Knowledge of what was coming tomorrow swept around him like turbulent water. The islet of safety they stood upon eroded by the minute. They had so little time.
He kissed her over and over again, every feature of her face. The darkness around them made this a moment of touch only. Of shapes emerging into the darkness, disappearing into the dark again.
“Not here,” she whispered.
She was wearing only a night shift. She’d be cold in this open hall. They needed a room.
“Downstairs,” she said.
She took his hand and led him down the hall to the stairs. The warmest thing in the night was her hand. The kitchen, when they came to it, was a haven with the good fire on the hearth and the order of well-used, accustomed shapes and shadows. Square of the table, circles of pots hung on the walls, golden bronze in the light of the fire.
Cami wrapped herself around him and he pushed her back against the wall. So much warm skin everywhere. He wanted to kiss it all. Suck it all. He wanted to be inside her.
He devoured her with his mouth. Couldn’t think. Couldn’t formulate a plan. Couldn’t force his brain away from the manic desire to push her shift away and open his trousers and get into her.
A man doesn’t take his pleasure. He gives pleasure. Damn, who said that to him? Doyle. Doyle said that once, in the offhand way he said important things. A man gives pleasure to a woman.
Hair the black and silver of volcano glass. Endless depths of color in it and the heat captured there forever. He stroked her forehead, her eyelids, and followed that, kissing. The memory of contour and color turned to sensation in his mouth. The tiny strands of her eyebrows gritted between his teeth. Her skin smelled like the lavender in the sheets she’d been sleeping on.
She reached up and dragged her fingers into his hair and held him. She said, “You shouldn’t have come,” and kissed him. “They know you were here last night. Nobody said anything but after dinner Fortunata and the aunts started talking about”—she kissed him again and shook her head—“stupid things. Money, land, politics. Marriage.”
“Marry me,” he said.
“Yes. Of course. We’ll do that.”
“Fine. Work out the details later.”
“Yes,” she said and stopped his mouth with kisses.
He slid his hand between them, over the cloth of her shift to the hard bead of her nipple and the soft breast. He felt her gasp into his mouth. She gasped again as he explored the nipple between his fingers, gently, then harder. She liked that. He’d find everything else she liked.
She took her hands from around his neck, stroked in under his jacket and down his body. She fumbled with the buttons at the fall of his trousers.
Too much. Too much. He threw back his head and groaned. His hands clenched reflexively where they held her, on her shoulder, on her breast. He was going to hurt her. He was going to grab her and push her against the wall so she couldn’t escape. He was going to ram into her and use her like the bastard he was. He shook with the need to do that. Every muscle tightened, tightened under the vise.
Cami freed his cock from his trousers. It sprang up between them, hard as hell.
He gritted out, “I don’t think I can go slow.”
“We’ll go slow next time.”
“Have to please you first. Make you happy.” Don’t let me disgrace myself. “Have to do things to you.”
She pushed herself to him. Her hands guided him inside her. “We’ll do things later.”
He was almost sure that made sense. He gripped her buttocks and drove into her.
She arched back with a strangled cry, her face turned upward, beautiful as a mad flower, eyes blank, mouth open and gasping. Her fingernails dug into his back and it was lines of fire that should have hurt but didn’t.
“Do things like this.” She panted that out.
She was silk inside. Warm velvet. He shoved into her, pulled out. Into her and out. Hard. Avid. Her throat was milky white and vulnerable. He caught her earlobe with his teeth, licked and bit his way down her throat. “Supposed to be in a bed. Damn. We need a bed.”
“Find a bed later.”
“Right.” He pulled her to him tightly, lifted her off the floor to take her breast in his mouth. He growled—yes, growled—in his throat and consumed her.
The throbbing center of her clenched around him with every nip, lick, suckle. She answered what he did to her with shocks that ran through her, with sharp gasps, with the thrashing of her whole body, writhing and ecstatic.
Her response stunned him. I did this to her. I made her feel this.
She dug fingers into his shoulders, steadying herself, and thrust to meet him. They rhymed. They matched. They were one motion. One dance. This is how it’s done. He took her mouth and breathed in her breath.
She gave a cry like pain and joy and her teeth bit down on his lips. Beyond control, beyond thought, he slammed into her and slammed into her and lost himself in her.
The world was dark and full of pleasure. Somewhere in the madness he remembered to hold her tight so she wouldn’t slip down on the floor. The hard, cold floor. He held her and held her and maybe they both fell asleep for a minute, standing up.
Bernardo Baldoni awoke from the light sleep of the old and heard various small noises in the house. He considered and discarded possibilities, decided what those particular sounds must be, turned over, and pulled the covers higher over his shoulder.
He was a romantic at heart, as any good Tuscan and especially any good Baldoni must be.
It would seem Mr. Paxton was amenable neither to practicality nor threat. He would do very well for Sara. Very well indeed.
Cami, he reminded himself. Very well for Cami.
Forty-eight
Trust in God, but remember He does not plan for you to live forever.
Cami drew out the watch Uncle Bernardo had given her a few hours ago. It was gold, enameled in indigo flowers, very pretty and very old, smooth and cool in her hand. Uncle Bernardo said it had belonged to her grandmother. She clicked it open. “Twenty minutes. Then I walk out and play the tethered lamb.”
Pax said, “The tethered tiger. You’re nobody’s lamb.” He smiled. “You should check your powder.”
She did, to please him, and because it gave her something to do in these last long minutes. The powder was dry. It was a warm and sunny day for London.
She put her pistol away carefully—the dress she wore had several spots for concealing such weapons.
They stood in the rough track beside the grocer’s. She didn’t bother to hide because she was expected. Pax kept himself against the wall, in the lee of a drainpipe, where he was inconspicuous. He was so close she could have stretched out a hand and touched him. But there were already many eyes on her so she didn’t.
They could see Number Fifty-six from here. When she crossed the street and went to her appointment, Pax would be watching.
“Everyone in place?” Pax turned his head to say that to a space farther down the alley.
“Ready and accounted for.” A man emerged, unaccompanied by any sound. Hawker. He wore a blue workman’s smock and carried a basket under one arm, where a few sheets of window glass were packed in straw. “They’re placing bets whether the Merchant will show up at all.”
Pax said, “We’ll find out.”
Hawker set the basket down at the mouth of the alley. “The guns are on top.” He shoved straw aside to show a line of pistols, nose down in the straw. “Don’t cut yourself on glass.”
She said, “Several guns. Do you think we’ll need them?”
“Hard to have too many guns,” Pax said.
“I use knives myself.” Hawker shifted his gaze to her. “A more elegant and reliable weapon. I’ll teach you to throw knives when I get a chance.”