She could take that memory, just the way she’d dared to take the memory of Ahmet. And just as her memories of Ahmet had carried her through her awful marriage, her memories of Noah would carry her through the quiet, lonely years ahead.
* * *
HALF OF AN afternoon and all of an evening was plenty of time to move his ship from its moorage at the shipyard to the London docks to begin reprovisioning. It was not enough time to come to terms with the fact that he would be leaving London without what he’d come for.
It was an hour till midnight, and Noah stalked the decks of his ship like a restless specter, checking lines and sheets and guns and anything else that could easily wait for morning, but he felt a pressing need to look at now. In the dark. When the only light came from the lantern he carried and the taverns along the river.
I’ll make sure you have everything you need, Elias had said.
That was impossible. He needed not to return home alone.
You need Josephine.
No. He didn’t need Josephine. He wanted Josephine. There was a difference.
But God, he wanted her as he’d never wanted anything. The hot depth of her body around his fingers nearly killed him every time he remembered it.
He splayed his hand in the near darkness and looked at those fingers now. They’d been inside her, as deep as he could push them. She’d climaxed around those fingers.
God.
He dropped his hand and shook it as if it had caught fire. Inside his breeches, his cock swelled.
Perhaps he did need Josephine. He needed to make love to her before he left London. Finish what they’d begun in that library—but without losing any more of his control than he already had.
And there were ways to make it less personal. An image ignited in his mind—Josephine with her back to him. Smooth, satin skin, round inviting buttocks. Bending over the edge of the bed, giving him perfect access to her body without the risk of having to look in her eyes—
His breath came hard. Labored. He gripped the starboard railing, digging his fingers into the wood.
Yes. He could do it. Would do it.
He would have Josephine tonight, and he would leave London with at least one thing he wanted.
He turned abruptly from the railing and started across the deck. Stopped. Someone was coming up the gangplank—a cloaked figure he would recognize anywhere.
* * *
THIS WAS NO time for rational thought, and Josephine was determined not to have a single one as she walked up the gangplank. Clouds churned in a teasing hide-and-seek with the moon, and there was Sir Noah: blond hair in the moonlight, white shirt fluttering in the breeze, miles of lines crisscrossing the yards above him.
A mad tangle of nerves quivered in her belly at the sight of him, knowing why she was here and what she planned to do.
But she wasn’t going to turn back now. She could have this one thing. She would have it. And after he was gone, she would treasure it like a secret jewel.
She walked the rest of the way up the gangplank. Sir Noah caught her by the hand and helped her aboard.
“I was just going to come find you,” he said.
“You were?”
The words scarcely left her lips before he kissed her—a deep, intense moving of his mouth over hers, demanding the reason she’d come, telling her exactly what he planned to do about it.
“I can’t leave London without making love to you, Josephine,” he said roughly against her lips, and her breath caught in her throat. “I won’t.”
Somehow she managed to laugh, but it came out low. Breathy. “That’s not your choice to make.”
“No.” He looked down at their joined hands and toyed his thumb across her knuckles. Looked up. “It isn’t.”
The wind kicked up with a fierce gust that pulled at her careful coiffure and flipped back one side of her overskirt. His light grip on her fingers lured her like a silken snare.
This was not going to turn out the way she’d planned—she knew it now the way she knew her own heartbeat. Giving herself to Sir Noah, and then returning to her town house and her London life... It was going to be the most painful thing she’d ever done.
More painful than the last sliver of Gibraltar disappearing in the distance.
More painful than that last glimpse of Ahmet out the carriage window as her family had ridden away from the docks.
More painful, even, than those desolate months of loneliness after the wedding when it seemed there was nobody in the world who cared for her except Elias.
Noah put a hand on her face and brushed her cheek with his thumb. “You shine on me like the sun in Tangiers, Josephine.”
She closed her eyes, feeling his heat like the very rays of the sun he spoke of.
He pressed his cheek to hers, brushed his lips over the sensitive skin by her ear. “Allow me inside you tonight, and I could die a happy man without ever touching another woman as long as I live.”
The words were ridiculous. Exaggerated. And they shot straight to an intimate nerve that pulsed hotly, urgently, in precisely the place he wanted to touch.
Waves whipped by the wind lapped against the hull. Ships all around them creaked and lolled. Somewhere a bell rang, and another, fading into the distant shouts of revelry in the night. They were not alone. But the wall supporting the upper deck gave them privacy from the riverside.
Beneath her cloak, she wore a simple gown not meant to be seen outside her dressing room—but one that would be very little obstacle. Under it she wore only her shift, and her breasts hung heavy and yearning beneath the fabric. She parted the cloak and let him see her state of undress. His eyes dropped instantly to her body, and a sudden, hot impulse had her bringing her hands up to pull the fabric aside and expose her breasts. Immediately, the sharp wind kissed her nipples into hard nubs.
“Is this what you wanted to touch?” she asked, scarcely recognizing her own voice.
Hunger flared in his eyes, and then he was touching her, kissing her, with her exposed breasts crushed against his coat and his hands gripping her waist and his tongue battling fiercely with hers. He tasted of anise liquor and forbidden pleasure, smelled of distant, sensuous lands.
The wind whipped around them and he closed his hands over her breasts, moving his thumbs hungrily over her nipples, biting at her lower lip, devouring her.
“Your hair,” he said against her mouth. “I want to see it.”
“Good God,” she breathed, “you have no idea—”
But he was already tugging, pulling, tossing pins aside, plundering her hair until it came tumbling free. He lifted it up and shook it in the wind until it was completely liberated—a wild, tangled mess falling around her shoulders and teasing her flesh.
“You are,” he said roughly, pulling her close, touching her lips with his fingers, drawing them across her chest to brush the hair from her breasts, “the most beautiful woman in all of creation.”
She dug her fingers into his hair and pulled him down, urging, gasping when he took a nipple in his mouth. The sweet pull seared every nerve. Her most secret places pulsed with hot need.
She reached for him, for his breeches, and closed her hand over his shaft. He groaned, freed himself with one hand, and her fingers met hot flesh.
He sank to his knees and pushed her skirts up and then—
Oh, God. He pressed his face between her thighs and his seeking tongue thrust into her folds, finding its treasure. Thick, strong fingers found her passage and pushed inside, stroking into the wetness of it.
She clung to his shoulders, dug her fingers through his hair, gasped uncontrollably until... Until...
A ragged cry tore from her throat, and she pulsed, pulsed, pulsed. And then he was standing. Pushing his breeches farther past his hips with the fiercest, most feral e
xpression she’d ever seen. She was desperate to reach for him, but somehow through the fog of pleasure she remembered what she’d planned. She started to turn, only to have him hurry her on, turning her to face the side of the staircase that led to the upper deck. She braced herself against the wood. Felt him lift her skirts. Grip her hips.
Her passage throbbed, slick and hot and ready. His phallus brushed her buttocks on its way to what it sought: entrance.
The tip of him found her. She felt him groan—he was pressed that closely against her. She widened her stance, bent forward just a little. Felt him penetrate. Stretch.
Enter.
Thrust.
The wind caught her ragged cry and carried it away as he plunged inside her deep, deep, deep.
And then he was pulling her back, flush against him, pressing fierce, hot kisses against the side of her neck. She felt him slip from her body. Felt him turning her, shoving her skirts up again, lifting her, carrying her three steps to the wall that enclosed the cabins, urging her legs around him even as he pinned her against the wood.
And then he was inside her again, face-to-face, kissing her and gripping her buttocks and oh, oh, oh. She dug her fingers into his hair, kissing him as if she could swallow him whole. His erection thrust deep inside her yet all she wanted was to be closer. Closer.
“Noah.”
All restraint fled. He speared inside her and she was completely, utterly open. She gasped against his mouth. Opened her eyes and looked at him—at that face she could stare at for a lifetime—and took all of him inside her, feeling herself shudder and climax again, and even then she wasn’t close enough to him.
She wanted more. She wanted him forever.
* * *
BY THE TIME Josephine left Noah’s ship, the night was nearly over and her entire plan was in tatters.
They’d made love again on the bed in his cabin—slowly, sweetly, with long, deep kisses that mimicked the stroke of his body inside hers. With murmured endearments. She’d watched his face as he moved inside her. As he’d climaxed in her body, finally spending himself completely.
There wasn’t an inch of him she hadn’t touched. Tasted.
There wasn’t a single place on her body he hadn’t explored, and that didn’t pulse and ache even now as she sneaked into her own home a disheveled mess.
The moment she came in the door, Edgar met her with a note. His eyes widened a little at the sight of her, but beneath her cape he couldn’t see the half of it.
“The wind is fierce tonight,” she said, unable to quite look at him.
“Indeed, your ladyship,” he replied with complete lack of inflection.
The note was from Trowe.
Mr. Woodbridge badly injured. Please come immediately.
She looked up, her heart racing, the evening’s activities suddenly forgotten. “The coach. Immediately. And send a footman to the docks to tell Sir Noah he must come to Mr. Woodbridge’s house at once.”
Moments later she was clattering down the streets still in her cloak and disheveled undress, desperately trying to wind her tumbling hair into some sort of order but having no pins, praying Elias was all right.
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
AT HIS HOUSE, she raced up the stairs to Elias’s bedroom, no longer caring who saw her cloak and nightclothes. Nobody would know where she’d been anyhow.
“What’s happened?” she asked, rushing into the room.
Elias’s physician was already there. Elias lay in the bed, his face a ghastly red and purple against the linens.
“A gang of street toughs,” the physician said gravely. “A kind soul found Mr. Woodbridge lying in an alley on the Strand and brought him home.”
Elias writhed in the bed and groaned something unintelligible. Josephine grasped his hand and pressed her lips to his forehead. “I’m here, Elias. I’m here.” Her throat felt so thick it was difficult to speak.
“The damage is mostly to his head and torso,” the physician told her. “I would be lying if I told you his prognosis was hopeful.”
The news took the strength from her knees and she sagged against the edge of the bed. She clutched his hand for long, heartrending moments, offering up silent prayers.
Finally, the physician murmured at her side, “Forgive me, but I must finish tending to him.”
“Of course.” She made herself let go of Elias’s hand and step out of the way, but still each breath was an effort—until Noah finally strode into the room, and she saw the fear on his face, and suddenly she felt less alone.
One look at Elias and Noah cursed violently. “I’ll kill whoever did this.”
Josephine watched through eyes that swam with tears while the physician gave Noah the details and showed him the worst of the injuries. And then Noah turned to Josephine. Their eyes held, and then she was in his arms, weeping on his shoulder. She felt his lips against her hair, his heartbeat beneath her ear, his hand moving in slow circles across her back.
He was so strong, so sure. So real.
And he was leaving. The truth of it ripped her nearly as raggedly as her fear for Elias.
Finally, the physician turned to them and said he’d done all he could. “Summon me if things take a turn for the worse,” he said, and left them alone with Elias.
“I must send a note to the girls to let them know what’s happened,” Josephine said after they’d stood watching Elias for what seemed like an eternity—still in each other’s arms, as if it was the most natural place in the world at a time such as this.
“There’s no reason to wake them,” he murmured into her hair. “You can send a note in the morning.”
He was right. Waking them now would only frighten them.
Noah’s arms tightened around her, strong and safe, holding her as if he would never let her go. The taste of their lovemaking still lingered on her tongue. Her body felt steeped in the fullness of his touch. And her heart—
God help her, her heart ached for everything it couldn’t have, because being in Noah’s arms was the most natural place in the world. Because she loved him.
She loved him.
As if her own thoughts mocked her, Noah chose that moment to release her. “Here,” he said, guiding her to a chair near Elias’s bed. “There’s no reason for you to stand.”
No reason, except the only place she wanted to be was in his arms. But she sat, hardly daring to look at him. “Thank you.”
“Do you need anything?” he asked gravely.
You. I need you.
She reached for Elias’s still hand. “Tea would be nice.”
“Of course. I’ll call for some now.”
* * *
WAITING BY ELIAS’S bedside gave Noah far too much time to think.
About that Turkish shipyard. About Elias. About London, and all the reasons he’d come. The reasons why, if Elias hadn’t been beaten, he would have been two days gone.
About Josephine, and the way she’d felt in his arms, and the fact that even if he could sink himself into her every day for the rest of his life, it wouldn’t be enough.
By the third day, Elias’s breathing had steadied. His slumber grew more peaceful. That morning, the physician announced he was all but certain Elias would live.
Elias would live.
Noah exhaled sharply and left the room. Across the hall, in the room he’d been occupying for a few odd naps the past three days, Noah leaned against the wall and let the full weight of what that meant sink in. He stood there for long minutes before Josephine’s voice came from the doorway.
“Noah?”
He hadn’t bothered to close the door, and now Josephine came in. She stopped when she saw him leaning there. Just the sight of her turned his blood to fire.
“The physician says a nurse should be h
ired,” she told him.
They could discuss nurses later. Now, after three days of hell, he needed release. “Come here,” he said roughly.
For a moment he didn’t think she would. But then she came toward him, and a heartbeat later he had her in his arms and he was kissing her and kicking the door shut behind them.
The kiss turned wild in an instant, like a squall that blew up out of nowhere. He touched her everywhere—her breasts, her waist, her hips—or as much of any of them as he could fill his hands with given the devilish barrier of stays and panniers and petticoats. He needed her. Josephine. And not the guarded, cautious Josephine—the one who lived inside all that, who lit up when she saw his villa and had dared to seek him out on his ship.
Her touch drove him mad. She clutched his shoulders, ran her hands down his back, gripped his buttocks. Ah, God— He picked her up and carried her to the bed. Pushed her skirts awkwardly to her waist while he invaded her mouth—damnation, she tasted like heaven—and worked the placket on his breeches. And then—
Yes. Yes.
He was pushing into her as far as he could go, needing to go even deeper. Be even closer. He pulled back and thrust again, again, again, but God—God—this was as close as they could be. It wasn’t enough. It hadn’t been enough the other night, and it wouldn’t be enough now. It couldn’t be. He wanted all of her, wanted to melt into her. He felt her clutching him, clinging to him, heard her whimpers and soft cries, and knew she was nearing release.
And dam...na...tion he let himself fire like a cannon into her.
And then he lay on top of her, gasping for air, while the last pulses of her release shuddered around him. He looked down at her, into those hazel eyes he never wanted to look away from. At those lips he would never in ten lifetimes grow tired of kissing. And he knew, right then and there, that he was in love.
With Josephine, Countess of Mareck.
With Joseph Bentley, thwarter of plans.
It should have made his next words easier. “I’ve decided to stay in London,” he told her.