“Hugh,” she breathed.
…
She whispered his name—the name he had never been called until he had found her here. The consonants shivered across his skin, an incantation marking him as hers.
“Say it again, sweetness.” He tasted her musky flavor anew.
She wrapped her tiny fingers in his hair and whispered, “Hugh.”
His name became a living thing, a chain stretching from his primitive center to hers. He would claim her as she had claimed him, else the chain would tighten until it strangled.
He brought his lips to hers and she opened her mouth to him without shying away. She kissed with a passion he would have doubted a gently bred lady could possess.
“I am,” he said between kisses, “a very lucky man.”
Sophia laughed from her belly; the sound drove him wild. “…about to be blessed with greater luck, I hope?”
“Impertinent hussy,” he said with affection.
“Yes.” She hummed against his lips. “Now would you please take off your blasted shirt?”
He pulled the shirt up over his head and cast it to the floor.
“Ah, Hugh.” She made a soft and sensual sound of approval; his cock jumped. “You are magnificent.”
Yet again, he grew in appreciation of his given name. He stopped her from shimming out of her nightgown and he forced her back against the pillows.
“Keep it on,” he said roughly.
The costly bit of fancy he had commissioned had been reduced to little more than a rumpled band round her waist. But it was a band of his making and he preferred it to remain. He came to his knees at her feet.
“I want my fuck, sweetness.”
Her wet lips parted. “Yes.”
He pushed apart her ankles until she was exposed, knees bent. He wanted to slam into her with despotic possession until they both reached oblivion. He conquered his urge with greater needs. The need to savor. The need to remember. The need to cherish.
She extended her hand toward his neck. He grabbed her wrist and held her palm against his heart as he tucked his knees under her thighs.
Kneeling above her prone body, he placed his cock against her opening and, with an aching slowness, he slid within. She took him hot and deep—tight and sublime—like they had been formed by the same hand, two pieces long lost to one another and finally united.
Consummate satisfaction sent a subtle shudder from his neck to his toes.
He stopped there, though restraint cost him his breath, and he burned the moment into his memory—her eyes, wide, fixed, and intent, her body slick with sweat, one arm flung up over her head and the other arm stretching toward his body; her hand trapped beneath his palm and against his heart; her nails digging into his skin.
Sophia. His sweetness. His lady. His wife.
At long last, they were one.
…
Sophia latched onto her beautiful, panting man as if she could grab this moment. She was stretched and yet whole, still and yet adrift in a spring of hot, ambient water.
He released her hand, gripped her hips, and moved.
She matched his thrusts while running her nails over his taut skin. He carried them to a place where sensation reigned supreme. His tempo increased; he ground swift, full, and fierce, forcing staggering pressure to build within her womb. She hung on—listening, feeling—as the sensation increased in an unfamiliar way. Her legs quivered beyond control.
Too much. Too much…
Caught between the urge to pull him closer and the urge to push him away her petite mort shattered yet again, this one not from the sensitive place he’d stroked with his mouth but from some unfathomable place within.
White light sparkled behind her closed lids. For a second lasting into infinity—she experienced nothing but peace. Oneness. Her arms around his neck, his cock in her body formed an infinite loop she had no wish to escape.
A light shudder through his thighs signaled the beginning of his release. From afar, she recognized his roar of completion.
He collapsed atop her body; she welcomed his weight. She bit into his shoulder and his taste was salty and real.
Chapter Ten
Sophia tightened her arms as Randolph eased away. If he untangled their bodies, the magic would end.
“I will crush you, sweetness.”
“I do not care,” she replied against his shoulder. “Just stay.”
“I told you before,” he lifted his head to look into her eyes, “I am not going anywhere.”
Her sweat-dampened hair stuck to her cheeks and neck. From his aspect, she must look a disheveled, wanton fright.
“Perhaps you had better unpin me after all.”
He rolled onto his back. She propped her head on her elbow. She loosened her hair from her cheeks and swept her curls over her shoulder.
He smirked. “I liked you fine before.”
She blushed. “A lady well-pleasured?”
“My lady well-pleasured.”
He was a beautiful man. He had given her an incredible experience. She could not possibly tell him how deeply she had been moved. But was she his?
“Strange thoughts,” he said, “are playing across your face.”
“No thoughts of significance.”
“Oh I doubt that.” He smirked. “You have the look of a woman plotting.”
“Honestly, Randolph, I haven’t the energy to plot.”
“Neither do I.” He sunk into his pillow, and fixed his gaze on the ceiling. “That was…”
Her heart leapt up—
“…exhausting.”
—and plummeted.
Of course, he had not felt the same connective sense of mystery. He was a man, after all.
Her first husband had enjoyed her body—but never once had her charms inspired him to proclaim a deeper affection. His detachment had never caused her heart to twist as her heart was twisting now, because he had not enthralled her the same way as Randolph.
Oh damn.
She was more than enthralled with Randolph, wasn’t she?
Bad. Bad. Very, very bad.
“Soon,” she stated the obvious, “we will have to return to London.”
“Eventually.”
“Aren’t you worried about Kasai?”
He turned, his shadowed gaze hollow. “He never leaves my thoughts.”
She never thought she could be jealous of a killer, but there jealousy was—hot and oozy beneath her ribs.
He leaned over and kissed her forehead. “Nor do you.”
She sent him a dubious glance. “You say what you think I want to hear.”
He searched her eyes for a long, silent moment, then sighed. “Perhaps your untrusting nature will one day work to our advantage.”
Oh, this was worse than very bad. She wanted him to talk. Then, she wanted him to stop talking. She wanted him to keep his promise to stay by her side. Then, she wanted to be as far away from him as possible.
What the devil? She could not parse her conflicting feelings alone. She needed the Furies—if Lavinia could not help, Thea would have thoughts on the subject.
…Thea had thoughts on every subject. She smiled, somehow comforted by the thought of her female friends. “I miss my Furies.”
“You are thinking of the Furies.” His voice was wry with self-depreciation. “And here I believed you dazzled by my erotic skill or, at least, my sartorial ingenuity.”
The dancing flame on the cruise lamp cast Randolph’s features in a softening glow. Sophia let her gaze run along the faint laugh-lines at the corners of his eyes. She had no idea when he was teasing and when he was speaking the truth.
“Ah, well,” she said, hiding the deep effects of their union. “Both are impressive.”
“To impress you was my aim.”
“Have all your lovers been as easily dazzled?”
He elbowed her ribs. “Jealous?”
Like a growling lioness. “More like curious about the source of your skill.”
/>
He snuggled in the space between her pillow and neck. “My talents did not come from bedding curious and maddening wenches like you. However, I foresee a honing of my talents to one, particular end.”
He kissed just below her ear and the bells of St. Paul’s rang beneath her skin.
“I warn you,” he continued, “my study will be long, detailed and” —he rolled her onto her side and tucked her against his body so her back nestled against his chest— “painstakingly thorough.”
His chest-hair tickled her back while his stiff-and-ready erection fit against her bottom.
“You are,” she said not unhappily, “a ravenous devil.”
“So I have told you from the beginning.”
He kissed her neck, nibbling with slow intent from her nape to her shoulder. His free hand roamed over her breasts, wicked and teasing.
“You think.” She moaned. “You are terribly clever, don’t you?”
He stopped kissing. “…so do you.”
She was going to ask if he meant that she thought he was clever, or that she thought herself clever. But he rolled her nipple between his fingers and her question was lost to his very clever hands.
Everything between them may be uncertain, but if she had coaxed him into touching her there again, well she must be very clever indeed.
…Which was her last thought as he tucked her top leg into the crook of his arm and thrust into her wetness from behind.
She pressed her cheek into her pillow and her breath made a small indentation in the fabric as she panted with captive content.
…
Randolph awoke with a start. He shifted onto to his side. Sophia lay sleeping—peacefully—outlined in silvery moon-glow.
He drew in a shuddering breath. He brushed her hair away from her face, careful not to wake her from her rest. Gently, he kissed her brow. Strong feeling coiled around his heart, one combining the triumph of an Ascot win, the pride he took in running his estate, and the single-minded determination produced by life-threatening danger.
How had Sophia done this? How had she clawed her way into his chest and nested?
He never expected her—a whirlwind of a woman who was as strong as she was smart. He never expected someone who would challenge him at every turn and yet meld with him in perfect symmetry. And he certainly never expected to feel the way he was feeling.
He had wanted her, of course. By St. George, he had wanted her. But he had also grown to anticipate and enjoy their exchanges. He admired her pluck. He had even admitted to a general sense of like. But this was more. Could it be love?
Shit.
It was love, wasn’t it? Though beyond his experience, he’d seen the effects before, most recently in Harrison: Distraction. A poorly-planned and unavoidable reordering of one’s concerns. A blithe lack of knowledge that one was now joined to a woman and could be led like a bloody dog.
Well, perhaps not lack-of-knowledge—for some time he’d been well aware that he’d grant Sophia any request. He had dismissed such impulses as part of his seduction. Only now that he’d won her body, he would still give her anything in his power she wished.
What concerned him more was his lack of proper indignation.
Now he knew the reason love matches were frowned upon. Nothing would get done, if every man faced this kind of feeling—this sense of mad frustration, this sudden inability to see anything but the lover by your side.
Yes, he’d seen the effects before. What he hadn’t understood was the buoyancy, the explosive energy, the heady sense of power and privilege. Her yielding had laid him low with profound gratitude.
These feelings for Sophia were more than just inconvenient, they were potentially disastrous. He would require absolute command of his faculties if he meant to untangle the mystery of Kasai and then defeat the bastard. And, if his concentration failed him with only Sophia to protect, what on earth was he going to do when they had a child?
A child.
And since he had spilled himself inside her in the heat of his first release, the creation of a blood legacy was no longer an abstraction.
Baneham had been ashamed of his own attachment to his legitimate daughter. He had drilled into the men he commanded that family was nothing more than a liability.
Back then, Randolph had found no reason to see differently. He had more than one cousin who would make a competent earl, so—young and brash and certain such things as wives and heirs were the concerns of older men—he had been happy enough to steer clear of entanglements. But now?
In this, Baneham had been right.
He could not continue to put his life at risk when he was responsible for a family.
Family. He’d never known his father. He’d be damned before he’d willingly pass on such an affliction to his son. Something sentimental stirred within. He thought of his mother and sisters—and the fussing attention he’d always scoffed. His mother would adore Sophia. As would his sisters. And their husbands. And their children.
He sank back against his pillow and stared at the moon-shadows on the ceiling.
After successfully dealing with Kasai, Helena, and the missing records, he would have to limit the services he was willing to provide to the Company and the crown.
Sophia sighed and shifted.
Limit? She would have none of that, he was sure. If he was going to continue to play the game that had given his life shape, he would need to lie to Sophia.
Problem: he could not lie to Sophia. Not after a mere omission had nearly driven her away. He blew out his breath as if he just finished a round of fisticuffs. At the sound, her eyes fluttered open.
“My,” she made a sleepy noise, “your expression is quite fierce.” Her voice was heavy with satisfaction—low and throaty in a way that redirected the flow of his blood.
“Fierce,” he said, “is an apt word.”
She frowned. “Are you thinking of Kasai?”
“In part.” He could not have her examining his thoughts—not until he mastered his feelings. “Ax-wielding left me with an ache.” He rubbed his shoulder to cover his change of subject. “How many logs do you think are left in that pile?”
“A morning’s work—if you continue at yesterday’s pace.” She yawned and stretched. “Speaking of axe-wielding, I have discovered unexpected pleasure in country pursuits.”
“What do you mean?”
“You wield an ax,” she said in a feminine purr, “with attractive ease.”
“As much as I appreciate your regard,” he eyed her askance, “wielding an axe is a pastime I will happily relinquish.”
She wet her bottom lip. “What if I asked you to chop wood so I could watch?”
“Scandalous request,” he said with feigned shock. Her request would have finished the readying of his member, if his thoughts had not been so weighted.
“Scandal,” she murmured, “is what I do best.”
“What you do best is take care of those around you.”
He was as surprised he said the words as she looked to be upon hearing them. He could have bit his fist for revealing more than he had intended. He cleared his throat.
“What a nice thing to say.” She hesitated. “Hugh.”
For some reason, he had thought she was about to call him dearest—an endearment she freely distributed to everyone else but him. Months ago he had teased her—believing her reticence connected to her vulnerability to his seduction.
He’d asked her outright to call him dearest, and she had answered, not yet.
Perhaps he had realized the depth of his feeling for her, but she was still in the region of not yet. Even if he bested Kasai and ended the current threat, would she welcome a life with him? They had shared lust, but, over and over, she had insisted she did not wish to share a future with a man who held her father and his methods in esteem.
The possibility was a splash of icy water.
If his attachment to her was unequal to hers for him, all he had built would be thrust into perdition
—not just any future missions.
“We have,” he said, “spoken little of our future.”
“Let us continue in that vein for a while longer,” she said lightly, “You told me this evening the future was something neither of us could know.”
He had, hadn’t he? At the time, it had seemed a rational response to her fear. Then again, he’d been concentrating on getting beneath her nightgown, which was no time for complex philosophizing.
But, since being inside her had been so indescribably good he had failed to take other precautions, the future was no longer something they could deny.
He lay back against the pillows and took her hand. He closed his eyes and brought her fingers to his lips to brush a light kiss on her knuckles.
“Sophia,” he said gently, “you do realize our joining could result in a child?”
…
An alarm sounded from somewhere deep within—a cacophony warning of life-altering danger. A child. Hugh’s child. Her child.
A Baneham…if not in name, then in blood.
While the earl still lived, she had been terrified of bringing a child into his world. Her first husband had allayed her fears by never coming to completion while still inside her body—something he said would decrease the likelihood.
She had become so lost in Hugh she had forgotten.
Before she had learned that Randolph had trained with Baneham, she had been warming to the idea—one did not wed a childless earl with only sisters and fail to do their duty, but she had shuttered the possibility, believing Randolph composed of all the Earl’s bad qualities.
He was not, though, was he?
Baneham had never admitted mistakes. Hugh had asked forgiveness when he wronged. Baneham had believed he had every answer. Hugh changed beliefs proven false. Baneham had sacrificed everything—including her mother—to his work. Hugh had set himself to watch over her here, where he could not have been more out-of-place. Baneham had raged like a hell-bound demon. Hugh remained in control of his anger, no matter how challenged.
Baneham had not allowed those in his service to have families. If Hugh wanted a child, then perhaps he was considering a different life.
“Does the,” she swallowed, “prospect of a child please you?”
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