equally generous swells of her buttocks, he explored all of her again as he’d longed to in ways that had kept him awake these past weeks. He devoured her mouth, its hint of honey shockingly seductive in its sweetness.
“I’m not the gentleman you take me for.” He panted against her mouth, and then catching the hem of her gown, he tugged her skirts up and exposed her legs, then sank his fingertips into her hips.
A keening cry spilled from her lips, and her head fell back.
Malcom swept down and suckled and bit at the long column of her neck. Working his lips over her, dragging more and more breathless sounds of desire from Verity.
He caught one of her legs and looped it around his waist; that deliberate angling brought his throbbing shaft against her core. Even through her modest undergarments, the heat of her burnt him. And an embrace that had begun of one purpose took on more powerful, all-consuming overtones that reduced Malcom to the feeling of this woman in his arms. He rocked himself against her.
Her lips formed a small circle. “Oh!” She breathed a ragged, hungry whisper of discovery, and it enflamed him all the more.
“Who are you, Verity Lovelace?” he whispered between each slant of his mouth over hers. Her reply was nonexistent beyond the little puffs of her every exhale.
His hunger for her was mindless, his body’s need for her all-consuming.
And was the reason he didn’t hear the door open—until it was too late.
Cursing, he wrenched away from Verity and shoved her behind him. “Bloody hell, Fowler.”
The old tosher stood in the doorway, making no attempt to hide the amused grin on his lips. “Merely came to see if you wanted me to toss ’er out.” His smile widened. “Oi see that ya don’t.”
“Get the hell out,” Malcom shouted.
Fowler was already drawing the panel closed.
The sound of his laughter carried in the hall, muffled, and then distant, before fading altogether.
Malcom scraped a hand through his hair. Bloody hell. It was one thing to have been weak not once, but twice where Verity Lovelace was concerned. It was an altogether different matter to have that weakness on full display before Fowler—or anyone.
He faced the young woman and found her busily smoothing her skirts. “You’ve quite unconventional servants.”
Had it not been for the faintest shake to her palms, he’d have believed she was as unaffected as her composed tones suggested.
“I don’t have servants,” he clipped out.
Her clever and revealing gaze revealed the interest there. “Then who are they?”
More information he’d given her. Too much already. And he’d wager that was the very game she’d played when she brought up those names again. With a sneer, he stuck his face in hers. “I haven’t given you enough today to print in your column?” Heat splashed his cheeks. “It is unfortunate for you Fowler entered,” he taunted, determined to at last silence her. “You had me a moment’s away from having my trousers down. Imagine the story you could have written then. Hardly as romantic. A fancy woman rutted against the wall by the Lost H—”
She slapped him.
Hard. The ferocity of that blow, combined with the unexpectedness of it, brought his head whipping back and his ears ringing. Malcom flexed his jaw. Well, he’d certainly managed to end her questioning. A new appreciation swelled for the fearless minx.
“You d-didn’t have to be crude,” she shot back, bold even in her fear. He started over to her. Verity backed away until she ran into the curtains that shielded the streets below, and out of space. “And I’m not a fancy woman,” she went on, holding her palms up when he stopped in front of her. “I’m simply a woman attempting to do her work and care for her family. And you?” She gave him a pitying look. “You are so self-absorbed that you don’t care at all about the plight of anyone. You have properties. Ones that you keep empty. Not caring that you sacked servants who needed work.”
Malcom scraped his eyes over her, this woman who’d unsettled his world. “No, I don’t. And I’ve told you: I’m not a man who cares.” Or knows. He dropped a hand beside her head, half framing her in his arms. No good could come from speaking with her any more than he already had. No good had come from it, and only problems had faced him since he’d found her in the sewers. “And do you know, Verity? Those fine properties can