He spread apart the placket. “Ah, that’s better.”
Her eyes jumped to his face.
He was smiling, watching her. “Gets tight when I’m big.”
She bit her lip, unable to keep her gaze from returning to his lap. His white undergarment showed there, a thick column outlined beneath.
“You want to see it, don’t you,” he murmured, squeezing himself. “Want to see me.”
She licked her lips. “Yes.”
“Then watch,” he whispered, and pulled loose the string that kept his smallclothes closed. He braced his feet against the floor and lifted his hips a fraction, pulling down the front of his breeches and smallclothes.
It popped free, ruddy and thick, bigger than she’d imagined. He held it upright for her so that she could look her fill. It seemed to pulse against his fingers, the shaft wrapped with twining veins, the hood beginning to pull back from the swelling head. It looked wet there, as if he wept, and she swallowed heavily.
“Watch,” he said again, tightening his fist, running it from the root to head, bunching the loose skin at the head when he reached the top.
Her chest felt constricted and her stomach in contrast was warm and somehow liquid. Something tingled between her thighs and she knew somewhere at the back of her mind that she should stop this. Make him put himself to rights. Close her eyes against this wanton, lewd display.
Oh, but she didn’t want to.
She didn’t want to.
Her eyes flicked to his face, reddened now, his eyes mere slits. He was watching her. As if her gaze was important to him as he worked himself.
As he touched his cock.
She inhaled on the thought of the word, looking back down. He’d pushed his shirt out of the way with his other hand and she could see the flat muscles of his belly flexing as he worked himself. A tangle of dark hair surrounded his navel, narrowing abruptly below to a thin line that disappeared into the thicket of curls around his cock. He sat, spread-legged, still dressed in white shirt and gold waistcoat, his scarlet coat spread wide around his thighs. His feet were braced against the floorboards and she could see his hips begin to move, thrusting up into the steady rhythm of his fist.
He looked like a debauched satyr, all sex and male desire, and she had a sudden wish that he’d taken all of his clothes off. She wanted to see his nipples and his buttocks, wanted to discover the broad sweep of his nude chest.
He’d laugh and let her, she knew. Somehow she knew. Asa Makepeace would do anything she asked. He had no shame.
No, more: he reveled in shamelessness.
And she was glad—so very glad—that he was such a man. At what other time would she ever have the chance to see this, a man lost to his own needs, gasping now, panting with his exertion? This would never happen again in her lifetime and she was suddenly fiercely happy that she’d had the courage to ask him to show her this.
Oh, but she couldn’t think of that now. Now, at this moment, when this incredible thing was happening in front of her, she had to absorb it all. Had to commit the sights and sounds and, dear God, smells, to memory.
Her nostrils flared as she inhaled. There was a musky scent in the air, salty and animal, and it made her clench her legs together.
He grinned suddenly, his white teeth gritted together, as if he knew what he did to her. His fist was moving faster now, the deep red head of his cock appearing and disappearing between his fingers. It shone, fully revealed, and so big she bit her lip.
“Now,” he grunted. “Now, Eve, watch me. Are you watching me?”
“Yes,” she moaned.
The muscles stood out in his neck as a white liquid erupted from his cock, flowing and spurting, his legs shaking, his hand slowing.
And the entire time he watched her.
LETHARGY STOLE THROUGH Asa’s limbs as he watched Eve through heavy-lidded eyes. Her face was flushed a soft pink; her bosom, veiled by a soft fichu, lifted and fell rapidly.
She was aroused.
He knew it even if she didn’t, and that—more than his shockingly good orgasm—satisfied him.
Asa closed his eyes and hummed to himself, feeling the sway of the carriage as they traveled through darkened London. It was strange. He wasn’t touching her—couldn’t touch her—and yet he felt closer to her than he had to many women he’d fucked. Perhaps because the act he’d performed was an intimate one. Perhaps because she’d obviously never gone so far before.
Or perhaps it was simply because he’d done this for Eve.
Just Eve.
“Is it…” Her soft voice roused him from drifting into sleep. “Is it always like that?”
He opened his eyes. She was still staring at his half-hard cock, lying naked and redolent on his thigh. He smiled. It was always nice to be admired by a woman. “Mostly. Sometimes better, more often not quite as good.”
He sighed and sat up, then wiped his hands on a handkerchief before tucking his cock away and doing himself up.
“Thank you,” she said.
He looked up. She was biting her lip, a small line between her eyes. Was she regretting what they’d done? Or worse—thinking that she’d done something wrong?
“You’re welcome,” he said gently. It was a pity that he couldn’t show her more. He’d like to make her feel the wonder of an orgasm.
To go through life without ever experiencing that—well, it was a tragedy, really. And that it was Eve who was so frozen… he frowned to himself. Something about its being she made it particularly wrong. Eve should be free to fall apart, to let herself go without hesitation or fear.
It was a fundamental wrong in the world that she could not.
The carriage jerked to a stop suddenly, nearly sending him flying into Eve’s lap. At the same time a shot blasted the night and someone shouted, “Stand and deliver!”
What the hell? They were in the middle of London.
“Get down!” Asa hissed at Eve.
Only just in time, too. The door to the carriage was wrenched open. A masked man stood there, brandishing two pistols.
Behind him Eve whimpered in fear.
Rage, white-hot and purifying, burned through Asa’s veins at the sound.
The masked man grinned.
“Fuck.” Asa rose into the man’s face. “You.” He knocked one arm aside. “Who.” The pistol shot blasted through the seat cushions as he grabbed the other arm. “The fuck.” He wrenched the arm up toward the ceiling. “Do you.” The second pistol shot through the roof. “Think you are.” Asa took the pistol from the other man. “You fucking.” He reversed it. “Little.” And struck the man across the face with the embossed butt. “Poxy.” Blood spurted from the highwayman’s nose as he fell out of the carriage screaming. “Prick?”
Asa tossed aside the empty pistols and leaped after the man. Outside, a second masked man sat on a horse gaping at his partner, who was writhing on the ground.
“How fucking dare.” Asa strode to the prone man and kicked him in the bollocks. “You threaten.” The fallen man wheezed, his hands flying from his bloody face to between his legs. “My lady.” Asa reached down, picked him up by the back of his coat, and shook him hard enough to make his head flop back and forth. “You sodding fuck?”
“Let him go.” That was the second highwayman, his voice high and panicked.
“Gladly.” Asa dropped the first highwayman, and prowled toward the mounted man, his hands lax by his side.
The second highwayman’s eyes showed white behind his mask and the pistols he had trained on Asa trembled. “What… what are you doing?”
“I’m going to pull you from your fucking horse, take away your bloody pistols, shoot you in both fucking knees, and then I’m going to beat your sodding brains out against the cobblestones,” Asa said.
One of the footmen squeaked.
The first highwayman made a sudden valiant move for freedom, scrambling onto the second highwayman’s horse. The horse wheeled, and in seconds more the sound of its hoofbeats
was receding into the distance.
Asa was actually rather disappointed.
He looked back at the driver and footmen. They appeared unhurt, although their eyes were unnaturally wide.
Asa remounted the carriage. “Get us out of here.”
He ducked in and flung himself onto the seat just as the carriage rattled into motion.
Across from him Eve didn’t seem to have moved since the attack had begun. She was still huddled in the corner, her face white, her eyes closed as if to block out the world.
His brows drew together in concern. “Eve?”
She shuddered and opened her eyes, looking at him dazedly.
Asa got up and moved to her side of the carriage, but when he reached for her she shrank back. “Don’t touch me!”
He tightened his jaw, looking away from her. He was not hurt by her obvious fear of him. “So you hate me now?”
“No.” She shook her head. “No, of course not.”
“But you won’t let me touch you.”
She glanced away. “I don’t let any man touch me.”
“Am I any man, Eve?” he asked, hard and blunt. He shouldn’t be pushing her now, not when she was in shock and still shaking, but he couldn’t stop himself. He was tired of this.
He hated her fear of him.
“No… I…” She swallowed. “You were so violent.”
“I was protecting you!” He winced at the loudness of his voice in the small confines of the carriage.
“You didn’t need to—”
“Bullshit.” He turned—not touching her, no, God, not that—but facing her on the seat. “I’ll use any means necessary—any fucking violence I want—in order to keep you safe. Do you understand, Eve? This isn’t bloody negotiable. I will fucking kill if it means it’ll keep you safe.”
Oddly, his harsh words seemed to steady her. “I understand,” she said quietly. “I know intellectually that you needed to hurt that man.” She twisted her hands together in her lap. “But emotionally… I just… I can’t get over this fear.”
She sounded angry at herself, and he wondered if she even knew how frustrated she was.
“Fine,” he said. “Fine. You can pull away from me for now. You can keep your distance and shake. But Eve, I’ll not let you do it forever.”
She looked up at that, her blue eyes wide and startled. “What do you mean?”
“I mean,” he said, a deep sense of rightness spreading through him even as he gathered the words, “that I won’t let this stand. I will touch you. Sometime. Somewhere. I’m going to touch you all over, Eve, and what’s more, you’ll enjoy it.”
His voice had deepened as he’d spoken until the last words left his mouth in a purring rumble. He could feel his cock stirring at just the thought of touching her.
Of her permitting his touch.
She watched him as if mesmerized, her pretty pink lips still trembling, and when she parted them to speak, he had to drag his gaze up to her blue eyes. “But… but you promised not to touch me without my invitation.”
“And I won’t,” he vowed. “You’ll be asking me to touch you, Eve Dinwoody, never fear that.”
Her eyes widened as the carriage rocked to a halt, and he realized that they’d arrived at her house.
He stood, then opened the door and jumped down to set the step for her.
Asa turned back, automatically holding out his hand to help her down before remembering.
Fuck it.
He didn’t withdraw his bare hand, but let it stay, an offering to her.
She was at the carriage door and he expected that she’d simply ignore his gesture. She clearly thought about it, contemplating his outstretched hand. But then she straightened a little as if bracing herself.
She met his eyes and placed her hand in his.
Bare skin met bare skin and he had to repress a shudder.
This was more intimate than a kiss.
He helped her down to the pavement.
“Thank you,” she said huskily.
He bowed, clearing his throat. “It’s I who should thank you for accompanying me to my family dinner.”
“I enjoyed it,” she said.
Her face glowed pale in the lamplight, and he wanted… he wanted more than she could give him right now.
He backed up a step, withdrawing his hand, as Jean-Marie opened the door to her town house, flooding the step with light. “I’d best be home.”
She looked suddenly worried. “Take the carriage. I wouldn’t want you to be attacked again this night.”
He scoffed. “I was more than able to take care of those highwaymen, and I assure you that if another such a one wants to try for my life…” He stopped, realizing abruptly that this was the second time in less than a fortnight that his life had been imperiled. Those falling roof tiles had nearly brained him and Violetta.
First the roof tiles fell, then the stage collapsed, and now highwaymen had attacked them. The chain of events was suspicious.
“What is this you say about ’ighwaymen?” Jean-Marie had descended the front steps.
Eve turned to him. “We were stopped just outside St. Giles by two men on horses. Asa—Mr. Makepeace—fought them off.”
“Mon Dieu!” Jean-Marie frowned ferociously. “Are you unhurt, ma petite?”
“I’m perfectly fine,” Eve said, her cheeks pinkening as she glanced at Asa. “As I said, it was Mr. Makepeace who confronted them.”
“Then I must thank you,” Jean-Marie said solemnly, “for doing my job.”
Asa nodded.
Jean-Marie shook his head. “So many things to have ’appened in only three days. The stage and now this…”
“Not to mention a load of shingles falling from the theater roof and nearly crushing Violetta and me the other day,” Asa said drily.
Eve’s eyes widened. “What?”
“You are under attack,” Jean-Marie said simply.
Asa looked at the other man, meeting his serious gaze. “Yes, I think I am.”
“What will you do?” Eve whispered. “You don’t…” She bit her lip. “You don’t still think it’s Mr. Sherwood behind this, do you?”
“Maybe.” She opened her mouth and he held up a hand, forestalling her no doubt impassioned defense of bloody fucking Sherwood. “I don’t know. Murder seems a bit much for Sherwood.”
Her shoulders sagged, seemingly in relief. “Then you’ll not confront him.”
“Oh, I didn’t promise that, luv,” Asa drawled, watching as her shoulders tensed again. “But I’ll wait a bit until my man at the Royal has news.”
Her mouth dropped open. “You planted a spy at Mr. Sherwood’s theater?”
“Of course.” He winked at her. “Over two years ago.”
“Oh, my God.”
He laughed at her outraged face. “I’m thinking it’s time I took that carriage home. Good night.”
He turned as her voice floated on the night air behind him. “… Night.”
Asa climbed in, the vision of her face, shocked and indignant, firmly at the front of his mind. She was special to him, his little harpy. And he’d not lied when he’d told her earlier that he’d do anything to keep her safe—up to and including murder. If that part of him, that violence that simmered beneath his skin, ultimately drove her away, he wasn’t sure what he’d do.
But he knew he wouldn’t change. That part of him had saved Eve.
TWO ACTRESSES, AN opera singer, and three dancers crowded around Eve’s desk at the theater the next morning, all of their attention on her. Behind her the dog was gently dozing, looking much better after several days’ rest with proper food, and the dove in the cage on her desk was pecking at seeds.
Eve made a notation in her notebook and then straightened. “Now let me see if I have this correct. Daisy, Theresa, and Mary will share the little dressing room on the east side on most days, but when Daisy brings in her son, Bernard, she’ll dress with Polly and Charlotte, who also have small children. Martha will d
ress most of the time with Margaret, except when Margaret is practicing her singing, when Martha will then move to the east side dressing room with Daisy, Theresa, and Mary.”
She studied the chart she’d drawn and then glanced up at the women. “Won’t that make the east dressing room very crowded, though, on the days Margaret practices?”
Martha, a willowy redhead, shrugged. “It’s not so bad, and a body can’t even think when there’s that shrieking going on.”
Margaret, who was compact and rather sturdy, narrowed her eyes. “I don’t shriek.”
“Would anyone like some tea?” Eve hastily asked, just as the door to the office opened.
Asa took one step in, his shoulders filling the doorway, and stopped dead. “What,” he asked softly, “is going on?”
Eve felt a shock shiver through her at the sight of him. It was the first time she’d seen him since last night.
Since that carriage ride.
She’d thought about him last night as she’d lain in bed alone. Remembered how his voice had deepened as he told her to watch him, and as she did so, she’d tentatively slid her fingers into the curls at the junction of her thighs.
She felt heat creep up her face and wondered rather wildly if there was any way he could tell what she’d done all alone in her bed last night just by looking at her.
Asa shot her a searing glance that made her press her legs together. Oh, dear. Perhaps he could read her thoughts.
The corner of his mouth curled as if he could and then he turned to the theater ladies.
Unfortunately, they’d all tried to answer him at once, resulting in a cacophony of sound without any meaning.
Asa raised his hands and the room fell silent. He pivoted and pointed at Theresa. “Explain, luv.”
Theresa was one of the actresses who specialized in matronly roles. She folded her arms over her bosom and said, “Miss Dinwoody’s been seeing to the dressing rooms.”
Asa blinked slowly. “What?”
“Well, some were not respecting others’ space, Mr. Harte,” Polly said, shooting a look at Mary before fluttering her eyelashes at Asa. “And now that we’ve been allowed to bring our wee ones…”