middle of her smooth back. Dragging in a breath, he w
hisked her to their right and felt his cock swing with it. He cringed. “Pardon my friend.”
She giggled. “It’s incredibly awkward dancing naked, isn’t it?”
“Very. It loses its grace. Clothes keep everything in place.”
“Why do you think the French do it?”
He smiled. “Maybe we should go to Paris and ask them.”
They turned and stepped as if dancing to music.
Cecilia searched his face, tightening her hold on his hand and shoulder, her long dark hair swaying against their movements over her bare shoulders. “You make me want to dance naked, Konstantin. Do you know that?”
His lips parted as he continued to quietly dance with her around the room, their bare feet now being the only sound. It was a moment that he, as a man, would remember for the rest of his days.
This was not the same, panic-stricken woman he’d first met.
This was a woman who had discovered she had been in control all along.
“When you get back from Russia,” he murmured down at her. “I will take you to the best restaurants in London to make up for the lack of meals I subjected you to. I would also love to attend an opera with you. Is that something your girls would be interested in doing with us?”
She glanced up at him, her features flickering with unreadable emotion. She brought them to a halt.
He paused. “What is it?”
She lowered her gaze, her fingers trailing down his arms, toward his chest. “The rules in London are different for a woman of my standing. I…I have a responsibility to my name. There are, however, quiet inns on the outskirts of London where we could meet on a weekly basis.” She paused. “It would be the only way I could see you.”
He inhaled and exhaled. That hurt. More than he expected it to. He released her and rigidly stepped back. Why had he stupidly believed a woman willing to argue with him about whether he slept in a chair or whether he ate enough stew, would be willing to argue with the rest of world in his name? He held her gaze. “Maybe we should end this. Whilst we can.”
My Favorite Rogue: 8 Wicked, Witty, and Swoon-worthy Heroes Page 149