THIS
She should push him away.
She didn’t.
Beatrice kissed him back.
And in that moment, all the restless thoughts. All the questions. All the aching uncertainty that had finally driven her from her bed and into the pale morning street simply… vanished.
There was only Gideon.
His mouth. His hands. The rough sound he made when her fingers slid into his hair.
He pulled her closer, and she went gladly, rising onto her toes to reach him better as though this—this—was what she had been meant for all along.
Then…
A shift in the air behind him.
“My lord—” A pause. “Er… my apologies.”
The door closed at once.
Gideon eased his mouth from hers. Just barely. Only far enough to breathe while the world came back into focus.
The public street. The morning sunlight. His house.
And Gideon—embracing her in full view of anyone who might happen upon them.
Still, he did not release her. For a moment, neither of them moved.
“You had better come inside.” His words broke the spell.
Gideon released her only enough to turn toward the door, his hand settling at her back as he guided her over the threshold.
The door closed behind them.
And still her lungs refused to cooperate.
He had kissed her. Mon Dieu.
Her lips still tingled from it. Her fingers curled, still wanting the feel of him. His coat. His hair. The solid line of his jaw beneath her touch.
And now, she was inside his house.
She had come here before, when she’d asked him to teach the lessons. She had sat in his drawing room and spoken quite sensibly about practical matters.
This did not feel sensible.
“My lady,” the butler said, as though this were an ordinary call at a respectable hour. As though he had not just opened the door to find her unapologetically clinging to his employer.
Beatrice unfastened the top clasp of her cloak and handed the garment to the butler with as much composure as she could manage.
Her hands were not quite steady.
All the while, Gideon stood beside her silently.
He had invited her inside.
But why?
To kiss her again? To apologize?
Or worse? To tell her he had forgotten himself. To wrap that devastating mouth around words like honor and restraint and ought not until she wanted to strangle him?
Her mind raced, tripping over one dreadful possibility after another.
And through all of them, one thought remained unbearably clear.
She wanted him to kiss her again.
By the time he led her into the drawing room, Gideon seemed to have recovered himself mostly, but Beatrice…
Had not.
His hand fell away from her back as he gestured toward the sofa.
“Sit,” he said. Then added, “Please.”
Beatrice hesitated for just a moment, but then sat.
He remained standing long enough for her to wonder if he meant to pace while he lectured. Instead, he lowered himself beside her and then dragged one hand through his already-disordered hair.
Beatrice turned enough so that she could study him.
This man, this morning. He was not Lord Hawkins as everyone knew him.
His coat was plain and dark, the cut serviceable rather than fine. His cravat was grey and loose, his jaw unshaven, his hair badly in need of a comb. There was a roguishness to him that ought not to have been appealing.
And yet it was.
Which was, frankly, inconvenient.
“You look…” She stopped.
His eyes shifted to hers. “Yes?”
“Different.”
A faint, tired curve touched his mouth. “That is charitable.”
“It was not meant to be.”
“No?”
Then she leaned a little nearer, caught the scent of smoke, sweat, and spilled whisky, and her amusement faded.
How had she not noticed that before?
But of course, she knew precisely how. She had been rather occupied with other matters. Occupied with his mouth, his jaw, the warmth of his skin against her palm.
Which made it all the more unsettling that the scent of disreputable places clinging to his coat did nothing to repel her.
Rather the opposite, really.
“You smell like a… like a brothel,” she said softly. “But you don’t drink spirits.”
The moment the words left her mouth, the other reason a gentleman might smell of such a place flashed into her thoughts.
Oh. Oh! Beatrice went still.
“That’s because I spent half the night in one,” Gideon said.
All the breath left her lungs, and for half a second, something cold unfurled in her, something ugly and entirely unwelcome.
She swallowed hard.
Gideon could go where he pleased. He was a grown man. Definitely not hers.
Even if, for one impossible moment on his stoop, he had felt almost like he might be.
“But not for the obvious reason,” he added.
Her gaze snapped back to his.
“I didn’t say—”
“You thought it.”
“I did not.”
His brows lifted.
She looked away first. “I have no claim on where you spend your evenings.”
“No,” he said quietly.
She needed to leave. Before she said something foolish. But then…
“Though, I would not have you believe that of me,” he added. “Not now.” A little half smile. “Not ever, really.”
Gideon dragged a hand over his jaw, looking suddenly even more tired than before. “I was seeing to a matter of business.”
Business?
At her confusion, he added, “I preferred not to be recognized.”
So… it was a costume. He had dressed thusly so as not to be seen.
Business.
Beatrice believed him.
And then she knew.
“That man,” she said slowly. “Mr. Groby.”
His expression provided her answer.
“You have been… watching him.”
Gideon looked toward the window rather than at her. “I have been attempting to learn what he is about.”
“In brothels.”
A muscle tightened in his jaw. “Among other places.”
Beatrice sat back, the sharp little sting she had felt moments before giving way to something else.
Gideon was a respected member of society. Wealthy. Titled. He was by no means required to stay up all night loitering in foul rooms instead of the comfort of his own home.
But he was doing it anyway.
For that friend he and Dash lost: Sebastian Hartwell. For the Duchess of Lovington, perhaps, and a legacy that wasn’t even his own.
Because Gideon Rothmore carried responsibility as though it had been stitched into the lining of his coat.
“And that is why you sent Lord Longstaffe to teach the lessons?” she asked.
Gideon’s gaze dropped to his hands. After a moment, he nodded. “Partly. Yes.”
Beatrice held her breath. “And the other reason?”
At that, his gaze came back to hers.
He looked exhausted. Unshaven. Far too serious.
“You know the other reason,” he said.
She exhaled.
Yes.
She did.
He had stayed away because of Groby.
But also…
Because of her.
Because he had wanted to kiss her.
In that charged moment, neither of them moved.
Then Beatrice turned toward him. A shift of her knee against his. Her hand on his shoulder.
That was all it took.
For the second time that morning, their mouths met in a rush. Beatrice couldn’t tell whether she had kissed him or he had kissed her.
But it didn’t matter because his hand was gripping her waist. Hers slid to his jaw. When he pulled her closer, she went, skirts catching against his leg, her breath breaking against his mouth.
There was relief in it. Desire. Yes. And heat. But also…
Relief.
Like she’d been underwater for all of her life and finally come up for air.
The kiss on his front step had been unexpected, a thing that had happened before either of them could stop it.
This was different.
This was not an accident.
Gideon made a low sound against her lips, and the last sensible thought in her head vanished.
His tongue touched hers, slow at first. A question. A warning. Then again, claiming her with a hunger that felt almost indecent. As though denying himself the taste of her mouth had left him aching and empty.
Such a possibility made her heart flutter.
He tasted of tea beneath the smoke. Warmth. Weariness. A faint trace of something bitter and clean that was only him. His tongue traced the edge of her teeth, drew a needy sound from her throat, and then she was tasting him back, clumsy only for a moment before instinct took over.
It should have embarrassed her.
It did not.
Nothing had ever felt like this.
Beatrice drew back just enough to breathe, and her gaze locked with his.
Hazel eyes, now gone darker at the center, pupils large, gold and green reduced to a thin, burning ring around all that black.
He looked focused.
Ravenous.
He kissed her again and this time, a slow heat spread to her breasts. To her belly, between her thighs, a heat that startled even as it compelled.
“I want—” she began, though the words got lost against his lips.
“Beatrice.” He released her mouth only to find her jaw, her cheek, the sensitive place just beneath her ear. His unshaven skin scraped over hers, rough enough to send a shiver down her spine.
His hand slid to the curve of her hip. The other braced high beneath her breast, close enough that his thumb could have brushed the underside of it if he moved a fraction.
He seemed caught between restraint and ruin, not quite pulling her closer, not quite letting her go.
A little lost.
A little wild.
Good.
She felt the same.
Beatrice did not want careful.
She wanted him.
She wanted the truth of him.
Fumbling with her skirt, she turned more fully toward him.
Gideon’s hands were there—firm at her hips, helping, lifting—and she went willingly, following the pressure of his touch until, in the next breath, she was settled across his lap, her knees pressing into the cushion on either side of his thighs.
The contact between them was intimate, undeniable, and it ignited a carnal ache she'd thought lost forever.
For one startled instant, she recognized it.
Then she was lost to it.
Her thighs tightened around him. Her hips tipped forward, rocking, seeking the hard line of him through all those maddening layers of fabric.
She threaded her fingers through his hair and an almost violent tremor passed through her.
It ought to be frightening, what she was doing—chasing pressure, friction—a connection her body wanted before she even thought it.
She could stop this if she wanted to.
She was in control.
“That’s it,” Gideon murmured, his mouth brushing her throat. “I’ve got you.”
“I know.”
And she did.
She knew it in the loose hold of his hands, in the careful stillness of his body beneath hers, in the tightening of his throat each time she shifted against him.
He wanted more. There was no mistaking that.
His breath had gone rough. His fingers flexed once at her hips, then deliberately eased again, as though even that much pressure was more than he would allow himself.
He wanted.
But he did not take.
He did not push. He simply held himself still and let her discover what she wanted.
And God help her, that undid her more than any coaxing or demand ever could.
Gideon was not asking her to surrender.
He was letting her take control.
She moved very deliberately. And Gideon, he groaned. His hips jerked. Right there.
“Yes—”
Gideon gripped her backside. Helping her grind and shift, stealing the air from her lungs.
“Oh—”
“There you are.” His voice was rough and low. “Sweet God, there you are.”
Her throat tightened. “Gideon,” she breathed against his mouth.
He tasted—warm. Always of tea. And something else. Something wholly his.
She wanted more of it.
More of him.
Pushing. Sliding. Beatrice felt everything. The heat coming off his skin. The sinewy strength of his muscles.
His mouth left hers only briefly—his kiss pulling at her throat—the scrape of his beard that, oh my… more.
More of that ungodly friction. Primitive.
Utterly improper.
“Please—” she began, but she wasn’t sure what she was begging for.
His hand slid to her throat, his thumb beneath her jaw. She was captured, but also, entirely free. “Just like that. Let yourself have it.”
The world narrowed.
To the loose, careful hold of his hands. To the throbbing beneath her.
“Gideon—”
Her fingers dug into his coat. She moved against him without thought, without shame—and the pleasure answered, fierce and bright and overwhelming.
Again.
And again.
Wave after wave rolled through her until she could do nothing but hold on to him and shudder through it, wild and lost and impossibly alive.
Then, slowly, it loosened its grip.
The room came back by degrees.
The quiet.
His ragged breathing along with the steady, impossible tenderness of his hands.
Beatrice collapsed against him, cheek pressed to the warm skin of his neck, feeling like liquid in the aftermath.
And as she rested, one stunned realization moved through her.
She had never truly believed in this.
Not that her body that could come apart and, somehow, feel more wholly hers than it ever had before.
The thought was too large to hold for long, so she did not try.
She only stayed there, listening to the beat of his heart. That quiet, persistent rhythm. The proof of him beneath her cheek.
She did not know how long they remained that way.
Long enough for the frantic pounding of her own heart to ease. Long enough for the shocking intensity of what had just happened to settle into something softer.
And still—He did not let her go.
He just held her.
And somewhere in that lingering haze of feeling, Beatrice realized that this was how Gideon had always been.
There. Comforting. Helping… With a quiet devotion.
Patient. Supportive.
Safe.
She stirred at last, drawing back enough to look at him properly.
His hair, already disheveled, was thoroughly ruined now. His cravat was all the way loose and his usually composed self nowhere to be found.
And yet, somehow, beneath all that, he was still Gideon.
If not a little warmer, and a little less… guarded.
“This,” she said carefully, “is not why I came here.”
His brows lifted sharply right before a smile tugged at his mouth.
“I didn’t think it was,” he murmured. “Though I have learned to expect the unexpected where you are concerned.”
Despite herself, Beatrice laughed. Or tried to. The sound emerged softer than intended, and perhaps a little breathless still.
“You are well?” he asked.
The simple sincerity in his question seemed to swell inside her heart.
“I think,” she admitted slowly, “I may never be quite the same again.”
He did not say anything right away, his thumb brushing lightly across her wrist where he still held her hand.
Until finally: “I should hope not.”
For a short while, Beatrice let herself sit there with him, her hand in his, pretending there was nothing beyond this room.
This moment.
This place.
But the world was still waiting.
It was morning. She was in Gideon’s drawing room. At some point, Beckman House would stir, and someone would notice her absence.
And they would tell Dash.
Who’d demand to know where she’d gone.
Or perhaps he would not.
That thought settled less comfortably than the first.
Dash, who had once noticed everything. Dash, who had of late seemed to drift through his own house like a man who’d misplaced some vital part of himself and lacked the will to search for it.
Beatrice drew her hand back slowly.
“Can I ask you a favor?”
He was prevented from answering, however, by a persistent knocking at the door.