Cross stood in the owner’s suite of The Fallen Angel, watching as half of London gambled on the floor below. The very wealthy half of London.
The floor was packed with people: women in vibrant silks and satins, their identities hidden by elaborate masks designed for this very occasion; men with thousands of pounds burning in their pockets—eager to play, and win, and savor this moment when they might outsmart the Angel.
For five years, since the first Pandemonium, men had fallen victim to the Angel’s temptation and wagered everything they had on her tables, on their own luck. And every year, a subset of those men had lost. And the owners of the Angel had won.
Chase liked to say that they won because none of them had enough riding on the night to lose. Most nights, Cross knew better. They won because they could do nothing less. They’d sold their collective souls, and their gift was fleecing the gentlemen of London.
Tonight, however, Cross doubted them. Doubted their keen, unwavering ability to win.
Doubted himself.
Too much was riding on Pandemonium tonight. Too much that he couldn’t control. Too much that made him desperate to win.
And desperation was not good for winning, not even when the plan was working.
He braced one hand against the stained glass, his wide, flat palm on Satan’s thigh as he watched the tables below. Vingt-et-un and roulette, hazard and piquet, the movement of the club was a blur of tossed cards and rolled dice and turned wheels and lush green baize.
On a normal night, Cross would have been calculating winnings—one thousand from hazard, twenty-two hundred from roulette, half again from vingt-et-un. But tonight, he was focused on the fifty who marked his fate.
Fifty of Knight’s biggest players were dispersed across the floor below—fifty men who would never have been allowed to wager at this club if not for their special invitations. Fifty men who did not deserve to play here but played nonetheless.
At Cross’s will.
Sally had kept her promise, delivering the gentlemen to the floor of the Angel, and now it was the Angel’s task to keep them there. The employees of the hell had their orders. If a man had a wager in one hand, he had a full glass in the other. If a gamer appeared lonely, or bored, it was not long before he would be joined by another masked reveler—someone who had been paid handsomely to ensure that all in attendance left with light spirits and lighter pockets.
The Angel was known for delivering on gamers’ fantasies, and tonight . . . it would deliver well.
And Knight would know that he could not beat the Angel.
That he could not beat Cross.
The door to the suite opened and closed behind him, but Cross did not turn to face his new companion. Only a handful of people were allowed access to the owner’s suite—any one of them someone whom Cross would trust with his life.
Instead, he watched the roulette table below, the spinning wheel, the ivory ball rolling along the mahogany edge, around and around as the bettors leaned in. On one end of the roulette field, a young man no more than twenty-five lifted his mask and watched the roll of the ball with wild eyes—eyes that Cross had seen countless times over the years. Ordinarily, Cross would see nothing but profit in the young man’s demeanor, but tonight, for a moment, he saw more.
“Lowe,” Temple said, quietly, at his shoulder, following the line of his gaze.
Cross looked to his friend. “Did you know he was one of them?”
Temple shook his head once, firmly. “I did not. I wouldn’t have allowed him inside the club.”
“He’s not after you,” Cross said. “Anyone can see that.”
The ball dropped into the roulette wheel, and the young man winced, turning away from the table as though in pain. In seconds, he had collected himself and returned his attention to the field, already reaching for money to wager again.
Temple shook his head. “He can’t stop himself.”
“We could stop him.”
“He’d just go back to Knight’s. Might as well have him lose to us tonight. As long as he causes no trouble.”
Cross cut Temple a look. “What trouble would he cause? We’d defend you to the death.”
One of Temple’s massive shoulders lifted in a great shrug. “Defend me or no, a boy who has been wronged so well is a danger indeed.”
Cross returned his gaze to Christopher Lowe, now watching as the ball rolled in the roulette track once more. “Is that why you’re up here? In hiding?”
Temple rolled his shoulders back into his black jacket. “No. I’m here for you.”
“What about me?”
“It looks like your plan is working.”
Cross pressed his hand against the cool glass, savoring the wide, smooth pane against his palm. “We shan’t know until we get proof that Knight’s is empty of real gamers tonight.”
“It will come,” Temple said before going quiet for a long moment, then adding, “I hear the daughter arrived on time, this morning.”
Cross had heard the same, that Meghan Margaret Knight had been set up in a lavish town house on the edge of Mayfair. “She won’t stay long. Not with us pulling Knight’s strings.”
Temple didn’t reply. He didn’t have to. Instead, he watched the gaming below. “Bourne and Penelope are here.”
Cross’s gaze flickered to the far end of the room, where his partner sat—unmasked—happily next to his wife, watching as she knocked firmly against the baize to request another card for her hand of vingt-et-un. Penelope smiled at the flop and turned to her husband, lifting her face to his for a kiss. “She’s winning, as usual, I see.”
There was a smile in Temple’s tone. “I’m certain he fixes the games.”
Cross raised a brow. “If I ever get proof of that, he and I shall have a talk.”
Temple laughed. “Be careful with that judgment, friend. Someday, it will be the lady you wish to impress.”
Cross did not find the words amusing. “There are no doubt many things that might happen,” he said, scanning the floor. “But my being laid low by a lady is not one of them.”
He couldn’t be.
Even if he did touch them—even if they were an option—a future with a woman was not. He owed Lavinia too much. He owed Baine too much.
He couldn’t bring either of them back . . . couldn’t return them to the lives they deserved. But he could ensure that Lavinia’s children got everything Baine’s should have had. He could be certain that they never knew the gnawing disappointment of want.
He would leave them a kingdom. Built from sin, but a kingdom nonetheless.
A crowded hazard table erupted in cheers, drawing the attention of half a dozen others nearby. At one end of the table, smug as ever, was Duncan West, owner of three major newspapers and a half dozen scandal sheets. West was rich as Croesus and lucky as sin. More importantly, he was on the roll, and would take everyone nearby with him.
Cross remembered that pleasure keenly—the knowledge that he would win.
It had been a long time since he’d taken such pleasure.
“I would have bothered Bourne with this,” Temple said casually, as though they were anywhere but the owners’ suite of the most legendary gaming hell in London, “but since he is so busy with his lady, I thought perhaps you might step in.”
Cross heard the amusement in Temple’s tone. “I’m a little busy for your games, Temple.”
“Not my games. Chase’s. I am simply the messenger.”
The words sent a tremor of unease through him. With a soft curse, Cross scanned the floor of the club, looking for the founder of the Angel, who, of course, was nowhere to be seen. “I don’t need Chase’s games either.”
Temple chuckled. “It might be too late for that.”
The words had barely been spoken when Cross’s gaze settled on the lone figure at the center of the casino floor below, the only person in the entire room who was not moving. Of course.
She was always on a separate course from the rest of the universe—the planet that orbited in reverse, the sun that rose in the west. And now she stood at the center of his hell, surrounded by debauchery—in its thrall. He did not have to see her face to know that.
Just as he did not have to see her unmasked to know that she was stunning. Not as stunning as she had been in that chair in his office a week earlier, bared to him, finding her pleasure, tempting him with her shape and her sounds and her scent, but stunning nonetheless.
After she’d left him that night, he’d sat on the floor of his office, staring at that chair for hours, reliving the way she’d writhed against it, straining to hear the echoes of her gorgeous sounds, and finally, finally placing his forehead to the cool leather seat with a foul curse and vowing to stay away from her.
She was too much for him to resist.
She had returned, swathed in sapphire, hair like spun silk, porcelain skin, standing at the center of his club, under threat of sin and vice and wickedness. And him. From this vantage point, he had an unparalleled view of the swell of her beautiful breasts, all lovely curves and dark, promising shadows. Enough to send a grown man to his knees.
The hand on the glass clenched in a tight fist. “What in hell is she doing here?”
“Ah,” Temple said, “you’ve noticed our guest.”
Of course he’d noticed her. Any man with eyes would notice her. She was the most fascinating thing in the room. “Don’t make me ask again.”
“Asriel tells me she had an invitation.”
No doubt she did. No doubt Chase found this entire scenario amusing. Chase deserved a sound beating. “She is no more suited to that room than she is to fly.”
“I don’t know.” Temple paused, considering her. “I rather like the way she looks in that room.”
Cross snapped his attention to his massive partner. “Stop liking it.”
Temple smirked and rocked back on his heels. “I could like it very much.”
Cross resisted the urge to put a fist into the larger man’s face. Fighting with Temple was futile, as he was enormous and unbeatable, but it would feel good to try. It would feel good to lose himself to the physical when he had spent so much of the last week resisting just that. Cross felt confident that he could draw blood. Or blacken an eye. “Stay away from Philippa Marbury, Temple. She’s not for you.”
“But she is for you?”
Yes, goddammit. He bit back the words. “She’s not for any of us.”
“Chase disagrees.”
“She’s most definitely not for Chase.”
“Shall I tell Bourne she’s here, then?” Cross heard the teasing in Temple’s voice. The knowledge that Cross would not be able to resist action. “Penelope could take her home.”
He should let it happen. Should let Bourne and Penelope handle their errant sister. Should let someone else tend to Pippa Marbury before she ruined herself and half of London besides.
A month ago, he could have. A week ago.
But now. “No.”
“I didn’t think so.” Temple’s amusement grated.
Cross cut him a look. “You deserve a sound thrashing.”
One side of Temple’s mouth kicked up in a wicked smirk. “You think you’re the one to deliver it?”
“No, but you’ll get it before long. And we shall all have a good long laugh.”
Something flickered in Temple’s black gaze at that. “Such promises tease, friend.” He put a hand to his chest dramatically. “They tease.”
Cross did not waste more words on his idiot partner. Instead, he left the room, long strides eating up the dark corridor that led to the back stairwell of the Angel, then soaring down the stairs to reach his quarry, his heart pounding, eager to find her. To capture her before someone else did.
If another touched her, he’d kill him.
He pushed out a private door, into one of the small, private antechambers on one side of the casino floor and out onto the floor, filled with laughing masked revelers. Not that he would have any trouble finding her . . . he could find her among thousands.
But he didn’t have to look very hard.
She gave a little squeak as they collided, and he reached out to capture her, hands coming to her shoulders to hold her steady. A mistake. He wasn’t wearing gloves, and this dress appeared to have a shocking lack of fabric. Her skin was soft and warm—so warm it fairly singed him.
And made him want to linger.
He did not release her, not even when her hands came to his chest to brace herself, her sapphire skirts swirling around them both, tangling in his legs as surely as the scent of her tangled in his mind, bright and fresh and utterly out of place in this dark, wicked world.
Instead, he pulled her back into the alcove from which he’d come, and said harshly, “Why aren’t you wearing gloves?”
The question surprised them both, but she recovered first. “I don’t like them. They eliminate a sense.”
It was hard to imagine losing any sensation when she was about . . . consuming his. He ignored the answer and tried again. “What are you doing here?” His voice was soft in the darkness—too soft. He meant to scold her. To scare her.
“I was invited.”
Nothing scared Pippa Marbury. “You shouldn’t have come.”
“No one can see me. I’m masked.”
He reached up for the mask in question, running his fingers along the delicate curving piece, all fine metalwork and architecture. Of course, Chase would have considered her spectacles. Chase considered everything. A thread of irritation began to unfurl in Cross’s chest, adding a harshness to his next words. “What would possess you to accept this invitation? Anything could happen to you here. Tonight.”
“I came to see you.”
The words were soft and simple and unexpected, and Cross had to pause for a moment to take them in. “To see me,” he repeated, like the imbecile into which he turned whenever she was around.
She nodded once. “I am angry with you.”
She didn’t sound it. And that was how he knew it was true. Pippa Marbury wouldn’t suffer ire the way other women would. Instead, she would develop the emotion and consider it from all angles before acting on it. And with that uncommon precision, she would take her opponent off guard as easily as if she’d launched a sneak attack in the dead of night.
“I am sorry,” he said, in the interest of self-preservation.
“For what?” she asked. He paused. No woman had ever asked him that. At his lack of reply, she added, “You don’t know.”
Not accusation. Fact.
“I don’t.”
“You lied to me.”
He had. “About what?”
“I take your question to mean that you’ve done it more than once,” she said.
He couldn’t see her eyes through the mask, and he wanted to tear it from her face for this conversation.
No, he didn’t. He didn’t want to have this conversation at all.
He wanted her to go home and get into bed and behave like a normal, aristocratic lady. He wanted her to be locked in a room until she became Lady Castleton and left London and his thoughts forever.
It appeared that he lied to himself, too.
He released her shoulders, loathing the loss of her soft skin.
“You’re an earl.”
The words were quiet, but the accusation in them was undeniable.
“I don’t like to think on it much.”
“Earl Harlow.”
He resisted the urge to wince. “I like to hear it even less.”
“Did you enjoy making a fool of me? Embarrassing me? All that mistering? And when I told you that if you’d been an aristocrat, I wouldn’t have asked for your help? Did you laugh uproariously after I left you that night?”
After she’d left him that night, he’d been utterly destroyed and desperate to be near her again. Laughing had been the farthest thing from his mind. “No,” he said, knowing he should add something else. Knowing there was more to be said. But he couldn’t find it, so he repeated, “No.”
“And I am to believe that?”
“It is the truth.”
“Just like the fact that you are an earl.”
He wasn’t entirely certain why this was such a frustration for her. “Yes. I’m an earl.”
She laughed, the sound devoid of humor. “Earl Harlow.”
He pretended it didn’t bother him, the name on her lips. “It’s not as though it’s a secret . . .”
“It was a secret to me,” she defended.
“Half of London knows it.”
“Not my half!” Now she was growing irritated.
As was he. “Your half was never meant to know. Your half never needed to know.”
“I should have known. You should have told me.”
He shouldn’t feel guilty. He shouldn’t feel beholden to her. He shouldn’t feel so out of control. “Why? You already have an earl. What good are two?”
Where in hell had that come from?
She stiffened in the darkness, and he felt low and base and wrong. And he hated that she could make him feel that way. He wanted to see her eyes. “Remove your mask.”
“No.” And that’s when he heard it. The sting in her voice. The edge of sorrow. “Your sister was right.”
The words shocked him. “My sister?”
“She warned me off you. Told me you never followed your word . . . told me never to believe you.” Her voice was low and soft, as though she wasn’t speaking to him, but to herself. “I shouldn’t have believed in you.”
He heard the addition of the in. Hated it. Lashed out at her. “Why did you, then? Why did you believe in me?”
She looked up at him, seeming surprised by his words. “I thought—” she began, then stopped. Rephrased. “You saw me.”
What in hell did that mean?
He didn’t ask. She was already explaining. “You listened to me. You heard me. You didn’t mind that I was odd. In fact, you seemed to enjoy it.”
He did enjoy it. By God, he wanted to bask in it.
She shook her head. “I wanted to believe that someone could do all those things. Perhaps, if you did . . . then . . .”
She trailed off, but he heard the words as though she’d shouted them. Then Castleton might.
If he hadn’t already felt like a dozen kinds of ass, he would now. “Pippa.” He reached for her again, knowing he shouldn’t. Knowing that this time he could not resist touching her. And he might not be able to resist claiming her.
She stepped away from him, out of his reach, returning to the present. To him. “No.” Before he could act, move, take, repair, she took a deep breath, and spoke. “No. You are right, of course. I do have an earl, who is kind and good and soon to be my husband, and there is nothing about you or your past—or your present for that matter—that should be relevant to me.”
She backed away, and he followed her like a dog on a lead. Hating the words she spoke—their logic and reason. She was unlike any other woman he’d ever known, and he’d never in his life wanted to understand a woman so much.
She kept talking, looking down at her hands, those imperfect fingers woven together. “I understand that there is nothing about me that is of interest to you . . . that I’m more trouble than I’m worth . . . that I should never have brought you into my experiments.”
He stopped her. “They aren’t experiments.”
She looked up at him, eyes black in that ridiculous mask. He’d like to tear it from her, crush it beneath his boot and take a horsewhip to Chase for having it made. “Of course they are.”
“No, Pippa. They aren’t. They’re a desire for knowledge, certainly, a need for it, even. But more than that, they’re a need for understanding of this thing that you are about to do, that you have refused to stop and that terrifies you. They are a desperate ploy to stop yourself from feeling all the doubt and frustration and fear that you must be feeling. You say you want to understand what happens between men and women. Between husbands and wives. But instead of going to any number of those who know better—who know firsthand . . . you come to me. In the darkness.”
She backed away, even as he stalked her. “I came to you in the middle of the day.”
“It’s always night inside the Angel. Always dark.” He paused, loving the way her lips parted, just barely, as though she could not get enough air. Neither could he. “You came to me because you don’t want it. The ordinary. The mundane. You don’t want him.”
She shook her head. “That’s not true. I came to you because I don’t understand what all the fuss is about.”
“You came to me because you fear that it’s not worth the fuss with him.”
“I came to you because I thought you were a man I would not see again.”
“Liar.” The word was harsh in the small space, at once accusation and accolade.
She looked up at him, those black eyes empty. “You would know. You’ve lied to me from the very beginning with your weighted dice and your false promises and your Mr. Cross.”
“I never lied, love.”
“Even that is a lie!”
“I told you from the beginning that I was a scoundrel. That was my truth.”
She gaped at him. “And that absolves you of your sin?”
“I’ve never asked for absolution.” He reached for the horrid mask, pulling it from her face, regretting the movement the moment he saw those enormous blue eyes, swimming with emotion.
Not regretting it at all.
Adoring it.
Adoring her.
“I told you to leave me. I told you never to come near me.” He leaned in, torturing them both—so close and still an unbearable distance. “But you couldn’t resist. You want me to teach you the things you should learn from him. You want my experience. My sin. My kiss. And not his.”
Her gaze was on his mouth, and he held back a groan at the hunger in those blue eyes. God, he’d never wanted anything the way he wanted her.
“You’ve never kissed me,” she whispered.
“I’ve wanted to.” The words were so simple, they felt like a lie. Want didn’t come close to articulating the way he felt. About her touch. About her taste. About her.
Want was a speck in the universe of his desire.
She shook her head. “Another lie. You can’t even touch me without pulling away as though you’ve been burned. You clearly aren’t interested in touching me.”
For someone who prided herself on her commitment to scientific observation, Philippa Marbury was utterly oblivious.
And it was time he set her straight.
But before he could, she added, “At least Castleton kissed me when I asked.”
He froze. Castleton had kissed her.
Castleton had taken what Cross had resisted. What Cross had left.
What should have been Cross’s.
Vicious jealousy flared, and six years of control snapped. He caught her to him without hesitation, lifted her in his arms, pressed her to the richly upholstered wall, and did what he should have done the first moment he met her.
He kissed her, reveling in the feel of her lips on his, of the way she softened instantly against him, as though she belonged in his arms—his and no one else’s.
And she did.
She made a small, irresistible sound of surprise when he aligned his mouth to hers and claimed it for his own, swallowing the gasp and running his tongue along the full curve of her bottom lip until surprise turned to pleasure, and she sighed—giving herself to him.
And there, in that moment, he knew he would not stop until he’d had all of her. Until he’d heard every one of her little squeaks and sighs, until he’d tasted every inch of her skin, until he’d spent a lifetime learning the curves and valleys of her body and her mind.
It was the years of celibacy. After six years, any kiss would be this powerful. This earth-shattering.
Lie.
It was her.
It would always be her.
Lifting his lips from hers, he whispered, “You do burn me, Pippa. You enflame me.” He pressed her into the wall, pinning her with his body so he could free his hands to explore, to cup her jaw in one hand and tilt her lips to his and gain better access. He took her mouth again, throwing himself into the fire, stroking deep, wanting to consume her, wanting to erase every memory of every other man from her mind.
He ran the edge of his teeth along her lower lip, adoring the way she sighed and lifted her arms to wrap around his neck. And then, dear God, she was kissing him back—his brilliant bluestocking—first repeating his movements, then improving on them until the student surpassed the master to tortuous, nearly unbearable effect.
She writhed against him—as eager for him as he was for her—rocking her hips into his, the rhythm promising more than she could possibly know. He broke the kiss on a groan—a low, wicked sound that rumbled around them in this small, private place.
He trailed kisses across the line of her jaw to her ear, where he whispered, “He might have kissed you, love, but his kiss is nothing like mine, is it?”
She shook her head, her reply coming on heavy gasps of breath. “No.” He rewarded her honesty with a long lick along the curl of her ear, pulling the soft lobe of it in his teeth, worrying it until she sighed, “Cross.”
He lifted one hand to the line of her dress and yanked the fabric down, baring one perfect, pale breast, tracing his finger around and around her nipple until it went hard and aching. He tore his gaze away to find her equally transfixed by his touch.
Watching her beautiful blue eyes, he moved, pinching the straining tip, loving the way her head tilted back resting against the wall as she sighed his name once more. He kissed her softly at the soft spot behind her jaw, tonguing the skin there. “His kiss doesn’t make you cry out his name.”
“No,” she said, pressing her breast into his hand, asking for more. As though she had to ask. He dipped his head, taking her nipple into his mouth, sucking until she cried out, the glorious sound muffled by curtains and the din of gamers nearby, who had no idea of what happened mere feet from them.
He rewarded her unbridled response with a deep, thorough kiss, reaching down to lift her skirts, fingers tracing along silk stockings and then silken skin as they climbed higher and higher. Her fingers tangled in his hair, clutching him to her as she gasped against his lips. He returned to her ear, whispering, “Tell me, my gorgeous, honest girl, does his kiss make you want to lift your skirts and take your pleasure here? Now?”
“No,” she confessed, soft and strained.
His hand moved higher, finding what he sought, downy hair and glorious wet heat. He stroked the backs of his fingers along the seam of her, wanting her more than he’d ever wanted anything in his life. “But mine does, doesn’t it?”
He slid one finger deep into her softness, and they both groaned at the pleasure of it. She was wet and wanting, and he couldn’t wait to give her everything she desired. He stroked, long and lush, through the wet, wonderful core of her as he whispered in the darkness, “It makes you want to hold your skirts high as I give you everything you deserve—as I teach you about sin and sex, with half of London a hairsbreadth away.”
“Yes.” She gasped, and he lifted her skirts higher with one hand, working his fingers high against her, making good on his promise, one finger pressing deep into her as his thumb worked a tight circle at the hard, straining center of her pleasure.
“This isn’t a lie, Pippa. This is truth. Wicked, undeniable truth.”
She clutched his arm, moving against him, not knowing what to do.
But he knew. It had been six years, but he had been waiting for this moment.
For her.
“Take your skirts, darling.”
She did as she was told, holding them high as he sank to his knees before her once more, as he had several nights earlier, only this time, he allowed himself access to her, to her heat and her scent and the magnificence of her body.
He lifted one of her legs, pressing a kiss to the inside of her knee, swirling his tongue against the finely spun silk there before hooking her knee over his shoulder and leaning forward to place a kiss against her beautiful mound. He stroked deep, first with one finger, then two as he blew a long stream of air over the spot where his thumb had been swirling. She sucked in a deep breath. “Cross,” she whispered. “Please—”
And in that plea, he lost himself. “Yes, love,” he said, inhaling her heady, glorious scent. “I’ll give you everything you want. Everything you need.”
He stroked into her softness again, and he wondered at the way she wept for him, not knowing what he would give her . . . what he could do to her . . . and wanting it nonetheless. “Do you feel it? The truth of it? How much you want me?”
“I want . . .” she started, then stopped.
He turned his head, nipping at the soft skin of her inner thigh, reveling in the softness there—that untouched, uncharted, silken spread. “Say it.” He would give it to her. Anything in his power. Anything beyond it.
She looked down at him, blue eyes fairly glowing with desire. “I want you to want me.”
He closed his eyes at that; trust Pippa to be forthright even here, even now, even as she bared herself to his eyes and mouth and hands. Trust her to strip this moment of all remaining shrouds, leaving it raw and bare and honest.
God help him, he told her the truth. He wasn’t certain he could do anything but. “I do, love. I want you more than you could ever know. More than I could have ever dreamed. I want you enough for two men. For ten.”
She laughed at that, the sound coming on a wicked movement of strong hips and soft stomach. “I don’t require ten. Just you.”
Even as he knew he would never be worthy enough for her, the words went straight to the hard, straining length of him, and he knew he would never be able to resist her—not when she asked with truth in her big blue eyes and passion on her soft, lyric voice.
He leaned in, and spoke to the heart of her. “And you shall have me.”
And then he was where he had wanted to be for a week. For longer. He removed his hand from where it had been working its irresistible rhythm, retreating slowly, killing them both until she moved to seek his touch. He couldn’t stop the wicked grin that spread across his face at the proof that she wanted him. “Easy.”
“No.” The word came out on a near desperate whine. “Now, Cross.”
“So demanding,” he teased, his blood running hot at her insistence. “Now, it is.” And he spread her gently, revealing the core of her, willing and wet and perfect.
He kissed her then, the way he’d promised he would that night in his office, the way he’d dreamed late at night as he lay in the darkness and imagined this vision of a woman rising above him, open and available for worship.
Just as she was now, standing above him, one hand holding her sapphire skirts, the other thrust into his hair, holding him against her as he pressed his tongue into her softness, savoring her taste, making love to her with slow, languid strokes that made her sigh and writhe and push against him. She was pleasure and heat and passion—the first, fresh drink of water after years in the desert.
He found the heart of her desire, working it first slowly, then longer and faster until time faded and he was wrapped in her sound and her feel and her taste, with no desire to move or stray from her. He’d promised her hours, and he could make good on it—he could worship her from here, on his knees, for an eternity.
She lost her grip on her skirts, and her thighs trembled against him as she arched away from the wall, a wicked, wonderful offering. He took it without question, reaching up to hold her, returning his fingers to the heat of her in one long, deep thrust.
She came apart then, against his hands and his mouth, crying her pleasure beneath his tongue and teeth, and he carried her over the edge, through her passion, working her with his touch and his kiss and every bit of desire and depravity he’d resisted over the last six years . . . over longer than that. He reveled in her softness and her sounds, not wanting to leave her. Wanting the experience with her.
She called out his name, her fingers tight in his hair, and he came with her, hard and hot and unavoidable. And in that moment, his own pleasure startled from him by hers, he should have felt embarrassment or shame or something infinitely more base. But instead he felt as though he’d been waiting for that moment.
For her.
And there, in the darkness, her soft cries echoed by the roar of London’s wealthiest gamers scant feet away, he caught his breath and ran his hands along her thighs, guiding her skirts back into place, and considered the startling possibility that Pippa Marbury was indeed his savior.
The thought rocketed through him as quick and unexpected as his climax, and he bowed his head, looking down at her little sapphire slippers, shocked as hell, even as he knelt at her feet and reveled in the feel of her hands in his hair.
That’s how Temple found them.
He came up short just inside the door to the owner’s suite, six feet of muscle going perfectly still, his scarred face a portrait of shock. “Shit,” he said, backing up, propelled from the space by its intimacy. “I didn’t—”
Pippa’s hands moved like lightning, and Cross was naked at the loss of her touch. “Your Grace,” she said, and Temple’s title startled him, a reminder of all their places. Of the wrongness of her being here. “I— We—”
He needed time to think.
He needed time to understand what had just happened.
How everything had changed.
He rose. “Get out.”
Pippa turned her wide gaze on him. “Me?”
No. Never her. But he couldn’t bring himself to speak to her yet. He didn’t know what he would say. How he would say it. She’d wrecked him, thoroughly, and he wasn’t prepared for it. For her.
For the way she made him feel.
For the things she made him do.
For the future she tempted him with.
“I think he meant me, my lady,” Temple cut in.
Then why was he still here?
Temple replied as though Cross had spoken the words aloud.
“Knight has arrived.”