that she didn’t attend many parties after that.
Now, so removed from that world of Mayfair snobbery, Penny could look back on the scene and appreciate the absurd humor. Once she started giggling, she couldn’t stop.
“The worst of it …” She wiped away tears of laughter. “The worst of it was, one of the patronesses—I can’t recall which one—fainted into the lemonade. She was standing behind me when I fell, and when she saw the hedgehog rolling across the floor …” She buried a giggle in her palm. “She thought it was my head. That I’d somehow decapitated myself when I hit the floor, and my head had gone rolling.”
He shook his head. “Astounding. I never dreamed I’d say this about Almack’s—but I wish I’d been there.”
“If you want to visit, you’ll have to find someone else to take you. My voucher was revoked,” she said proudly. “For life.”
“A pity.” He propped his head on his folded arm and regarded her intently. “So what’s the true reason?”
“The true reason for what?”
“Your retreat from society. Your life as a wallflower.”
“I just told you.”
“You told me a story about one embarrassing moment, years in the past. I’m to believe an earl’s daughter was exiled from the ton over a hedgehog?” He shook his head. “No. There must be more to it than that.”
A knot of panic rose in her throat. She didn’t have another story prepared. Everyone accepted the hedgehog incident as reason enough.
Everyone but him, it would seem.
“I believe it’s your turn,” she said, deflecting the question. “If you want to hear more about my tragic youth, you had better share a story from your own.”
“I don’t have any stories fit for a lady’s ears.”
“Come now, man of mystery. Tell me something. Anything. Your family, your schooling, where you were raised. Surely you have a scar somewhere with an interesting story behind it.” Smiling coyly, she poked him in the ribs. “Here, perhaps?”
He winced in indignation. “What do you think you’re—”
She ran a tickling stroke down the underside of his arm. “Or maybe it’s here?”
“Minx.”
He grabbed her wrist and ducked his head under her arm, lifting her over his shoulder. She shrieked with laughter as he dragged her out from under the quilts. For a moment, she managed to wrestle out of his grasp, but he yanked her back with a tug on her ankle, turning her over his knee. She tickled his belly, and when he cursed and flinched, she gained the advantage.
She straddled his thighs. When he reached for her, she caught his hands and tucked them firmly under her knees. She braced her hands on his torso.
There. She had him pinned to the bed at his hips, hands, and chest. He could easily overpower her once he caught his breath, but for the moment he was her captive.
Her hair hung loose about her neck, and her shirt—his shirt—tugged to the side, slipping down over her shoulder as she gloated in triumph. “Every creature has a soft underbelly. I’m going to find yours.”
“Search me if you like, Your Ladyship. I warn you, it’s not softness you’ll find.”
Search me if you like.
Penny couldn’t resist that invitation.
She trailed a light touch along his collarbone. Keeping his hands pinned with her knees, she ran her fingers over his chest, furrowing through the whorls of dark hair and tracing the contours of his muscles. She pressed her thumbs to his firm, flat nipples.
Years ago, Penny’s mother had brought her a clockwork music box from Austria. It had a scene of a shepherd and a maiden on a mountaintop, and there were levers and handles on all sides. Sliding one made the shepherd bow. Cranking another made the maiden twirl. Turning the key produced a tinkling, friendly tune.
As she explored his body, Gabriel did not bob or twirl. He certainly didn’t hum any tunes. He growled, moaned, winced, and cursed. Yet despite all these sounds of seeming displeasure, he made no effort to discourage her. He made his body hers to explore, just as she’d been longing to do ever since he’d come upon her that first night, draped in a towel and dripping wet.
With one finger, she drew a teasing line down the center of his chest, all the way down to his navel.
He bucked his hips. His erection grazed her sex, and she gasped at the sudden contact. Their bodies were separated by the fine lawn of his shirt and the wool of his trousers, but she could feel him—his length, his heat, his hardness.
His desire.
She’d felt triumphant in tackling him to the bed, but that was nothing compared to the surge of power rushing through her now. The thick, hot column of arousal wedged between her thighs—it was for her. All for her. Excitement rocketed through her body and came to settle in her sex, melting into a soft, throbbing ache.
Desperate to soothe that ache, she rocked against him. The friction sent a pulse of bliss through her body. Judging by his tortured groan, he felt it, too.
His head fell back against the mattress. “God. Yes. Again.”
“Ask nicely.” She levered her weight onto her knees, pressing his hands deeper into the straw-tick mattress and lifting her pelvis to break contact. “Ask me by my name.”
After a grumble of complaint, he gave in. “Lady Penel—”
“Penny,” she corrected. “Call me Penny.”
She was every bit as desperate as he was for more, but she couldn’t let the opportunity slip from her grasp. She’d been asking him to use her name for days now, and this might be her one chance to make him comply.
He gritted his teeth. “For the love of God, woman.”
“Penny.”
“Fine. Penny. There. Are you happy, Penny? How many times do you wish to hear it, Penny? Damn it, Penny. I’ve been craving this the whole cursed day, Penny. I’m going mad with lust, Penny. Penny, Penny, Pen—” She lowered her hips to his. “Christ.”
“That will do for now.”
“Thank God.”
She shifted gently, easing to and fro until his hardness nestled snug against her cleft.
Instinct took over. Penny braced herself on locked arms, hands flat against his chest, as she rubbed her body over his in a slow, steady rhythm.
“That’s it,” he murmured, rocking beneath her. “Just like that. It’s good?”
She nodded, too drunk on sensation to be missish or shy. “So good.”
“Go on, then.”
“Go
