Page 120 of Where the Heart Leads
“One would hope not.” Without hesitation, Barnaby went on, “I spoke with Stokes before I came to fetch you for dinner. He and I will go to the Holborn watch house tomorrow and retrieve the original order sent from Scotland Yard—he was too late to get hold of it this evening. We’ll trace it back to whoever issued it, if we can.”
“He’ll have covered his tracks, surely?”
“I would assume our backtracking will come to a halt at some point short of a single identity, but we might get far enough to greatly reduce the number of potential suspects.”
Warm and snug, with the dramas of the day dealt with and all possible damage nullified, Penelope discovered she could view the events with a greater detachment. Wriggling around in Barnaby’s arms, she rose up and leaned on his chest so she could look into his face. “How ironic if, in taking a tilt at me, Alert opened up an avenue through which you and Stokes could unmask him.”
His hands cruising upward from her thighs, over her bottom, to glide, artfully caressing, up her sides, Barnaby raised his brows. “Ironic. And appropriate.”
Sliding more fully over him, she smiled down into his eyes. “Have I thanked you for standing beside me tonight, through all the tedious questions?”
“I believe you did mention it once or twice—but that was, as it were, in the heat of the moment. I don’t think I heard.”
“Ah…” Sirenlike, she slid her body side to side over his, delighting in the instantaneous hardening of his powerfully muscled frame. Hers, all hers. “Perhaps,” she purred, “I should thank you again. More definitely. To make sure you remember that I did.”
Barnaby stared into the dark mysterious depths of her eyes. “Perhaps you ought.”
She did. With a devastating thoroughness, an unswerving, unwavering commitment that had him shuddering, reduced to blind need.
After the first time she’d suggested a new position, he’d realized her intellectual curiosity had extended to this sphere, too; she was forever eager to explore, to learn more about things she’d clearly studied but had never experienced. Even so, as his hands fisted in her hair and he fought to breathe, her devotion to knowing all, experiencing all, was not something to be taken lightly.
No more than her hot mouth; initially untutored, she’d quickly learned how to drive him wild. How to, with excruciating exactitude, shred his control so he was wholly and completely in her power.
Her lips, those gloriously lush, ripe lips he’d fantasized about from the first, had become a wicked reality, pandering to his senses, caressing him with a wanton joy that sank to his bones. Being the absolute focus of her supremely sexual attentions cast a net over him, and held him effortlessly, made him her willing slave.
He gasped, spine bowing as she took him deep, as her small hands played, possessed.
Being hers, all hers, was in that moment all he wanted. Everything he wanted.
And when the heat and the passion, the fierce need that gripped them both became too much, she rose up and took him in, sheathed him in her body and rode him with a slow delicious languor that forced full awareness of every single sensation upon them both.
She had a will to match his, maintaining that slow pace even when their bodies, their ravenous senses, clamored for more. Hands spread on his chest, arms braced, she closed her eyes and rode him, steady and sure, deliberate and determined. Devoted, beyond question, to his delight and her own.
To pleasure—pleasuring him, and taking pleasure in doing so.
He watched her as she did, watched the concentration, the fierce intentness in her face. Even as the sight rocked him, held him in thrall, he felt enough—knew and acknowledged his own feelings enough—to understand that in his devotion to her, his need of her, he’d stepped far beyond the merely physical. As she tightened about him and made his world quake, he closed his eyes and prayed that, like him, sating their physical needs was no longer enough, prayed that, like him, she was learning that devotedly pandering to those other linked needs, of a different caliber on a different plane, brought an even deeper, more profound satisfaction.
She slowed even more, her control stretching thin; he sensed it in the flexing of her fingers on his chest as she struggled to rein their rampaging desires in. She still moved upon him, confident and assured, yet wanting more, fighting to stretch the moment out for one last while.
From beneath his lashes, he caught the glint of her dark eyes beneath her heavy lids; she was watching him as he watched her, drinking in the sight of him as under her control passion built and gripped him ever more tightly. She rode on again, more forcefully now, more definite; determined and divine, she drove him and herself steadily on.
But he had no intention of surrendering so easily, not in this. When the pressure built, when the hot tide started to rise and threatened to sweep through him, he fought to hold it back. His hands were at her waist, fingers curved over her hips, gripping and savoring the evidence of her body accepting his, taking him deep; releasing one hand, he slid it up her spine, drew her closer as he leaned up, and set his tongue and lips to her breast.
He licked, laved, then took the tight peak into his mouth and suckled, gently at first, then steadily more strongly as she gasped, tightened about him, and rode on.
Faster, tighter, hotter, wetter.
When the end came it shattered them both.
Sundered them from the mortal plane, leaving them drifting in a golden void of indescribable pleasure.
Together, sated, at peace.
She chuckled as she collapsed on his chest. Smiling, he closed his arms around her and held her close.
When it came time for Penelope to leave, they discovered it was raining. Leaving her at the front door, Barnaby took an umbrella and went to summon her carriage, waiting farther down the street; the coachman was no doubt dozing inside.
Wrapping her cloak tightly about her, Penelope stared out at the dark night. Then, over the patter of the rain, she heard a footstep—behind her.
