Chapter 9
The morning after Hubert’s first vigil dawned pale and sharp, the snow piled high along the lane.
Vicky woke unrested, her mind returning to the creaks of the settee below and the man occupying it.
It was maddening how her thoughts strayed to the line of his shoulders, the way the blanket barely covered his long frame.
Gracie was already up when she came down, polishing the counter with brisk, unnecessary vigor. “Well?” she asked. “Did he snore?”
“I would not know,” Vicky said crisply, though her cheeks heated. “I did not hover at the stair to listen.”
Gracie hummed, unconvinced.
Vicky flopped into a chair. “I have made an alarming discovery.”
“That you like him,” Gracie replied.
Vicky groaned. “I never wanted domesticity. I liked my independence, my shop, my sisters at a safe distance. And yet—” She twisted her cup between her palms. “I find myself imagining him here every night. Not as a sentinel. As…”
“A husband?”
Vicky nearly dropped her tea. “I did not say that.”
“You thought it.”
Vicky pressed her hands to her face. “I am undone.”
Gracie’s voice gentled. “Then follow your heart, Vicky. Before it’s too late.”
**
That evening, snow pressed thick against the windowpanes. The watch’s lanterns glowed faintly in the distance, but Hubert once again claimed the settee as if he were a soldier assigned to guard her life.
Vicky sat opposite, feigning interest in a chapbook she did not read. Each sigh as he shifted made her pulse skip. At last she shut the book. “Mr. Stouts, I find myself with a mystery.”
He looked up warily. “A mystery?”
“Yes. I cannot remember whether you kissed me once, or twice, in your shop.”
His mouth tightened. “Once.”
“Are you certain? I could have sworn there was a second. Perhaps my memory is poor.”
“Your memory is infuriatingly selective.”
“Then you had better correct it,” she said, standing and drifting closer.
He rose slowly, towering, the lamplight catching on his jaw. “This is unwise.”
“Wisdom is overrated,” she whispered.
He bent and kissed her—brief, careful. Proof. But when he pulled away she caught his lapels. “Don’t stop.”
Something in him broke. With a groan he claimed her mouth again, urgent and hungry. She clutched at his shirtfront, pressing herself against him. His hand cupped her face, the other settling at her waist, steady and possessive.
She sighed into him, arching closer. His lips moved over hers with delicious thoroughness—deepening, tasting, demanding. She trembled as his tongue teased hers, heat rushing through her like wildfire.
“Stay with me,” she whispered against his mouth. “Tonight.”
He stilled, breath ragged. “Vicky—if I stay, I will not stop at kisses.”
“Good.” She kissed him again, reckless, until he yielded.
They stumbled to the settee, pulling each other down into its cushions. He tried to hold back, but she coaxed him onward—laughing breathlessly, tugging at his shirt buttons until her fingers slid over warm skin. He hissed softly at her touch, muscles taut beneath her hand.
“You will ruin me,” he said hoarsely.
“Then we shall be ruined together,” she murmured, biting lightly at his jaw.
His laugh turned into a groan as her nightdress bunched high around her thighs. He pushed it up, his hands firm on her legs, tracing the shape of her through thin linen. She gasped, clutching his shoulders as his mouth moved down her throat, teeth grazing, tongue soothing.
“Vicky,” he whispered like a prayer. “You undo me.”
She tugged at his shirt until it came free, sliding her palms over the breadth of his chest, down the ridges of muscle. He caught her hand, pressed it against his racing heart. “Do you feel what you do to me?”
Her only answer was to kiss him again, deeper, fiercer, until they were both breathless.
He lifted her easily, settling her astride him.
She shivered as his hands skimmed her body, reverent and hungry all at once.
The blanket slid to the floor. The lamplight turned everything golden—the heat of his skin, the hunger in his eyes, the way he looked at her as though she were both salvation and sin.
When at last he pushed the straps of her nightdress down, baring her to his gaze, she did not flinch. His breath caught, his hands gentle as he cupped her, thumbs circling, lips following. Pleasure surged through her, startling and exquisite. She cried out softly, clutching his hair.
“Please,” she whispered. “Don’t stop.”
He kissed his way back to her mouth, fumbling only once before they found their rhythm, the world narrowing to the perfect joining of bodies. She gasped at the fullness, the heat, the shocking intimacy of it, but his whispered reassurances steadied her.
“Look at me,” he urged, and when she met his gaze, she saw everything—desire, devotion, awe.
They moved together, awkward only for a moment before instinct and need took over. He filled her completely, each thrust drawing pleasure higher, deeper, until she clung to him, breathless. His control frayed, his groans muffled against her neck, her cries caught in his hair.
Release came for her in a rush, unexpected and overwhelming. She clutched him tightly, trembling as wave after wave broke over her. He followed soon after, burying his face against her shoulder with a shuddering groan, holding her as though he could not let go.
Afterward, they lay tangled on the settee, her nightdress rucked to her waist, his chest bare and damp with sweat. The candle sputtered low, but neither moved to trim it. His hand traced idle circles along her hip, as though memorizing her.
“You undo me,” he murmured again, voice raw.
She smiled against his throat. “Good. I’ve been undone all week.”
He laughed softly, kissing her hair. She felt it rumble through his chest where her cheek rested.
Outside, snow pressed thick against the windows, muffling the world. Inside, in the warmth of each other’s arms, Vicky Abbott discovered that surrender was not loss at all, but victory—the kind she had never imagined wanting, and now could not imagine giving up.