Chapter Fourteen #2
The hair between Abigail’s legs was tightly curled and soft, when he cupped her sex, the movement itself made him feel terribly masculine and more erotically charged than any previous tumble he could ever remember.
It blended both a possessive need, alongside a desire on his part to stake a claim to her yet there was something else at work here too.
He became all the more aware as he started to move his fingers, watching her reaction all the while.
There was something wondrous to the growing realization that dawned on Abigail’s face as his fingers slipped between the folds of her sex, eagerly alighting on the warm delicate pieces of her flesh, softly seeking out her center.
When he found what he sought, and started to stroke, Abigail leaned further back, her neck reclining, her face lost to sensation.
Lost to every worldly concern but the feelings, the touch, the heat between the two of them.
His fingers moved on, tantalizingly over her soft peaks, stroking and touching, gliding over the opening to her sex, his hand claiming each subtle movement as a way of delighting her more, of driving her wilder.
He was thrilled by his own rough core to hear the little mews, cries, and demands of encouragement from Abigail’s parted lips.
She had weaved a strange sort of hold over him, captured him with her little odd ways, her unique mind, and body that haunted his dreams—and in this reality, one where he had pressed up against a desk, his hand buried in her sex, the other holding up her skirts—Robert was certain these actions far surpassed his fantasies.
“I…” Her voice cut into his focus. “I can’t…there’s a…” It had to be the first time he’d seen Abigail at a true loss to describe what she needed from him. That in itself was enjoyable to realize.
His own desire was growing rougher, his member harder, as it pressed against the tight grip of his fashionable pantaloons, his cock desperate for the feel of sliding deep within her.
How he could picture her spread out before him, stripped bare of the excess of clothes, out on the silken sheets of his hotel bed.
Their bodies joined, moving in quick fast movements stifling toward a fierce release, or perhaps then turning toward tender yet twisted shapes as he lifted and shifted her body to better accommodate his own desire.
These explicit images dancing before his mind’s eye spurred him on.
The sound of his breath came out in harsh gasps, matching Abigail’s own.
Forcing himself away from his own baser needs, and how wondrously good he was certain it would feel to be buried deep within her, Robert redoubled his efforts.
His hands moved more thoroughly over Abigail’s tight little peak, hidden amongst her wet curls, the movement circulating and pressing again, eliciting a deeper cry from her and she started to edge toward utter abandonment.
When he finally tilted his hand upwards, first one and then his second finger slipped inside her, Abigail gave a sharp piercing cry, her body shaking in response, the grip of her hand on his shoulder tightened and the one on the table loosened, as color flooded her face, and she gasped out her release.
He snatched up her mouth in a kiss, needing to feel her reaction, the movement surprising him as he kissed her fully.
The moment was fierce and all-consuming as they both shuddered together with delight and shock.
“I never really knew,” she finally whispered, her mouth pressed close to his, seeking his own, keen for another kiss. Their foreheads were leaning against each other’s as they paused, trying to find the right words, the correct expression for what came next.
So, he kissed her thoroughly, his tongue sinking into her mouth and robbing her of further talk. He would rather kiss her than say what had rushed to the tip of his tongue. Admit what he feared he might say to her…
I love you.
The desire to say those three words to her had occurred to him as naturally as his next breath.
In fact, he had to stop himself from making the declaration.
Next came a rush to whisper an eager agreement with her earlier sentiments, to say ‘I never really knew either’—because he hadn’t.
He could not have known how it felt. With her, it was entirely different from anything he had experienced before.
This act somehow went further, tying them together in a way he had not ever expected when they’d entered the workshop and began this dalliance.
His mind was all too aware of this, that was why it sought out the explanation of love.
This he reassured himself with—it was simply a newly intense set of feelings—surely it could not be love.
No indeed, Robert Davenport did not feel such soft, warm hopeful emotions.
No, it was too dangerous to give into those feelings.
But sadly, his body was all too aware of the difference, as Abigail eased back and started to straighten her skirts, adjusting herself back into her former appearance Robert forced himself to turn away from her.
He was all too aware that he had entirely lost control of himself, and the evidence was now to be found beneath his pantaloons, with his own release having occurred as Abigail found hers.
If it was not so dire, he might have found it amusing.
“That was wondrous,” Abigail said, reaching out and touching his shoulder. He did not trust himself to turn back toward her. What if those desperate feelings reared their head again and he was let loose babbling away to her? “Robert?”
“It is better when a man and woman can truly be at one together, but I do not think a wooden bench so close to the walkway, an especially wise place for this to occur,” he said, forcing himself to turn back toward her, tucking any overt emotion away, and sidestepping away from her, so she could see the evidence of his own reaction to her.
But all Abigail did was smile. “I will have to come to your room again.”
“That is not what I meant to encourage. There would be a risk of…of you increasing…”
“I believe men might take certain precautions,” Abigail said brightly.
Robert had to curse his desirous Abigail.
How she could combine both the worldly and the na?ve of viewpoints, to be so clever and yet to seek him out…
They had agreed earlier for him to take her to London, to help secure the sale of her new discovery, the admittance of her ambitions.
Robert knew whatever he might find down here that could be treasonous and involved smugglers would need to be fed back to the baron.
He would also be required to help Abigail.
It would not be done out of obligation or because of the dictates of his purses, no, instead he would do what she commanded because he needed to see that culmination of her joy and purpose united once more.
It would not be enough to bed her, and leave, it would not be enough to simply take her to London with her discovery—he would have to do it all.
He sighed and realized that she was making toward the door, abandoning him as this realization formed in his mind.
“Where are you going?” His tone was sharper than he meant it to be, full of need for her to stay close, for the moment not to be broken.
“We need to fetch the hired men we spoke of,” Abigail said with a shrug, not understanding why he was not following her gist. “We had agreed we would need their help with our discovery. I mean to have it out by nightfall, and here in this workshop safe. I will just go to Pocock and Walsh, they and a few of their quarrymen will help. It will not be too long. They are efficient and will not cost too much. My father hired them before, and I know other treasure seekers use them too.” She blew him a kiss before darting out of the workshop, all brightness and excitement at the new world before her, aflame with both their actions and by the task of freeing the rest of her sea creature.
She was gone, leaving him alone with the task of cleaning himself up, and likewise condemning himself to hell for both his damned actions, which he set about doing.
As he dwelt on it, and the confounded stupidity for loving her as he did, and on the irony that he had told he could never wed her.
After all, that was the sad truth. How could he marry her when she did not even know his real name?