Chapter 32
Arthur
“This is ten times what I’d normally pay.” Gwen stared at the tube of mascara.
I’d suggested we stop in the duty-free shop on the ferry before checking into our room.
Despite the change of clothes Merlin had arranged, we were both missing a lot of our routine items. I had the duffel across my body and the sword case in my hand, while she carried her messenger bag.
Between us, we were wearing everything we had until I could either get us home or get our bags delivered from the hotel in Troyes.
She’d made a beeline for the makeup shelves, but duty-free shops rarely stocked drugstore brands—assuming that was the price discrepancy she was concerned about.
“I’ve got it,” I said. “It’s a business expense.”
She dropped it into the small shopping basket she’d grabbed at the entrance. “This is a pro bono job. You’re not making any income to cover those expenses.”
“Lance wants to put it under marketing.” I kept my voice light, because light was working and I wasn’t about to fuck up whatever was going on between us. “He’s planning a whole press release about the authentication, so you’ll need to be camera-ready for the photos.”
She laughed and swatted my chest, then wandered down the aisle to pick up a bottle of… I had no idea what.
I watched her for far too long. Were Bridget’s words still weighing on her?
Or what had happened at the archive? It had only been a day and a half since someone had put his hands on her and threatened to kill her.
Less than twenty-four hours since Rick had me pinned against the wall, with his arm at my throat.
Tonight, braless in ill-fitting jeans and an oversized hoodie, she was more relaxed than at any point since we’d met.
Correction: The most relaxed, other than last night, after I’d made her come twice and we’d fallen asleep in each other’s arms.
Good thing it was a pro bono job, because if she’d paid us, I would have had to refund every dime for breaking protocol.
The thought of Lance and Merlin reviewing the expenses made me bite back a laugh.
I could almost hear Merlin’s lecture if I’d had to offer a refund and told him why.
He would have assumed Lance was the most likely to sleep with a client.
Although… Galahad had slept with the client he was hired to protect. So there was precedent for it. But he wasn’t working for us at the time, and they were living together now, so his scenario was different.
Although his had been a pro bono job, too.
Maybe Round Table Security shouldn’t be doing pro bono jobs.
I wandered into the fragrance section. Rows of bottles lined the glass shelves, with brand images interspersed between the displays.
I browsed until I spotted the Bleu de Chanel and grabbed a bottle.
It was a stupid thing to care about while we were fleeing Rick and his thugs, but the cologne would help me feel like myself.
“The best part about your dirty clothes”—Gwen appeared beside me—“was how they smelled like sandalwood.”
“Sandalwood?”
“And citrus.” She held out her basket, now loaded with a few cosmetics and a gargantuan bar of Swiss chocolate.
I held the box up to show her. “This is what I usually wear.”
“It’s perfect on you.”
Decision made. I placed the box into her basket. “Can I carry that for you?”
She tipped her chin toward the duffel and the sword case. “You’ve got two things. I’ve got two things. I think I’ll manage.”
Fair enough.
I paid for our supplies, and we headed to our cabin.
Gwen swiped the keycard, pushed the door open, and we both froze.
A queen-sized bed took up most of the room, with a seating area by the porthole.
No bunks, no narrow couch. It was significantly nicer than our first crossing.
It was roughly the same square footage as the safe house, but the bed looked much more comfortable.
So did the chairs. Fuck, the floor looked more comfortable.
“That’s unexpected,” said Gwen, standing next to me.
I stepped inside, scanning the walls for a fold-down bunk. The confirmation email called it a two-person berth. Our first crossing had been a four-person berth, with four separate beds, so I’d assumed this one would have two.
She dropped her messenger bag on a chair and peeked out the porthole. “It’s like a little cruise ship.”
I opened the bathroom door and took stock. “There’s a full shower in here, too. Mind if I hop in and out?”
“Go for it. I’ll unpack,” she said with a laugh.
If the Navy had taught me anything, it was how to shower in under two minutes. I stretched it to five to get the flecks of blood out of my hair. When I came out, damp but fully dressed, Gwen was standing outside the sliding door at the back.
“It’s got a tiny private balcony with deck chairs.” She came back in and closed the door, frowning at me. “Did you do anything other than wet your hair?”
“I’m fast. It’s all yours.”
“Thank god.” She grabbed the shopping bag, handed me my cologne, and said, “I may not come out until we reach England.”
“Enjoy.”
The door closed, and a moment later, the water started.
I put the duffel on the padded bench at the foot of the bed and sat in one of the chairs. Had Merlin known there was a queen-sized bed? Or had he, like me, read two-person berth and booked it without checking the details?
Or had Lance figured us out and put Merlin up to it as a test?
My fucking friends were a pain in the ass.
Or…
Or I had one bed, a beautiful woman, and nowhere to go until morning. We were as safe on the ferry as we’d been anywhere in the past week.
I leaned back in the chair and closed my eyes.
In the car, I’d told her things I’d never told anyone. Not Lance, not Merlin, not the counselor the Teams had made me see after my deployments, and especially not the one Pendragon had assigned to me after Task Force Legacy.
No, I’d shared it all with Dr. Gwen Lyons, and she’d turned it on its head, trying to convince me I knew what love looked like.
The voices normally swirling around my head—mostly my father’s—should have ripped her argument apart. Should have lined up every piece of evidence that I was cut from the same cloth as my father and informed me she was wrong.
Instead, they were all silent.
So I let my mind wander. To the kitchen in the short-term rental, where I’d kissed her after swiping the sauce from her chin—no matter what she said, I was certain I had been the one to initiate the kiss.
To last night, with her body under mine, when I’d drawn so many more noises from her than the cake sound.
Those fucking sounds would live in my memory forever.
And how she’d nestled against my chest and fallen asleep.
I wanted all of it. Tonight, tomorrow night, and the night after that. I wanted to spend all the time in the world learning how every inch of her body tasted, how to make her laugh so hard she cried, and how to tease out the smile that made the warm thing in my chest pulse.
I wanted—
Easy, there, Penn. You’re getting ahead of yourself.
The bathroom door opened, and steam billowed out around her. She stood in the doorway in a towel, her hair wet, and her skin flushed. She’d tucked the end of the towel between her breasts. All it would take was one little tug to free it.
Our eyes met. She batted her eyelashes at whatever she read in my face, and my dick twitched. “Have you thought any more about what we talked about in the car?”
Had I fucking ever. “Yeah.”
“And?”
I stood up, crossed the cabin, and scooped her off the floor.
She let out a half-squeal, half-laugh. “Put me down! You’re injured!”
“We’re not going far.” I carried her to the bed and set her down on the mattress. The towel slipped, and neither of us fixed it.
“Did you want to share your thoughts?” She tipped her face up to mine, the towel barely covering her breasts now.
“I’d rather show you.” I lowered myself over her and nipped her bottom lip.
I pulled the tucked edge of her towel free.
She was warm and damp from the shower, and when I pressed my mouth to her collarbone, she moaned.
Time to learn even more about what she liked.
I kissed my way down. Between her breasts, across her ribs, along the curve of her stomach.
She sucked in a breath when my mouth reached her hip bone.
“Arthur…”
I kept going. Down the inside of her thigh. At her knee, I let my tongue retrace the same path.
“Oh, Arthur,” she sighed.
Down the other leg. She gave me the noise I’d been waiting for—the one that was simply Gwen. I shifted my weight, and the butterfly strips on my forearm pulled, a sharp sting I pushed past. I kissed her ankle, the inside of her calf, the soft skin behind her knee.
“That feels amazing.” Her voice dropped to a low rasp, and my cock strained against my jeans.
“I might be down here a while.”
She giggled and gasped as I kissed the crease of her thigh. Her fingers threaded into my hair, stopping me from returning to her ankle. “Please.”
I dragged my tongue through her wet folds. “You taste so fucking good.”
Her whole body tensed and her thigh pressed against the side of my head.
My ribs protested the angle, a dull ache radiating along my entire right side. I teased her with my tongue the way I’d used my fingers last night, reading her responses and adjusting until her fists balled in my hair.
“Oh, god, Arthur. That’s so—” Her breathing hitched, and her fingers clenched tighter, bracing my face against her soaking pussy.
I anchored her thigh with one hand. My other hand slid up her stomach, and she grabbed it, squeezing hard.
“That’s it. Right there. That’s—” She sucked in a tremendous breath and wailed, “Arthur! Oh god, Arthur!”
I held the rhythm, held her thigh, held her hand, until her hips rose and finally fell. Her grip on my hand and my hair released. As she softened, I kissed the inside of her thigh and rested my forehead between her breasts while she came down from the high.
My cock strained against my zipper, but it would have to be patient.
“Get up here,” she eventually whispered.
I crawled up beside her and ran a hand through her hair. “Was that clear enough?”
“Pretty clear.” She hooked a leg around my hips. “But I want you inside of me again.”
I took her hand in mine and guided it over the evidence of how much I wanted her. “I only had the one condom.”
She cupped my balls through my pants. “Lucky for us, I picked some up at the gas station before Caen.”
I pulled back to study her face.
She waggled her eyebrows as though she’d won a minor victory. “I was hoping I’d get through to you on the drive.”
Even after I’d told her about my fucked-up family and my screwed-up ideas about love, she still wanted me. Was it just the sex? Just the convenience of an overnight ferry passage?
Or did she want more?
Was there any point in arguing right now?
That thing in my chest squeezed so hard, I almost had to acknowledge it.
Except she rolled off the bed, gloriously naked, and swayed her hips all the way to the chair where she’d left her messenger bag. She dug through the side pocket and came back with a small box, tossing it onto the bed beside me.
“You are a fucking brilliant woman.”
“I know.” She climbed onto the bed next to me and pulled my sweater over my head. She paused at the bruises on my ribs. Her fingers hovered. “Does it hurt?”
“Not enough to stop me.”
Her lips brushed the edge of the bruise, featherlight against my skin.
I should have been thinking about Tintagel. About how we’d approach it, how I’d keep her safe, how Rick was out there with people behind him. But Gwen’s fingers were working my belt open, her mouth was on my neck, and I was about to give my woman another orgasm.
I’d deal with Tintagel later.