Page 60 of Much Ado About Margaret
“Not for lack of trying.”
“Ah.” Bridger found a spot on his desk and rubbed it anxiously with his gloved fingertip. “And now that you are here, now that you have disrupted the terms that dictated her charity, what will Mrs. Burton do?” He squeezed his eyes shut. “I worry for you so, Margaret.”
“I don’t know what she will do,” she said, reaching for him. “Right now, I can’t care.”
Bridger reached, too, gathering Margaret up in his arms, and kissed her. It was not like their first kiss, tentative and exploring, but an unleashing of time spent too long apart. He was hungry for her, claiming, tugging on the hair at her nape to tilt her head to greater advantage and allowing him to plunder her sweet mouth with all the unspent need burning, screaming, thundering…
He let go of her, gratified that she clung afterward to his waistcoat, holding him fast. Laughing, half-crazed, half-elated, he bit the ends of his gloves and yanked them off. “I want to feel you with my own hands. Let there be nothing between us.”
He kissed her again and again, guiding her toward him, and then watching her ease back against his desk, sitting upon it and kicking his chair away. The noise it made clattering againstthe nearest bookshelf only drove the spike of desire deeper into his chest. He felt like an animal, like a man denied his true craving and nature for too long. She was his, and he would be damned before another obstacle came between them.
Margaret came up for air, leaning back, exposing her neck. He eagerly took the invitation, biting and sucking at the sweet, soft flesh of her throat. “I gave your boy a shilling and told him to buy something sweet,” she whispered. “And I told him to be slow about it.”
“I love you for so many reasons, you wicked girl, I shall never have time to list them out.”
“How can I be blamed for wanting this time with you?” She sighed and covered her face with her hands. “It may be taken from us again! I have been brave this once, but—”
“Shh-shh.” He peeled her hands back, beholding her lovely face and bright blue eyes. How he had missed it. Tenderly, he plucked the gloves from her fingers, then kissed the tips, noting they were stained with ink, the enduring and endearing feature that always appeared in his dreams. “You have shown your courage many times, I’ve seen it with my own eyes. When you stood your ground for your friend, proved your loyalty and wisdom where Ann was concerned, when you thrust that book into my hands at your aunt’s salon, when you threw yourself at Pimm to protect me.” He listed off the events, kissing a finger for each demonstration of bravery. On the last, her right forefinger, he sucked it into his mouth and groaned at the delicious sound she made. His teeth rasped the pad, and she shuddered, falling back against the desk, sending pages and quills flying.
He thought of the ink-stained gloves of hers in his desk drawer and fancied that perhaps this second pair would be a fine addition. But treasures and little precious things could be considered later. Margaret was before him, and writhing so beautifully, he could not take his eyes off her. Kneeling behindthe desk, he rolled her skirt and petticoat up until they were bunched around her waist. She made a breathy, questioning sound that was briefly silenced, then transmuted into sighs as he kissed his way up her ankles, the delicate architecture of her knee, her inner thigh, traveling toward the very center of her heat. When he arrived there, placing a firm, insistent kiss over her mound, Margaret squirmed and shot up off the desk.
“More?” he asked, lips moving against her.
“Ever so much more, yes, please, if you will,” she squeaked.
Bridger vented a deep laugh against her inner thigh, resting his forehead there for an instant before returning to his hungry work. He parted her with his lips and explored with his tongue, listening to the sweet, rising music of her cries. Her strong hands grabbed fistfuls of his hair, urging him closer, more, faster, and he obliged. When her thighs clamped around his head and tightened, he helped her tip over the edge into ecstasy completed. She relaxed, both of them filmed with sweat, but he stayed on his knees, using his tongue to spell a playful message against her thigh.
“Love,” she laughed. “Whatever you just did must certainly be love.” Margaret propped herself up on her elbows, gazing down at him, grinning muzzily with pleasure. “When you first rejected me so outrageously, I never thought I would see you on your knees before me.”
Bridger slowly rose and leaned over her, wiping his mouth with his coat sleeve, then shucking it and tossing it to the side. “And when you handed that damp manuscript to me, I never imagined I would see you again, let alone hold you closest and dearest in my heart.” He brushed a few errant blond curls from her cheek and kissed her chin, pressing down against her. “But now, with this book, the world will see you as I do.”
“Oh dear, that’s worrisome. Skirts up, sitting exposed upon your desk?”
Snorting, he shook his head. “As a skillful writer,” he said,and drew her hips to his, warming her with his whole body. “And soon, I think, as my wife.”
She helped him raise her skirts the final few inches and busied herself with the buttons on his clothes that needed undoing. “But you will not leave tomorrow.”
“Oh, don’t remind me,” he murmured, brow furrowing. He pushed his nose against her temple, breathing her in. “I thought I had lost you.”
“Never.”
Maggie held Bridger close, feeling him, reveling in the reunion she had imagined a thousand times. His tailcoat whispered to the floor, his shirt and waistcoat following soon after. There was no pretense of shyness or hesitation. They were not practiced at lovemaking, not yet, but eagerness and need more than made up for habit. His arms rippled at her light, seeking touch. She gloried in the way his eyes scrunched up and his nose twitched when she opened her thighs wider and invited him in. His need for her was overpowering, those brutish kisses returning to mark her, to make her lips tingle pleasantly, a lingering, unforgettable embrace.
Her head fell back, loose on her neck as she anticipated their joining, but Bridger, maddeningly, made her wait. She opened one eye to see him admiring her, flushed and wanton on the desk. He jerked hard on her bodice, baring her breasts to the dusty light of the office and his gaze. It was terrible and wonderful to be looked at, and she blushed, perfectly exposed. His lips followed his interest, tongue coasting along heated, tender flesh, the first graze of his teeth over her nipple sending her jolting off the desk.
“Then you’ll marry me?” he asked, kissing a trail up her collarbone to her neck.
His hard, branding heat was hovering near hers, tantalizingly close.
“I’ll consider it,” she whispered.
Bridger’s hips dodged away. Merciless. “Margaret…”
Complex ideas melted before she could express anything more intricate than “Please.”
“I will have you, forever, not to be undone by deals or distance.”
“Please.”
