The Perfect Crimes of Marian Hayes (London Highwaymen, #2)(40)

She hadn’t done this before, not exactly, but the mechanics seemed straightforward, and even if they hadn’t been, his responses were enough of a road map. “Yes,” he said. “That. God yes.”

Every muscle and sinew in his body was taut and she wished she could see them all but settled for letting her left hand roam across his chest, his hip, anywhere she could reach, while with her other hand she brought him off.

She could probably have made it last a very long time, teasing and stroking until he was flustered and desperate and a little cross, but it was cold and she was feeling charitable, so when he drew in his breath and balled his hands into fists and said “Marian, I’m going to—” she didn’t stop.

As he approached his crisis, he folded his arms against the door in front of him and buried his face in the crook of his elbow, turning away from her. His body went even more tense, and he made a noise that sounded like swallowed words.

Then he went lax, sinking against the door with a good deal of softly muttered profanity, and she went with him, leaning against him.

“Serves me right for not having a handkerchief, if I have to clean us up with a horse blanket,” he mumbled, sounding dazed.

She realized what he meant and handed him the kerchief she had wrapped along the neckline of her bodice, and then a moment later she was in his arms, being soundly, if messily, kissed.

“Let me?” he asked. But he didn’t do anything, just held her, examining her with a questioning look. “May I return the favor?”

She didn’t quite know how to answer that. She wanted his hands on her; she knew how pleasurable a lover’s touch could be, but she also knew—she knew other things as well. She supposed there was little damage he could do now, spent as he was. And she was almost certain that he would desist if she told him to. Almost.

That almost was enough to stop her. She didn’t want to find out that Rob was worse than she hoped. Instead, she would remember how he had felt, what he had sounded like, and put those memories to good use later on, in the privacy and safety of her bedchamber.

“Another time,” she said.





Chapter 18




Rob had bedded down in a number of peculiar places over the years, but sleeping under the roof of a nobleman after debauching his daughter in the stable was easily at the top of the list. It also sounded like the stuff of a very commonplace erotic fantasy, although not the sort of fantasy Rob ever went in for. To be fair, he didn’t think that what he and Marian had done could fairly be called debauchery, unless Marian had been the one debauching him, and now that was the sort of fantasy he did go in for.

He climbed into the narrow bed. The room was small and close, with only one little window off in a corner. When the walls began to feel too near, Rob gave up attempting to sleep and went out to sit in the kitchen. The chairs were hard but he managed to arrange himself with his arms folded on the table in front of him and eventually fell asleep.

The night passed in a dreamless haze, and when he woke it was to discover Marian standing beside him. He gingerly sat up, all too aware of muscles that were stiff from sleeping badly and knowing that a day on horseback would hardly improve them. “Did you wake early to see me off?”

“Nonsense. I’m not here to see you off,” she said bracingly. “I’m here to bid farewell to Gwen.” But she was almost smiling, and the back of her hand brushed his shoulder. “Why are you in the kitchen? Was the bed unacceptable?”

“The bed was grand.” He wasn’t sure how to explain this, or whether to try. “I don’t do so well with small rooms. I . . .” He searched for an explanation that wouldn’t make him sound too mad but judged that he and Marian had long since passed the point where a little madness would matter. “They remind me of prison, I suppose. I have a number of complaints about prisons. Chief among them is the fact that one can’t leave, but second is the closeness of the space.”

She frowned. “If you had said something, I would have found someplace else.”

“Saying something would have meant thinking about it, and I don’t do so well with that, either, to be honest.”

She gave him that penetrating look he was coming to know so well. Then she set about putting the kettle on, and together they made a pot of tea—not talking, just passing things to one another as needed, and Rob had the dizzying realization that he wanted to do this tomorrow, and then the day after.

He already knew that he wanted to keep Marian close, or to keep himself close to Marian, or whatever arrangement allowed him to see her in almost any capacity. This was no more than a variation on a feeling he had experienced many times: there were several people he chose to keep in his life and whose absence would pain him. What was new was the desire to . . . he wasn’t sure. Boil water in a drafty kitchen? Prepare hot drinks? Wake too early and potter about in near silence? Some combination of all those things, probably.

It had been a long time since he had wanted a home, and he doubted that was what he wanted now. He had grown up in a proper home: loving parents, hot suppers, a roof over his head, and a cozy bed. When all that had come to an end, there had been a time when he wanted nothing more than to rest his head in the same place for more than a night or two. He had wanted a place to hang his hat, hot meals, and a table to eat them at. But he had been young then, with a lot of growing up left to do, and he had done that growing up out in the open and on the road. The urge to be still, the longing for a place of his own, had been worn out of him until he began to want the precise opposite. And then there had come those unfortunate interludes in prison, which, he reasoned, would make anyone want to keep moving. Too many nights in the same place had a way of making the walls creep closer even in the airiest of rooms.