Page 54 of The Spy and the Nightingale
“As you like.” She drifted towards it and shot him a look over her shoulder that sent a charge through him.
He followed. Turned her to face him, lifting her atop the chest of drawers. Her arms came around him as he pulled her hips forward so that she perched at the very edge. Her legs fell to eitherside of his waist; he grasped her skirts to raise them nearly to her waist before kissing his way down her neck.
Almost silently, mouth on her collarbone: “He doesn’t trust us.”
Her hands slid into his hair. “Yes. A test.” Her breath was warm against his ear.
He gripped the undersides of her thighs, fitting her against him. “Aye.” Possibly. Probably.
She slid fingers to cup his nape, her lips on his cheek. “There is danger?” Her hands, back in his hair, threaded through the strands to cradle his head.
He shifted his hips against her. “Aye.” Perhaps not tonight but tomorrow during the private meeting, after Dubois had time to prepare for his presence.
Hers too.
“I’m afraid,” she whispered. “And—” But she was canny enough to say nothing more.
He wished he could offer her words of comfort, but it was impossible; there was nothing of substance he could say presently with conversation so constrained. He took her face between his hands and kissed her fiercely, deeply, trying to will confidence into her.
She returned the kiss, mouth hot and wet under his. Her hands undid his waistcoat’s buttons and pushed it from his shoulders. She tilted her face to the side so that he might kiss her throat.
For appearances. Only for appearances.
His hands left her for a moment to attend his trousers, but she nudged his fingers aside, efficiently slipping loose the buttons herself. The expectation of a kept woman.
Or the prerogative of a lover.
For the barest moment, she hesitated before pushing his trousers to mid-thigh.
He grasped her calves, drawing her legs upwards. “Legsaround my waist.” The growl could have been either voice. Beaumont’s. His. There was precious little difference right now.
Her knees pressed inwards against his ribs as her ankles fitted behind him.
This might kill him. There was no barrier as he rocked his hips forward, nothing but his cock sliding along her thigh. Rock-hard, goddamn his black soul, despite the circumstances.
Her hands beneath his shirt were hot against his skin, sliding over muscle, seeking a tighter grip on him.
He’d killed more men than he could count as both soldier and agent, men whose eyes he’d seen. Whatever personal code of morality that remained his after a dozen years had become stretched very thin.
But it was this, surely, for which he was damned to hell. He wouldn’t do it; it was one moral line he would not cross?—
But he wanted to have her in truth, to fuck her here and now, eyes on them be damned.
Another forward thrust, harder yet. Too far this time; the head of his cock grazed her center.Christ.
She made a noise low in her throat.
Inadvertent, truly. “Sorry,” he gritted out.
Her knees tightened around him. “Don’t be,” she whispered, lips against his throat. “I did invite you to do your worst.”
Chapter 16
Isobel was grateful afterwards—much later, when she could think clearly again—not to have found out just how much further events might have progressed. Despite the danger and everything at stake, Nathaniel had been the only real, true thing in the room. And the charade that wasn’t, quite, became more urgently felt than Dubois and his spies.
Her pulse, already elevated, pounded in her temples at a light knock on the door. Dizziness gripped her—who was beyond the room?
Nathaniel stilled, shoulders rigid: the cost of his self-discipline.“Qui est là?”he called brusquely.
