The Perfect Crimes of Marian Hayes (London Highwaymen, #2)(37)

“You’re a guest.”

This was so absurd that he started to laugh.

“Oh good,” she said, pushing past him into the bedroom. “You’ve finally gone round the bend. The signs have always been there.”

“Remember when you kidnapped me?” he choked out.

“If that’s what this is about, you can feel free to leave.” She gestured to the door.

“Oh, be quiet. Want to hear the funniest part? I was kidnapping you, too.”

“No you were not. I would have noticed.”

Now he had tears in his eyes and he was laughing so hard his stomach hurt. He braced a forearm against a bedpost and rested his head against it. “Marian. If you attempt to make my bed I will riot.”

She tossed the linens onto the mattress. “You can sleep on the floor for all I care.” Her voice came from so close that he could feel her breath on his neck.

Slowly, he turned to face her. Her jaw was set and she was almost glaring at him, as if daring him to close the gap between them. He stayed still, maybe even pliant, wanting to let her choose whether to do this and also wanting to see exactly what she’d do with him.

“It was a bargain,” she said. One of her hands came to rest on his upper arm, almost as if to hold him in place, and he let out a breath he hadn’t known he was holding. “We made a bargain.”

She bent toward him, slowly and carefully, so their lips brushed, moving her mouth against his as if learning the shape of him. When he put a hand on her hip, she stepped closer, her skirts grazing his legs.

“So we did,” he agreed, his lips touching the corner of her mouth. They had made a bargain—and they had done it because when they each were without anyone else to trust, they had trusted one another.

She moved so slowly and deliberately it was as if she were inventing the concept of kissing right there on the spot, as precisely as if she were counting change in the marketplace. He kissed her back with none of those qualities, with nothing but profligacy.

He brought a hand to the nape of her neck. She had put her hair up, and he wanted it. He found the pin and plucked it out, then unrolled the long plait he had been eying for days. He loosened the cord that tied it and twisted his fingers into the mass of heavy black locks, tethering himself to her. Her lips were warm against his own, and her grip on his arm tightened.

She moved even closer, crowding against him, then nudging him backward until he hit the wall. Finally, there was nothing but the hard wall behind him and her warm, insistent presence against his chest.

When she skimmed a thumb over his cheekbone, he heard himself make a sound that was almost pained. No—it was a sound of longing, because that’s what he was doing, that’s what he had been doing for days and weeks and months, and he hardly knew what to do with himself now that he had Marian in his arms. Here she was, hard angles and unexpected warmth, busy hands and unspoken demands, and it was everything he had tried not to hope for and wanted anyway.

It was happening too fast. He wanted to remember this—the taste of tea on her lips, the jut of her hip under his hand. He wanted to take this moment and press it between the pages of something properly embarrassing. He didn’t want this to be consigned to the heap of things he could remember only wistfully. Rob knew that he had a long and varied history of fucking things up, and he didn’t want to add Marian to the list. He wanted—he wanted things that wouldn’t happen, but try telling that to his heart.

He pulled back and shook his head a little. He kept his hands on her, hoping that she’d understand that he wanted to keep her close—Christ, did he ever—but she stepped back immediately.

“No,” he started to protest. “Wait.”

She gave a brisk shake of her head, one that he wanted to believe only meant later.





Chapter 17




When Hester went off to see whether any of the silver could be spared for the pawn shop, Marian sat at the kitchen table, rested her face in her hands, and sighed. She was exhausted, tired to a degree she hadn’t known it was possible to achieve, not only from a lack of sleep but from the monotony of failure. She only looked up when she heard the chair across from hers scrape along the floor.

“Rain’s letting up,” Rob said. He must have been out to check on the horses. Droplets of water clung to his face and the fabric of his coat. He wore rainwater and mud the way other men wore silk coats, only better, and she wanted him. She wanted to take him to bed and make terrible choices. And he wanted her, too, even though the poor idiot had tried to be decent earlier. There had been a bed right there.

It had been so long since she’d felt that way, so long since she’d wanted to touch and be touched, that she half feared those desires belonged to someone else, some long gone and much better version of herself. When he’d pulled away, she felt as if she had been dropped into her present self from a great height, and the shock was still with her.

And now he was looking at her as if she were a cake, if cakes were also religious icons, and she was possessed of a mortifying certainty that she was looking at him in precisely the same deranged manner.

It was time to say something bracing, clearly. Time to remind them both of the lay of the land.

“You’ll probably want to be off soon, then.”

He raised his eyebrows. “Not especially. But I’ll need to go anyway. Do you want me to bring her back to you?”