The Perfect Crimes of Marian Hayes (London Highwaymen, #2)(39)

“Thank you for telling me.” It was a kindness, one of too many from Rob. He had done her more kindnesses in the past week than she had performed over the course of her life. He was reckless in his kindness, extravagant to the point of decadence. Sometimes she thought he didn’t realize what he was doing, that it was simply his nature to hand over everything that a person might hold dear without any regard for what havoc such prodigality might wreak on the sensibilities of a reasonable person.

She could feel his body behind hers, not touching, but near enough that she could reach back and touch his hip if she wanted. She could feel her body remembering the shape of his, and she wanted that again, wanted to turn around and feel the muscles of his arms bunch and flex as he held himself still. She wanted him all to herself and felt greedy with wanting him. He had made a sound earlier, a little needy sigh, and she wanted to make him do it again.

“According to your father, Fanshawe collects rare manuscripts,” he murmured in her ear. “From what I’ve heard, there are dealers who specialize in those and don’t ask too many questions about where they come from.”

Her heart thudded in her chest as she realized what he was doing—not only supplying her with useful intelligence but reminding her that she had the means to take care of the people who were hers to care for.

When she turned to face him, his hands immediately landed on her—one on her waist, one on her elbow, as if he had been waiting. As if he wanted this as much as she did. He certainly talked as if he thought her something special, but that was just a habit he had fallen into, a silly bit of moonshine of the sort that men were wont to indulge in. She let herself press her lips to his and felt his small indrawn breath, the slide of his hand to her lower back, the gratifying race of his heartbeat. As before, he let her be the first to taste his lips, the first to press closer.

It would never do, none of it would. If this kept up, she’d be flat on her back, or up against the wall, her skirts around her waist, and she’d be glad of it. Holding her breath, she turned him so he was facing the closed stable door. It took only the slightest nudge of her hand on his hip, the briefest pause of bemusement, and then he went, as if he had been waiting for her to do precisely that, as if lovers were forever pushing him against things. Perhaps they were, and wasn’t that a thought.

He put his hands against the door, palms flat, as she stood on her toes and brought her mouth to the part of his neck right below his ear. He shuddered then, his skin warm and soft under her lips. As she moved her mouth under his jaw, she felt the rasp of stubble. She pressed the length of her body against his.

“Is this all right?” she asked.

He was silent for a moment, then cleared his throat. When he spoke he sounded dazed, barely awake. “Better than all right.”

“I want to touch you.” Best to get that out in the open, she supposed.

There was another pause, during which she could almost hear him determining whether there had been an unspoken and not have you touch me back in her statement. There had been. “I’d like that,” he said. “I think I’d like anything you did to me, Marian.”

At those last few words, heat began to gather low in her belly and she rocked her hips against him, only once. Then she returned her attention to his neck, and he removed his hands from the door only long enough to loosen his collar and give her access. Now she could push his hair aside and kiss the place where his shoulder met his neck and trace the line of his collarbone with her fingertips. He tasted like rain and salt and cheap soap.

In the ordinary course of things, a man’s collarbone held no fascination for her; she would be hard pressed to name a single part of any man that did. But she had watched Rob for days and, however much she might like to deny it, had known him for longer. She knew the outside of his body and the inside of his mind and somehow, under her hands, it all connected. She thought that maybe if she could get her hands all over him, every inch of him, then maybe it would all start to make sense.

She slid one of her hands down the front of his waistcoat, button by button, over his hard chest and the plane of his stomach. She could feel his indrawn breath when she went lower, stilling at the hem.

“Still all right?” He had said that he’d like anything she did but he couldn’t know that in advance. Or perhaps he could; she couldn’t, though. And while she felt reasonably confident that they were on common ground, she wasn’t about to start groping around in a person’s underthings without their say so.

“Yes.” He swallowed, and she felt it under her lips. “Please.”

That please was nothing more than a whisper, hardly vocalized at all, and she liked it. She wanted more of it. She dragged her hand lower and felt the hard length of him against her palm. He was fully hard, and only from her pawing ineptly at him and administering a few odd kisses. She liked that, too.

“That can’t be comfortable.” It was probably very unkind to tease a man in this state but she was feeling pleased with herself and pleased with him. She smiled against the warmth of his skin.

He made an inarticulate noise that she translated as agreement, tempered by a hesitancy to beg her to do something about it.

She unfastened and opened his breeches just enough, then shoved his shirt out of the way. When she curled her hand around his erection, it was hot in her palm, with enough wetness at the tip that she could glide her fist down its length and back up again. He made a sound that was somewhere between a hiss and a sigh, as if signaling a very gentle and welcome capitulation.