Cerise sucked in a sharp breath. Lady Vickers might have a whole lot more than an unfaithful husband to worry about if she’d heard what she thought she’d just heard.
By the way Wil’s shoulders had hardened into stone, she guessed she’d heard correctly.
A murder. Now that was a case worth her time. Much more interesting than these cheating husband ones. The only reason she did these was because…well, because Wil asked her.
As much as she told herself it was better to keep her distance, her heart insisted she say yes whenever the infernal man came knocking.
Wilberforce infuriated her, yet she couldn’t seem to stay away.
He was a temptation, a lure away from her calling. And no man would ever take her from the stage. It was where she belonged.
She nudged Wil’s side, trying to shift him so she could peer around the edge of the door.
He pushed her further back into the shadows. He gave a quick jerk ‘no’ to his head and put a finger to his lips.
She frowned, but listened intently.
“And it was clean?” Vickers asked.
“As clean as killing a man can be.” There was a hint of amusement in the other man’s voice, and a shiver raced down Cerise’s spine. To speak so casually of taking another person’s life…
Her stomach curdled. She’d taken a man’s life before. There had been nothing casual about it.
“Were there any witnesses?” Vickers huffed, sounding exasperated.
“Nay, nothing to come back to you. The rest of my money, if you please.”
Wil edged to the crack in the door, peered through.
Cerise narrowed her eyes. Oh, if he got to peek, so did she. She wedged her shoulder between his chest and the door, dropping beneath his chin. She felt rather than heard the grumble emanate from Wil’s body. Too bad. She blinked, trying to make out the shapes in the next room. Vickers she could see clearly enough. He had his coat off, and his pantaloons were so tight they made his arse look like two fat hams trapped together. But the other man stood where the candlelight didn’t reach. His body was in shadow. Only his boots, and the long gash running along the toe of the right one, were clearly visible.
Metal clinked as Vickers handed a cloth sack to the man. “Hopefully I won’t have need of you again.”
The assassin slid the pouch into his coat pocket. “If you do, you know where to find me.”
A knock sounded on the door, and the killer slid deeper into the shadowed corner.
Vickers yanked the door open. “What?”
A house maid dropped a neat curtsy. “Evening, milord. I’m here to turn back your bed and get a fire going in your bedroom.” She breezed through the door, oblivious of the earl’s scowl. “If you’d like a bath, I’ll send some men up with a tub. I hear you’ve already eaten, but—”
“I desire nothing but your absence!”
She shrugged. “As you like. I’ll just light the fire and be gone.” She trotted toward the bedroom. Toward Wil and Cerise.
Wil swore and slammed the door shut, locking it. He ignored the commotion from the outer room. “The window,” he said as he hauled a bureau in front of the door.
Something crashed against the thin wood, the earl’s shouts of outrage coming from only inches away.
She darted to the window and dragged it open. It squawked awfully, but it didn’t matter. There was no longer any need for stealth.
She and Wil poked their heads out. One story wasn’t a long way down, but still. It would have been nice if a helpful lump of hay had been left at the bottom for them.
Wil lifted his bad leg up and over the sill, his face a determined mask. “I’ll go first. Wait until I tell you, then jump.”
Cerise narrowed her eyes. Of all the times for the man to get bossy. “I’ll jump when…”
She was speaking to air. With a whisper of trousers against wood, Wil was gone.
She leaned over the sill to see him slowly press to his feet. He kept all of his weight on his right leg.
With a wobble, he turned and looked up. He raised his arms. “Now you.”
She shook her head. The man thought to catch her? He was fou, crazy. She’d crush him and then break her own neck.
“Now!” he whisper-hissed.
The door behind her creaked on its hinges with each blast it took from the earl. And perhaps also from the man who found it so easy to kill.
Swallowing, she lifted her skirts and swung up onto the window sill. She flipped onto her stomach and eased herself down until her boots nudged the ridge of the window below her.
She looked down at Wil, then turned her face back to the wall, closing her eyes. Why did she let the blasted man talk her into these things? It wasn’t like he even had a smooth tongue, not like his employer did. It should be easy to resist his entreaties.
“We don’t have time for childish fears.” He clapped his hands. “Jump. I’ll catch you.”
Childish?! He was expecting her to trust a man to catch her from a one-story fall? A man with a bad leg? And he called that childish?
Wood splintered inside the room, someone shouted, the sound much too close.
“Woman!” Wil didn’t bother to keep his voice low. “Let go of the window! Now!”
And with a quick prayer and an emptying of all her senses, she did.
And crashed into Wil, taking him down hard to the cobblestone street.
He groaned, the sound filled with pain. She rolled off him to examine the damage. Wil grabbed his thigh with one hand, right above his knee, and swiped his other wrist beneath his nose, smearing the blood that dripped from it.
“Stop!” The earl shouted from the window.
Without looking up, after all, no reason to show the man her face, Cerise grabbed Wil’s arm and tugged him to his feet.
As one, they turned and ran from the inn.
A hank of her hair tumbled from its pins. She touched her head and pulled up sharply. “My cap!” Twisting, she saw it on the ground beneath the window.
Wil grabbed her elbow and took off running again, pulling her along in tow. “Forget it.”
Of course, he was right, but it wouldn’t do to have him think she agreed so readily. “The theatre will want it back,” she grumbled. After rolling in the streets, the whole costume was probably ruined. She’d have to replace it before Wilson, her stage manager, noticed it was gone. At least the Bond Agency wasn’t stingy when it came to expense accounts. She’d write them a bill for the costume when she got back home.
There were more shouts behind them.
If she got back home.
She moderated her sprint to keep pace with Wil’s limping gait. When she tried to duck under his arm to help support him, he grunted and pushed her away.
Typical man.
They took the corner, and the next one, and finally pulled up next to the carriage the agency owned. Without waiting for the driver to climb down, Wil hauled the door open and tossed her inside. He followed and pounded the ceiling. “Go!”
Cerise pulled his handkerchief from his inside pocket and pressed it to his face. “How bad is your leg? Do you need a doctor?”
He glared at her over the white linen. “My leg is fine. Did you have to flail your arms about like a windmill as you fell?”
She ignored that. Tumbling from a window probably hadn’t been her best look. She placed her hand on his left thigh and rubbed gently.
Wil stiffened, his fingers clenching around the bloody handkerchief.
“Yes, you appear quite well.” She slid open the front window and called to the driver. “My place, if you please. And be quick about it.”
“Cerise, I don’t need—”
“Nonsense.” She pulled at the linen to check his nose. The bleeding had stopped, but the swelling was just starting. “I have an ointment from Paris, much better than your English medicines. We will go there, tend to your leg, then try to forget zis miserable night ever happened.”
“I need to return to the office.”
“Would you launch an investigation into the murdered man when everyone sleeps? Rouse Lady Vickers from her slumber?”
“No,” he gritted out. “But—”
“And is the victim not already dead?” She pressed her back into the corner of the carriage and crossed her arms and legs. “No one can be saved tonight by your hard-headedness. You will let me look after you.”
One edge of his lips quirked. “Why, Miss DuBois, I didn’t know you had a nurturing side.”
She pressed her lips together. They had just barely escaped death, and the man joked. “I do, but it isn’t too big. You will use the ointment and then you will leave. Understand?” There could be no more intrigues between them. It was becoming too hard to say goodbye.
The humor fell from his face. “Understood.”
They traveled the remaining distance in silence, with only a grunt from Wil when the carriage hit a large rut. He grabbed his thigh and squeezed until they pulled in front of her small townhouse.
She tried to squeeze past him to exit first, to be able to give him a shoulder to lean on as he climbed down, but he seemed to anticipate her move, smoothly gliding in front of her and hopping down before the carriage steps were pulled out. He landed with his weight on his good leg.
“Foolish, pig-headed man,” she muttered.
Wil followed her up the steps and into her home.
She nodded to her footman. “I will not need anything else zis evening.”
He bowed, and drifted away. Always discreet, her staff.
She untied the apron of her costume and folded it as she walked. “Follow me.” She led him to her sitting room and pushed on his shoulders until he dropped onto her settee. “Wait here. I’ll return with the ointment.”
In her bedchambers, she kicked off her boots before removing the salve from her bedside drawer. The medicine was new, unused. She’d told herself she bought it for her sore feet. Pacing a stage all day did tend to tire them.
But she’d lied to herself. She’d bought it for him. For a time just like tonight when he pushed himself beyond his limits.
The man didn’t believe in limits.
That was their main problem.
When she returned, a fire roared in the grate and Wil was back on his feet.
“Do you not understand the concept of rest?” She detested the peevish quality to her voice, but this man excelled at drawing it out. “Will it take tying you to a bed to get you to stay off your leg?”
He raised a glass of her Scotch to his lips and examined her over the rim as he took a sip.
Her cheeks heated and she turned away. Most men would have a clever insinuation after she misspoke such. But not Wilberforce. No, he was content to watch her, and wait. Always waiting.
And she never knew for what. Her stomach twisted. Wil would never harm her. Never press her for more than she was willing to give. Yet she feared this man like no other. Feared what he could do to her. What he could make her feel.
But she would never let him see it.
“Take off your trousers.” She placed the ointment on the table next to the settee and waited.
Wil strolled toward her. His limp was faint. She knew he battled not to show it. Not to anyone, but especially not to her. He was an idiot if he thought it made him look less of a man. If anything, the small hitch in his gait made him appear wicked, piratical, and it sent a shiver straight down her spine.
He didn’t feign modesty. Didn’t argue the proprieties. He stopped inches from her and stared into her eyes.
His eyes were a dark mixture of grey and green, like a storm-tossed sea. His gaze made her want to hide sometimes. Other times, the dangerous times, it made her want to bare herself to him completely. Let him be the one person to knew her like no other.
Her breath stalled in her chest as he watched her. When she thought she could take it no more, he handed her his glass and slid out of his coat. He tossed it on the back of the settee, never taking that uncanny gaze off her face. Sometimes she wondered if he was a witch. What other explanation was there for the things he made her do? Made her feel?
He peeled off his braces, tugged loose his cravat. He sat to take off his boots and trousers, his smallclothes sliding down his legs with them. He rose to his feet, wearing nothing but his shirt, and clenched his jaw as his bad leg took his weight.
And he watched her.
Waiting.
Seeing what she might do. Putting himself in her hands.
Cerise pushed him back onto the settee. “You need to rest your leg,” she told him as she grabbed the jar of salve. “Zis job you do for your agency, it is not good for you.” Or safe.
She shoved that thought out of her mind. She pushed his shirt up his thighs, ignoring the inches of hard muscle she revealed, and dug her fingers into the ointment. She rubbed it into his thigh in small circles.
“My job is fine.” His thigh twitched beneath her fingers, tensing before slowly easing under her ministrations. “But I should not have brought you into it. I thought it would be a simple case of a cheating husband. I won’t make that assumption again.”
She paused. “You don’t want my help any longer?”
He was silent a moment before, “I do not.”
She slowly rubbed more salve into his leg. The ointment contained ginger root and it warmed between their skin, making her fingers hot and slick. She raised a shoulder. “I only did it as a favor to Netta in any case.” The woman had recently married the Earl of Summerset, one of the founders of the agency. A fellow actress, Netta was her closest friend.
Her only friend.
A woman in Cerise’s position couldn’t afford to trust easily. A solitary life was best. Even if it left her feeling empty at times.
She sniffed. Such maudlin thoughts would best wait until she was alone. “Besides, helping you was interfering with my rehearsals. It is for the best.”
His silence held weight.
Her shoulders inched upwards. “Is there something you wish to say?”
“If you’d let me, I could find you other employment.”
Cerise dug her thumb into a particularly stubborn knot in his thigh.
He hissed.
“Do you find something objectionable in my current employment?” she asked.
“It isn’t proper.”
Ah, yes. Because all stage actresses were assumed to be women of low moral character. She pressed on the tendon above his knee. Little better than a light-skirt. She slapped some more salve on his leg.
“I’ll have no more discussion on zis matter,” she said. “I am an actress. It is who I am.”
He lifted one shoulder. “You saw fit to comment on my occupation. I see no reason I shouldn’t do the same.”
“But I did not insinuate that your occupation was immoral, and you immoral for doing it.” She pressed her hands to his legs, preparing to push away.
Wil grabbed her wrist. Waited until she looked up to meet his gaze. “It isn’t safe.”
Yes, because people thought actresses had low morals, men could become troublesome. The tension she’d been carrying in her muscles released. It wasn’t her he was judging. “You know I can take care of myself.”
“Yes, you’re good at taking care of yourself.” He pulled on her wrist, reeling her in to kneel between his legs. “But there are times when you need someone else to take care of you, too.”
Her pulse leapt, and he rubbed his thumb over the vein in her wrist, a slow smile curving his sensuous lips when he felt it. Felt what even the smallest touch of his could do to her.
The log in the fireplace popped.
Cerise swallowed, a bead of sweat gathering between her breasts. The heat consuming her body had nothing to do with the flames and everything to do with the man before her. She’d known where this night would lead when she took the job. Known her resistance would be weak.
He made her weak, and for the next few hours she wanted to ignore that inconvenient fact. She wanted to feel alive, feel the way only Wil seemed able to make her.
She ran her palms along his thighs, watched with interest when the front of his shirt tented with his erection. “Are you saying you want the job of taking care of me?”
“Yes.” He lifted one of her hands and pressed a kiss to her palm before nipping at the fleshy part where thumb met index finger.
Her heart stuttered. “Only for tonight,” she warned him, her voice husky. “You know zis cannot happen again.”
“If that’s what you want.” He rolled to standing, pulling her up with him. He took her mouth the same time he scooped her into his arms and strode for her bedroom. It was a little disconcerting how well he knew his way.
She wrapped her arm behind his neck. Opened to him. The man truly was gifted with his tongue. The space between her thighs grew slick as he slid that tongue over hers. As he tasted every inch of her mouth.
He laid her across the bed, reached one hand behind his neck, and pulled his shirt over his head in one smooth motion. He stood before her, completely bare, and she bit her lower lip.
He was a beautiful man, even with his bad leg. Maybe even more so because of it. His chest was wide and hard, dusted with dark hair. His waist and hips were narrow. His cock, upright and proud. She could spend hours worshipping that cock. It was thick and long and reached places inside her she’d never known she had.
And his legs… His right thigh was strong, the muscles clearly defined. The left bore a jagged white scar running from above his knee to the inside of his mid-thigh. That leg was smaller, the muscles not as developed.
She didn’t know what had happened. He wouldn’t tell her. But she knew it had been painful. That’s he’d had to be strong to survive it. To work his way through it to be able to walk again. And that was what made him beautiful. His will. His courage.
He didn’t hide his scar from her, but she knew he hated it. Hated that she saw it. And Cerise wished yet again that he could see what she did. See the man who overcame, not the man who walked with a limp.
“You are wearing much too many clothes.” Grabbing her ankle, he pulled her closer and flipped her skirts up to her thighs. He leaned down, kissed her leg above the edge of her stocking then peeled the strip of silk down and off her foot.
He moved to her other thigh, added the tip of his tongue to his kiss this time, before stripping her leg bare.
She pressed her thighs together, trying to ease the ache. She couldn’t appear too needy. Appear to want him too much. He could use that against her. Argue for something more permanent.
And at times like these, she didn’t know if she had the strength to resist him.
She hooked her fingers under the hem of her maid’s gown and shimmied it up to her waist. Wil placed his knee on the mattress and helped her it the rest of the way off.
She wore no chemise, no stays. The better to tease that earl to see if he would sample her wares.
But Wil approved of her simplicity of dress, too. His eyes flared wide before settling into a hooded look. He scraped his teeth over his bottom lip, looking for all the world like a man who’d just been presented with the tastiest, juiciest steak he’d ever seen.
And she couldn’t wait for him to eat her up.
He slipped his hand between her legs and slid them apart. His gaze was fixed on her cunny as he ran the tip of his finger along her outer lips. “So wet for me already. How do you want it, Cerise? Hard and fast? Do you want me to fuck you so you’ll feel it tomorrow? Or do you want slow and thorough?”
“You know how I like it, Wil.” With him, it was always hard and fast. They were always too needy, too desperate to take it slow. And she loved feeling the ache from him the next day. Feeling like he’d ravaged her with every step she took.
She arched her hips, rubbing her clit against his finger.
Wil growled. He grabbed her behind both knees and spread her wide as he yanked her closer. “Someday, you’ll take it slow from me. Take it until you’re begging me to move faster, to give you what you need.”
It was a threat he liked to make. “But not today.”
“Not today.” He lowered his head, his breath ghosting over her tight curls. “Today I’m going to fuck you so hard you’ll see stars. I’m going to fuck you raw. But first,” he said, bending even lower, “I’m going to start with dessert.”
He put his mouth on her. His sinful, infuriating lips that she wanted to both smack and kiss senseless.
Only now, he was the one making her senseless. He nibbled around her sex, nudged her clit with his nose, teasing her until she wanted to scream in frustration.
She threaded her fingers in his thick hair, tugged on his head, trying to increase his pressure.
Wil raised up and brought his palm down on the inside of her thigh.
She gasped at the sting, her core clenching.
“No.” He swung his head from side to side, his eyes darkening. “You get to direct our tupping. This is mine to control.”
He kept his eyes on her face as he went back down. As he slid his tongue in a leisurely path up her slit. As he slowly plunged that tongue in and out of her channel.
He pulled back, lapped at the wetness rolling down her groin, cleaning her like a mother cat.
Cerise gripped the coverlet. She was going to kill him. Rip his tongue out, pleasure herself with it, then shove it down his throat and choke him with it. This was why she didn’t want more with him. Insufferable, teasing, tormenting man.
He pressed his lips around her clit and sucked.
Her hips bucked until he grabbed them, held her steady. Increased the pressure until she couldn’t breathe. Couldn’t think. Could do nothing but spiral tighter and tighter and tighter…
She prayed to God, the king, to Wil, that he wouldn’t stop. That he’d never stop. But in French, so he wouldn’t understand.
Her thighs clamped around his head. Heat gathered at her core. Built… Built…
She flew apart with a scream. Her body thrashed, the jolts from her crisis shaking her so hard she felt it in her bones. Wil lapped at her gently, keeping her riding the waves, easing her down when it became too much.
He crawled up her body, gripped her chin, and kissed her deeply. She tasted herself, her need, and his desire. She tasted hope and heartache in that kiss, and tears burned behind her eyes.
“Now.” She dug her nails into his arse, widened her legs in welcome. “Inside me now.” It was easier to fuck. Easier to lose herself in his lovemaking then face everything that couldn’t be between them.
He eased the bottom ridge of his length between her slick lips. On the downstroke, his crown notched at her entrance. He pushed in an inch.
“You want this?” he asked.
“Yessss.”
“You want me to bury my cock deep in your sweet cunny?”
She strangled her moan. She loved when he talked filthy. Loved how he made her feel like the most desired woman in the world. Like he would take up residency inside her body if he could.
“Please,” she whispered, tilting her hips.
He pressed in a little deeper. “You want me to tup you like a dirty, little wanton and then take my leave and forget about you?” His eyes blazed.
She turned her head, hating his intensity. “You know I do.”
He pulled out to his tip, then thrust deep. Her walls stretched deliciously, the pinch of pain melting into pure pleasure.
“Fuck me,” he groaned. “I could never forget this. Never forget how good you feel, your sheath hot and wet, gripping my cock like a drowning sailor a life rope.”
She shuddered around him. Yes, this felt amazing. He felt amazing. But this was just one last liaison before they said goodbye. He’d move on; so would she.
They had to.
He sank the last inch home, his ballocks resting against her bum. He dropped his forehead to hers. “I hate the reason, but I love sinking into you bare.”
Her throat went thick. She’d told him it didn’t matter to her. She couldn’t have children, and it was for the best. It was better for her career. She told him this, but he didn’t believe her.
Sometimes, she didn’t believe herself, either.
Every doctor she’d seen had confirmed the diagnosis. It was a heartache she tucked away, one she could usually ignore. She would have a great life, even if she never was a mother.
And it made moments like this so much sweeter. Moments when she could feel… every… hot… velvety… inch… of him.
“Move,” she demanded. His patience, his restraint was a thorn in her side. He said it made their crises that much sweeter when he made her wait.
Perhaps he was right.
But she wasn’t at her moment of completion now. Now, she was aching and needy and didn’t want to delay her current pleasure for a future one.
He got up on his knees, his thighs pressing hers wide. He reached his hands under her shoulders and gripped her head. He held her pinned in place, open for his taking. His fingers tangled in her hair, pulling at her skull as he thrust into her.
He eased out, so slowly she could feel the bulging veins in his length, then pounded back in hard. Her bed shook. Her thighs ached. And she loved every second of it. “More. Harder.”
He bit her shoulder. Complied with her demand. Gave her everything she needed.
“Mon dieu.” She reached overhead, grabbing her headboard. Let the swirling sensations steal her thoughts until all she could do was feel.
His length scraped along her nerve endings, hitting a spot deep within that made her moan. Lights danced behind her closed eyes. Her muscles coiled tight. Her lungs squeezed.
And she was flying. Coming apart as the orgasm ripped through her.
His thrusts faltered, fighting against the resistance of her squeezing core. Wil redoubled his efforts, rammed into her harder, making a second orgasm sweep through her body.
She would be walking as unevenly as he tomorrow.
And she couldn’t bring herself to care.
This was the last time Wil would be between her thighs.
She wanted to feel the evidence of him imprinted in her forever.