Chapter Three
Rule Four:
Never Mistake a Confession for Surrender
The carriage ride to Limehouse was silent yet charged, the air rippling with the chemistry circling them.
Attraction was attraction, Laurence had learned long ago.
A man could want someone or something, desperately, despite wishing not to.
Despite knowing he was setting himself up to give away pieces he’d best not share.
The woman sitting calmly across from him—God, he admired her composure—didn’t understand he was still that starving, unkempt lad.
Lonely and filled with a hunger for things he had no business wanting.
He’d acquired all of them, of course, every bloody one.
Except for her.
Persephone thought him changed, swayed by the posh accent and showy clothing, the rumors and affairs and visits to the opera.
The hurt in her gorgeous silver eyes, the doubt on her face, as if she’d mistaken them both, had led to this.
(When it came down to it, he couldn’t let her think she’d been wrong about him.)
So he’d brought her here, to his real home.
Tupper opened the carriage door when they arrived, his eyes as wide as saucers since Laurence gave him the address on Three Colt Street.
The air was thick with coal smoke and the stinging smells from the vendors roasting meat and fish, booming with laughter from the public house on the corner.
It was not, in a single glance, anywhere she’d ever been before.
Yes, he’d longed to tell his coachman, I thought it a grand idea to invite a duke’s unaccompanied daughter to the rookery.
When he’d never brought anyone here.
The warehouse they entered was well maintained, as it should be since he owned it.
In fact, he’d secured every dwelling on the street and upgraded them until they were the nicest flats with reasonable rents to be had in the borough.
He refused to make money from other people’s sorrow.
Unknown to most, even Dorsey, Laurence Thorne was becoming one of the most benevolent landlords in the district.
He held the top two floors, with the others leased to members of the Rookery Rebels.
Persephone followed him up the metal staircase without a word, their footfalls echoing softly, knowing when to press her agenda and when to hold her tongue.
At the top, standing before the oaken door he’d purchased from an estate in Hampshire once owned by an earl, he opened it before he could talk himself out of it.
If she could handle this emotional storm, he could.
Closing it behind them, he let her go. Let her look.
Pouring brandy into a pair of cut-glass rummers he’d obtained from the same unfortunate earl, he sipped from one while she took him apart piece by piece.
Starting with the bookshelves filled with volumes he actually read, to the spectacles he kept on his desk, to the snuffboxes he’d been collecting for going on ten years.
She selected his favorite at once, its blue enamel lid framing a miniature storm at sea, the tiny ship within it pitched hard against white water.
Clean, costly, and unused, it opened beneath her thumb with a click so precise it felt like a warning.
“Word is, it was in George IV’s personal collection,” he said nonchalantly, even as his skin warmed, the urge rising to stop her with a kiss, to move her mind off what she was seeing before she asked another question. Which she would.
Also, he wanted to touch her more than he wanted his next breath.
Without comment, she deposited the snuffbox in its place and moved on.
Through a broad wash of sunlight piercing the floor-to-ceiling windows and into shadow at the far end of the room, her gown shimmering as she moved, silk the color of emeralds held under candlelight.
She halted at the pianoforte. The keys were worn, the sheet music he’d finally learned to read scattered about the walnut surface.
She played a three-note melody before she saw it.
He shoved off from his spot against the sideboard when her tarnished silver gaze struck his in astonishment.
“It doesn’t mean anything, Perce,” he pleaded, his voice cracking, betraying him.
“You kept this,” she breathed, the ivory hairpin one she’d lost on a mad ride through the Yorkshire countryside years ago that he’d never managed to return. It was his good luck charm, his talisman, an item usually tucked in his trouser pocket.
It was all he’d had of her until now.
Instead of softening her, the find seemed to do the opposite.
“You’re not going to admit it, Laurie?” she asked, turning the hairpin between her trembling fingers. “Even now?”
He stalked across the room, temper, lust, and anguish burning in his veins.
He didn’t stop until he stood before her, reaching to cup her jaw, tilting her watery eyes to his.
“I’ve loved you since I was ten years old, is that what you’d like to hear?
Since the day you brought bread and cheese to the stables because you could see a famished boy needed it.
Since we raced through fields of clover, then told each other our secrets, things no one else in the world knew.
We were children, unaware we should hide what was happening, friendship turning to more, perhaps, at the end.
But my father saw it, saw the fondness in my eyes, and he threatened to tell your family.
I had no choice. I left to protect you.”
Laurence shook her gently, his hand sliding to cradle the nape of her neck.
Her gasping breath struck his cheek, breaking what was left of his restraint.
“I didn’t want to, though I’m glad I did.
Because I would have ruined you and you would have ruined me.
At least I got away from my father, though I lost you. ”
She leaned in, rising to her toes and pressing her mouth to his. “You didn’t lose me, Laurie, that’s what I’m trying to tell you,” she murmured against his mouth.
Their first kiss was a coup de c?ur, a blow to the heart. Gentle, tender, a beginning.
Then it was more. Soon, it was everything.
She tasted of the blackberries she’d had at breakfast, tart and sweet.
Melting against him, her lips opened beneath his, welcoming exploration, welcoming madness.
Racing ahead of any plan to go easy, he backed her into the pianoforte, a lone key trilling as his hand curved over her bottom, guiding her into a desperate rhythm as the kiss took them deeper.
He was hard where she was soft, her curves yielding to his, the fit perfection, her fingers tangling in his hair as they began to make love standing up.
“I want…” she murmured against his jaw, and he answered before she could finish the thought, his mouth lowering to savor the sweet curve between her neck and shoulder, biting lightly. He’d dreamed of this, of her, for too long to deny them—and his weakness was as palpable as her determination.
She was stronger-willed than he was, not a surprise. She always had been.
In any case, there were no secrets here should he hope to hide his need; he’d decided that the moment he shared this world with her.
Linking their fingers, he led her across the warehouse’s planked floor and down the narrow corridor to the enormous labyrinth he’d outfitted as his bedchamber.
The bed in the middle of the room was huge, canopied, the satin spilling over it and to the carpet, its color not far from her eyes.
He’d wanted hues of a dying sunset, grays and blues and dull yellow, in the one place he’d found peace.
Before he could ask, she turned, bowing her head and presenting the row of hooks securing the back of her gown. “I’m sure, Laurie, I always have been. Let’s leave uncertainty where it belongs, since we’ve waited years for each other.”
He unhooked her gown, baring her creamy skin to his gaze.
He was delighted to find a freckle on her shoulder blade.
It tasted as glorious as it looked. “Addictive, your skin. I yearn to caress every inch of you, burn the vision of you tangled in my sheets into my mind. I long to know everything about you, every dream, every hope, but if I may, can I have this first?”
She laughed, when nothing she did should surprise him, and turned, holding bunched emerald silk against her breasts. His name was a whisper on her lips as her gown tumbled to the floor.
She was the most beautiful thing he’d ever seen.
It was a race to disrobe then, though he’d been more adept in his dreams. No stays for her, only a chemise and petticoat to contend with. They laughed as their fingers caught in silk ties and fumbled with buttons. There were breathless kisses interspersed with whispered promises.
When her fingers brushed his cock, pressed against his half-undone placket, he tried again, “Perce?”
“Laurie,” she returned, flipping open the last button, her voice a delicate shimmer in the quiet chamber. Then she removed his spectacles and set them on a side table.
Returning hungrily to the kiss, they circled the short distance to the bed, where he kicked off his trousers and drawers, then brought her to him. The first touch of her body against his with nothing between them erased every other experience from his mind. He was reborn.
Persephone was as adventurous here as she’d been racing through the fields of Yorkshire, grasping his shaft and slicking her thumb over the swollen crown and the bead of arousal gathered there.
He wasn’t going to imagine where her understanding of the mechanics had come from.
At this moment, he couldn’t. All that mattered was that she was his.
They fell to the mattress in a tangle of limbs, questing hands, and fevered sighs. Her nipples tightened into hard knots beneath his lips, beneath his circling tongue, as she cried out.
Her hand curled around the nape of his neck, holding him to her. “I love this,” she whispered, the words almost soundless. “My word.”
So, this was new.
Hypocrite that he was, Laurence savored this.
He’d never experienced such intimacy, never come close to this before.
There’d been no danger of losing his heart, no risk to his soul, only base physical satisfaction.
Love changed everything, demolished his typical catalogue of moves until he was merely following along behind the girl he’d loved with every beat of his heart, the woman he suspected he loved even more.
Sliding his hand beneath her bottom, he tilted her hips higher and ground against her, his shaft pressed against her sex.
A throbbing ache gathered at the base of his spine and climbed higher, making him shiver.
“I’m going to make you come so many times, Perce,” he whispered, the promise hidden in the warm curve of her neck.
“Though the first for us may be quicker than I’d like. ”
Her arms circled his shoulders, bringing him fully atop her. “I think of you when I’m alone, Laurie. Always.”
“Show me how,” he rasped, the thought rendering him helpless.
She reached between their bodies and began to touch herself. His hand joined hers, parting her folds, his thumb settling over the aching center of her. She was hot, silken, wonderful.
“I have you,” he said, reclaiming her lips.
Her cries were raw, slipping from her throat into his.
Their skin grew slick as they moved together, the breeze sliding through the open window the only thing cooling them.
He cradled her jaw, deepening the kiss as he slid a finger inside her.
He’d never touched a woman while she touched herself, and the fusion sharpened his excitement until his own release crept close.
But they had time—one night, at least.
Her moan was strangled against his cheek as pleasure pulled her from the kiss. Sharp teeth nipped beneath his jaw, sending his pulse soaring. Bloody hell, the things he wanted to do to her.
“Look,” she murmured, her silver gaze catching fire as it met his. “Us.”
It was then he noticed the full-length mirror he’d leaned carelessly against the wall.
His breath caught at the glimpse of their bodies intertwined across his bed in a spill of dying sunlight, the crimson sheets already tangled about them.
He stroked faster, watching her hips rise to meet the thrusts, her lids fluttering, her head tipping back against the mattress.
The erotic sight shook him to the core.
“You undo me, Perce,” he whispered as she came apart, throaty groans breaking from her, her nails digging into his shoulder.
His own orgasm building, he held her through hers, then positioned himself, sinking inside her, pushing her higher.
The iron bedstead shook as he curled his fingers around a rung and drove into her.
“I promised you more,” he said, sweat beading on his brow. “But I’m close, sweetheart. Again?”
She bumped her hips against his, humming a hoarse reply he prayed meant yes.
It did.
Laurence lowered his mouth to hers as he thrust, the bed shuddering beneath them, her body a heated invitation below his. She clung to him, legs circling his hips, laughing once against his mouth, a broken, breathless sound that ruined him more thoroughly than anything else could have done.
There was no cunning left in him. No practiced skill. No safe distance.
There was only Perce. The woman saying his name as if she’d kept it safe all these years for this moment alone.
Laurence followed her over with a groan he couldn’t contain, his forehead dropping to hers, his release tearing through him.
For a long moment, neither of them moved.
The chamber fell silent, redolent with spent pleasure, the faint salt-damp breeze from the window cooling his back.
Below, wheels rattled over the stones, a vendor called out in the street, laughter rose from the public house on the corner.
None of it reached him. Not past her breathing.
Not past the soft drag of her fingers through his hair.
“There you are,” Persephone whispered. “With me.”
And after thirteen years of running, he was.