a pummelling.
Jonathon took a final swing and Greasy Hair went down. The fight was over. Jonathon didn’t wait for a declaration of victory. He shot a hard look at the gang of men, issuing a silent invitation for any and all to try him. Then he strode to her side, wrapped his arm about her and led her away.
He didn’t stop until they stepped inside the eating house. Even safe inside, his face still wore a fighter’s grim expression. His hands gripped her arms as he studied her, looking for any sign of hurt. ‘Claire, are you all right?’
‘I’m fine,’ she managed. ‘He was just rough, that’s all.’ If she said anything else, she was quite certain Jonathon would stalk out of the eating house and finish the bounder.
Jonathon pushed a hand through his dark hair, his uncooperative lock falling forward as he blew out a breath. ‘I am so sorry. This was all my fault. I never should have let you come alone. I don’t know what I was thinking. Can you forgive me?’
‘There’s nothing to forgive,’ she assured him, holding his gaze with her own to convince him of her sincerity. But her shock over all that had happened would not be held at bay much longer. It was running riot in her mind. Any moment, it would tear loose. She stared at him hard, trying to digest the transformation. Her princely gentleman, her divine waltzer, had transformed right before her eyes into a street fighter, a man of blatant power and strength and physical prowess. Why was it so hard to believe? Hadn’t she had an inkling of this last night when he’d stormed her room?
‘Sweet heavens, Jonathon, you broke his nose for me.’ She was starting to tremble. She’d never been that close, that intimate, with violence before. But he had. That much was clear.
‘He had his hands on you. I would break more than his nose for that alone.’ He growled, his voice a rasp, his face close to hers in the cramped quarters of the eating house’s tiny hall. ‘You, Claire, are worth fighting for.’ His voice cracked with a groan. ‘God, Claire, I wanted to kill him with my bare hands.’
‘I wanted that, too,’ she confessed fiercely, just before his mouth descended on hers, rough and ravaging, the power of the moment overwhelming them both.
Her fingers gripped the lapels of his waistcoat with a talon-like ferocity, refusing to let him go, her body wanting him against her, wanting him closer than even that if it were possible. Claire revelled in the rough play of it; the devouring press of his mouth, the harshness of the wall’s uneven surface at her back, the hardness of him rising against her, all muscle and male.
‘Claire,’ he gasped her name, a hungry, needy sound that made her reckless. His hands were in her hair, tugging her head back, exposing her throat to his mouth, a most delicious, decadent exposure. She’d never been kissed liked this, not even their hungry kisses in the bookshop rivalled these. She had never imagined kisses could be so primal, so wild, and that she’d want more, so much more than that wildness could offer on its own.
She tugged at his cravat, wanting his throat for herself, too, wanting any piece of him she could get. ‘Jonathon, I don’t want to eat dinner.’ Her voice sounded hoarse, as needy as his.
His carriage, the full-sized town coach, not the open-air curricle, was outside. She had no recollection of exactly how they made the short walk. Her mouth was too busy, her hands too busy to pay attention to such mundane details. Jonathon managed to give the command to drive and they were off. She didn’t care where. She only cared that she was on Jonathon’s lap, straddling him in a most unladylike but convenient manner for what she wanted. For what he wanted. In her current position there could be no doubt of that. The fight had left them restless and roused, every nerve, every sensitivity exposed.
She finished with the cravat and dragged it from his neck, her fingers moving on to his quickly discarded collar, his neck exposed to her at last. She pressed a kiss to the hollow of his throat, feeling his pulse beat hard and confident beneath her lips. It still wasn’t enough. Sweet heavens, how she ached! Her body had no trouble recalling what it now knew existed. There could be so much more than this!
Instinctively, her hips ground hard against his, asking for more. He gripped her waist. ‘You will be the death of me, Claire, if you keep that up,’ he warned, or was that encouragement she heard in his rough voice? Gone were the cultured, easy tones she was used to. ‘I know what you want, love.’
His hand slipped beneath the tangle of her skirt, his warm touch sliding up her thigh, unerringly coming to the core of her and the source of her ache. Perhaps later she’d be embarrassed, or feel some shame over the thought of his fingers teasing apart her folds, of them sliding inside her to find her wet and wanting yet again and in a coach no less, not even surrounded by the trappings of a bedroom. But now, in the moment, it was the most glorious sensation she’d ever felt. His thumb grazed the tiny nub, sending a familiar shiver through her. Only now, she knew it was merely the beginning.
‘Like that, did you?’ He kissed her long and slow, his teeth drawing out her lower lip as his thumb made another pass and she gasped, helpless against the twin pleasures he’d coaxed from her.
‘Move against my hand, Claire. Yes, like that. Do it again, and again.’ She did, her breathing turning to pants, the exquisite sensation growing with movement, with each of his passes, caresses. Their kisses turned savage, matching the tempo set by his hand and his wicked thumb—oh, sweet heavens, that thumb!
‘I think I shall burst,’ Claire confessed in ragged breaths, the pressure and the pleasure building in her without release, proof that last night had not been an anomaly; proof that he could be the source of endless pleasure for her.
Jonathon laughed against her throat, a seductive sound all its own. ‘You most certainly will. Let it happen. It’s what you’re looking for.’
She was beyond words when release came, her ability to express herself reduced to husky moans and gasps and a final, rather loud cry as the ultimate pleasure crashed over her and she clung to Jonathon as it claimed her and passed, one thought occurring to her: She hadn’t known it was possible to feel this sensation not only once but twice, this sensation for which she had no name, no adjectives in spite of having four languages at her disposal. And she certainly hadn’t known him. This evening’s events confirmed it. He was so much more than she’d ever imagined.
His arms were about her, her head resting against his shoulder, her legs on either side of his thighs. She was close enough to smell the faint remnants of his soap at day’s end mixed with his sweat, and the scents of the street. How perfectly those smells represented the mystery of him: the boxer, the fighter, mixed with the gentleman. She was close enough to know that while she’d had her need assuaged once more, his was not. She slipped her hand between them to where his erection strained unsatisfied in the darkness of the carriage. She put her hand over him, tracing the length of him through his trousers until she felt the tip of him and heard him groan.
‘Claire, you don’t need to—’ he began but she silenced him with a kiss and whisper. If he was part-street, part-gentleman, perhaps the same could be said of her. Did she smell not only of the lady but the wanton, too? The bold woman who wasn’t afraid to cry out in his arms and give herself over to the passions he roused?
‘I want to.’ Her other hand hunted in the dark for the fall of his trousers. Already, the cloth was too limiting. She wanted to touch him the way he’d touched her, no clothes, no barriers between them.
She freed him, wishing for more light. She wanted to see him and yet the darkness
