by Maya Rodale
He wanted those things.
His heart was racing for those things.
And then the shirt. God, she was undoing the buttons on her crisp white shirt.
“Beatrice, are you sure?”
His heart was pounding now. Blood roaring and rushing and there was nothing else in the world, nothing else at all except for this moment that once upon a time was all he had ever wanted. Beatrice, free and offering herself up to him.
He’d thought he would die when he’d learned she’d said yes to the duke. He still remembered the blackness and bleakness that had settled over his existence when he’d lost her because he hadn’t been enough. But now here she was. Her arms around him, her lips teasing his, leading him unto temptation. There was no question of resistance.
“What part of sixteen years of a cold, loveless marriage—” But he didn’t hear the rest, because he was transfixed by the sight of her standing with her shirt half-unbuttoned, revealing a peach pink silk corset. Her breasts swelled above it.
“I’m very, very sure,” she said.
And then all his restraint was gone.
His mouth crashed down on hers for a kiss that was all pent-up frustration and years of longing. She pressed her body up against his, and he sank against her, and the wall. A tangle of skirt and shirts and velvet curtains and damask wallpaper. His eyes were closed, his body on high alert to her every writhe and moan, and they just . . . kissed.
Her lips.
The exposed hollow of her throat.
He drank her in. Breathed her in.
“Yes,” she sighed. “Yes.”
A few more buttons were let go. But that was slow, fumbled going.
“Just rip it off,” she murmured. So he did the thing, the rakish impetuous thing of just ripping her shirtwaist apart. It was no feat of strength, all that delicate cotton and little pearl buttons shredded like paper and littered the dressing room floor.
“Terribly sorry about your shirt,” he said softly and he only somewhat meant it. He drank in the gorgeous image of her exposed skin and pale corset and the swell of her breasts.
That faint peachy pink got to him. It was so almost white, so virginal and missish and shy and it hardly seemed right for the woman passionately kissing him in the dressing room of a department store that she owned and ran. Her lips were red. Her eyes mischievous, unapologetic. Her cheeks flushed with arousal.
“Don’t worry about it. I carry an extensive selection of buttons and other trimmings on the second floor,” she gasped as he was teasing the dusky centers of her breasts.
“Of course you do,” he murmured. “At my store—”
“Shut up, Dalton. I don’t care about your store. Keep kissing me.”
Dalton kissed her.
And he dared to touch her. Tracing a finger along her bare shoulder, slipping off the sleeves, revealing more and more of her bare skin.
“I want to touch you,” she whispered, and soon enough his jacket and shirt were just fabric on the floor, relics of the day, and she was gazing at his bare chest with heated longing that she couldn’t hide if she even tried.
She didn’t seem to be trying.
So he didn’t hide how much he wanted her, either.
She bit her lip and skimmed her bare palms across the planes of his chest, the muscles of his shoulder, the bulge of his biceps. Then she leaned over and teased his nipple with her mouth, and he hissed her name and murmured, “Oh, God,” as her fingers toyed with the waistband of his trousers.
Gazes locked. She smiled mischievously. She had ideas, his Beatrice. She was no longer some enthusiastic innocent, but a woman who knew what she wanted and would take it.
“Beatrice.”
“Dalton.”
“Ladies first.”
“If you insist.”
“I do.”
A rush of fabric. A soft gasp. His hand skimmed along her silk stockings. She closed her eyes and moaned with the pleasure of his touch in the soft folds of her sex. It wasn’t their first time but it had been a long time and things had changed and it felt like they were new to each other all over again. She dug into his shoulder with her nails, clinging to him as he stroked harder, slipped one then two fingers inside.
“Oh, God.” She sighed and she moved against his hand. She knew what she wanted; he gave it to her.
He ached to be inside her. She seemed to know. Beatrice reached for him, and took his cock in hand and began to stroke the hot, hard length of it. He forgot about his store. And hers. He forget they were competitors. In this moment he was just a man at her mercy and he wouldn’t have traded places with anyone.
“Oh, God.” The invocation was drawn from his lips. It wasn’t just her touch—although she knew just the right speed, just the right pressure to swiftly bring him to the brink—it was her. The woman he felt so many tortured and twisty and complicated feelings for.
He captured her soft moans with kisses. He groaned into her hair.
When she cried out at her climax, he caught that sound, too. A moment later he, too, was biting back a shout and was spent. She sagged against him. He turned and leaned against the dressing room wall for support. He began to take note of his surroundings. A dressing room. In a department store. After hours.
God, it was like they were eighteen all over again.
“Dalton,” she gasped, when she had caught her breath.
Her pressed a kiss on her lips and said, “Next time we’ll do that in a bed.”
Chapter Twenty-three
Goodwin’s Department Store
The next morning
Well, Beatrice was never going to look at that fitting room the same way again. Or any dressing room, for that matter. Not after last night, when she’d disregarded a number of rules on proper behavior, with Dalton as her willing partner in delicious crime.
She had lost her mind, like a lovestruck young girl, but without fear of the consequences.
It was glorious.
But now she must pay attention to matters of business, not matters of pleasure. It was the start of a new day at work and she began it like any other, with a tour of each department to confer with all department heads to ensure that all was right and ready for another busy day with customers.
In the trimmings department on the second floor, she discreetly acquired a packet of buttons. In women’s undergarments on three, she did her best not to blush as she was flooded by memories of last night. The firm pressure of his mouth on hers, the way he held her, the way he touched her—strong and sure and reverentially all the same, until she was completely undone in his arms. In housewares, she reconsidered the twin beds.
Outside the reading room, everything had gone wrong.
Beatrice arrived to see a group of women standing in a huddle near the entryway, their faces drawn, their fists anxiously gripping their dark skirts. She quickened her steps.
“What is it?”
“Take a look,” Margaret said grimly and the rest of the women stepped aside.
Beatrice looked into the room and uttered some choice words that a society debutante and duchess had no business knowing.
“Who and what and how?” Beatrice sputtered.
Nearly all the books had been swiped from the shelves to land on a jumbled heap on the floor. All the periodicals—newspapers and issues of Mme. Demorest’s Mirror of Fashions and Mrs. Frank Leslie’s Illustrated Newspaper were slashed, shredded, and strewn about the room. It looked like a storm had hit, or a tantrum. But this was no accident. It was very clearly intentional.
What Beatrice was looking at through narrowed eyes was busy work. Hours and hours of busy work to put the room to rights. It was the sort of mischief that didn’t cause lasting damage—other than a feeling of vague unease—but it would result in hours of tedious work for women who had better things to do than reshelve a library full of books.
“It happened sometime between closing hour last night and this morning,” Margaret explained.
Beatrice
felt her temperature drop.
“Do we have any idea who did this?”
She assumed it was a man who had done this—along with the smashed mirrors a few weeks earlier. Women didn’t usually have the combination of free time and lack of empathy that such vandalism required. But which man? Any number of them would be out of sorts enough with her—Mr. Stevens, or any of the other men she had fired? Maybe even Dalton?
She did her best to sound normal but her heart was racing because she had been here late last night. And so had Dalton. She racked her brain searching for a moment when he might have been able to do this. Would he have done it? He certainly didn’t want to see her store succeed.
“No one saw anything or anyone,” Margaret said. “Do you have any idea, Beatrice?”
Beatrice peered at all the women looking at her anxiously and expectantly for an answer and assurance. She so badly wanted to give it to them but what could she say?
Perhaps it was Dalton because I was here with him after hours?
Consider me your fearless leader while I consort with the enemy?
There are so many men I have angered with my ambition and now we are all in danger because of it?
“No,” she said finally. “I don’t know who might have done this. But I do know that we cannot let it stop us.”
Chapter Twenty-four
Dalton’s Department Store
The next night
The note Dalton sent to Beatrice that afternoon simply read “Your store or mine?” Her reply was immediate: “Yours, tonight.” Thus he began counting down to closing time.
It was an hour that Dalton usually approached with dread. After the hustle and bustle of his store, the quiet solitude of his mansion was an uncomfortable weight on his chest. It was a feeling that, for all he had attained and accomplished, something was missing.
He did not, in fact, have it all. Whatever it was.
He was fairly certain it wasn’t just a wife, any wife. He hadn’t been a monk and he hadn’t avoided courtship, either. But something was still missing.
One might have called it loneliness, yet he was a rich, powerful, connected man about town who never wanted for company or people surrounding him.
So he went to his club to avoid thinking about it. He spent evenings at the opera, he dined out and attended balls.
But just like that, the promise of Beatrice had him begging for closing time. He was ready and waiting when she strolled through the revolving door a minute shy of eight o’clock. He met her at the bottom of the grand staircase and led her up, up, up to the housewares department. They arrived just as the last employees left the sales floor and the doors were locked to the outside world.
They were alone.
Like Goodwin’s, the department was full of little staged domestic scenes. A dining room here, set for twelve with the finest crystal, silver, and china with fresh flowers and candles. Over there, a parlor set up, complete with a faux mantel. There were plush velvet upholstered settees and chairs, with a low table between them that he’d set with chilled champagne, crystal flutes, more candles, and fresh flowers.
“Oh, Dalton, everything is so romantic. And here I thought we were just having a secret, illicit affair. This is much more than just a romp in the dressing rooms.”
He grabbed her hand and pulled her close, and she laughed as he wrapped his arms around her and claimed her mouth with his. They kissed with all the passion of two people making up for lost time.
Flowers and champagne were forgotten.
“I feel like we should be catching up,” Dalton murmured in between kisses. “The last time I saw you, you were waving from the deck of a ship, on your way to England.” Dalton had gone down to the docks to watch the famous New York duchess leave. He knew that he needed to see her sail off, otherwise he feared wandering the city, anticipating a chance encounter. “What have you been doing all this time?”
“Nothing,” she sighed.
“No, really. It’s been sixteen years, Beatrice. How did you spend your days?”
He already knew about her nights.
She undid his tie and let it fall to the floor.
His jacket was shrugged off and tossed aside.
“Literally nothing. The dowager duchess did not trust me to execute the tasks of a duchess—menu planning, correspondence, hostessing, that sort of thing—as I was some lowborn, new-money American with no knowledge of how English society worked. So I languished in various rooms, took epically long strolls through the countryside, and considered flinging myself off a turret.”
He fixed his attentions on the process of removing her hat and jacket and tossing them on the settee, just like they were at home together, the thought of which caused a sharp pang in his chest.
“What have you been doing all this time, Dalton?”
“Working.”
“And?”
“I attended some parties, the opera, a few society events. But working, mostly.”
“Women?”
“Some.”
“Sounds like you haven’t had much fun at all. It sounds lonely.”
Lonely. That word again. He stepped back and poured her a glass of champagne, one for himself, and they sat upon the settee.
“It wasn’t the worst of times. I never considered flinging myself off, say, the top of the World Building.”
“Of course not. It was only recently built,” she replied. Her eyes sparkled. “Sounds like we have some lost time to make up for.”
“Excellent plan. As long as you aren’t too busy with your lecture series, typing demonstrations, and musicals.”
Beatrice sipped her champagne. “You read my newspaper profile! Or rather, one of them. It’s been so hard to keep up with the press. It pays to be friends with all the female reporters in town. And to be living a story they want to cover.”
“I’ll be honest, I have someone read the newspapers for me. They provide me with all the necessary clippings. Especially with regards to my competition.”
“Too busy launching an art gallery? Or is that new department dedicated to women’s ready-made attire and children’s toys taking up all your time?”
“How did you know?”
“I have spies. I have to keep up with what my chief competitor is up to.”
“We launch on Tuesday.”
She leaned in. Stroked his chest. Played with the buttons on his shirt. “Can a woman get a preview?”
“I might need to be persuaded,” he murmured. But it was a lie. He needed no persuasion. Which made him tremendously vulnerable to her. But in this moment—so intimate and perfect, lounging on the settee, sipping champagne, speaking about their day, the promise of pleasure later—he couldn’t remember why that would be so terrible.
He raised his glass.
“Your new window display is causing quite the sensation,” he said. “The crowds on the sidewalk are making it difficult to walk past. Who knew that dressing cats up in baby clothes and letting them roll around in bassinets would be so appealing?”
“Margaret knew,” Beatrice said, laughing. “The display was her idea. I foresee a great future in dressing cats up in adorable outfits. People can’t seem to get enough of it.”
She raised her glass to his for another toast.
“Cheers, by the way, to Dalton’s making The White List. I love that we both claimed top spots.” A local woman on a crusade to better the world, Josephine Shaw Lowell had recently published a pamphlet detailing the department stores that offered the best treatment for their female employees with the noble goal of encouraging shoppers to patronize these shops. The effect was already being seen. Female employees received higher wages and breaks where they might rest their feet. And there were dire repercussions for stores that failed to meet her criteria.
“If it weren’t for you, I never would have made it. You saved me, Beatrice.”
“I was never worried,” she said.
“If I hadn’t had to raise wages to meet the ones you w
ere offering, I’d be suffering the same fate as the other low-ranking stores. Shopgirls in revolt. Customers fleeing and protesting at the entrance.”
“You’re welcome,” she said with a laugh.
“Let me thank you personally.”
“Yes, please. Especially if we move to that large bed over there.”
He didn’t need to look to know that she was referring to a massive four-poster bed topped with a feather mattress and mounds of pillows, all of which were made up in the finest, softest linens with silk-lined cashmere blankets. He’d been acutely aware.
“You did say that next time we should be in a bed,” she said softly. The words next time from Beatrice’s lips made him feel things.
“As you wish.”
And then before he knew it, they were trying to kiss and walk and undress and tumbling down on the bed, a tangle of bare skin and fabric and wanting.
His shirt was gone, lost somewhere on the floor. Her dress was a heap on the floor, her corset, too. Dalton lowered himself over her, sinking into the pleasure of her body beneath his and whispered, “I missed you, Bea,” before he could remind himself that they were just lovers by night, that she had broken his heart once, that he was supposed to be . . .
He couldn’t remember what he was supposed to be.
Because Beatrice was wrapping her arms around him, stealing kisses from his lips, and murmuring, “Touch me, Wes, it’s been so damned long. We have a lot of lost time to make up for.”
So they did.
His mouth on hers. His hands upon her full breasts. Her fingers threading through his hair. His mouth pressing kisses along her neck, the hollow of her throat and lower still. She lay upon the mattress, her hair spilling across the pillows, arching up to him, offering herself to him. His mouth closing around the dusky centers of her breasts. Her low moan of pleasure.