roight, eh?”
The next time he plunged, she was expecting it.
She gagged and jolted, her shaking fingers slipping on the handle of the knife before she could get a good grip on it.
“Rub me bollocks,” he demanded, unwittingly playing right into her hands. Both literally and figuratively.
Willy spread his feet wider to accommodate her shaking left hand and he pulled out just long enough for her to fill her lungs.
When he jammed himself back in, Benna jammed the two-inch blade into the spot just behind his balls, which she squeezed hard with her left hand, biting down at the same time.
Willy’s high-pitched scream was probably audible in Carlisle.
“Get offa me! Get off! Get off!” He frantically buffeted her head with fists the size of shovels, trying to push her off. One of his punches slammed into Benna’s temple, tripling her vision, and she released him.
He flung himself backward to get away.
For a long moment time seemed to stretch and slow. Willy’s hard bootheels skidded and scraped for purchase on the rough wooden floor, the sound of his animal-like keening filling the room.
But Willy was hobbled by the breeches around his knees and couldn’t stop his fall.
He went down like a felled tree, and even with her ears ringing from his savage blow Benna heard the crack of his skull against the iron bed frame.
She scooted backward on her knees, not stopping to push to her feet until she was well beyond his reach. Even then she didn’t stop to look. Instead, she ran to the hearth in the front room, grabbed the iron poker, and then crept back to the eerily silent bedroom.
Willy lay where he’d fallen, his body bent at an awkward angle, half on the bed and half on the floor.
She raised the poker like a cricket bat. “Willy?”
He didn’t twitch.
“Willy.”
Benna crept closer, holding the poker higher, ready to bring it down with all her might if he was trying to trick her.
But when she saw Willy’s face, the poker fell from her nerveless fingers and hit the floor with a dull thud.
She clamped a hand over her mouth to keep from screaming. Willy’s left eye was open and staring, but the pointy metal rod on the bed’s footboard jutted out of his right eye socket.
Benna held back her scream but couldn’t stop the contents of her stomach from coming back up.
She retched until there was nothing left, unable to tear her eyes from Willy’s face.
And then a noise penetrated her horror and Benna swung around, her gaze jumping wildly around the parlor beyond. But nobody was in the cottage.
The sound was coming from outside; the familiar racket made by horses.
Michael had arrived.
Chapter Twenty-Two
Cornwall
1817
Present Day
This kiss was nothing like the last.
Rather than shocked acceptance—which had been Jago’s response when Benna kissed him that night in Truro—this time Jago claimed her with raw, demanding passion, his firm mouth crushing hers, his slick, hot tongue teasing her lips apart and plunging into her.
It felt like forever since Benna had kissed a man, but her lips had a memory of their own—which was just as well as her brain had gone foggier than a London pea souper.
Jago was kissing her.
The thought clanged around inside her skull like the flapper of a bell.
He was kissing her. Not like the last time, when she’d ambushed him.
A noise of pure joy rose up in her throat and Benna pushed up onto her knees to get closer to him.
Jago stood, gently but firmly pulling Benna up along with him, his mouth never leaving hers.
Once they were standing, he slid an arm around her, his splayed fingers at the base of her spine, pressing her close to his warm, hard torso.
He cradled her head with his other hand, holding her steady for his erotic invasion.
Benna cradled his face with both hands, reveling in the feel of hot skin, scratchy bristles, and his hard, angular jaw.
He gave an encouraging growl as she explored, caressing his throat and massaging his shoulders.
“Yes,” he murmured, exerting a subtle, exquisite pressure and molding their bodies together.
And all the while his mouth continued to obliterate what remained of her wits.
I’m kissing the Earl of Trebolton.
Mercifully, that voice was hers, and not Geoffrey’s. Right now it was only Benna and the man she’d been dreaming about for weeks.
She opened her eyes to find his swollen black pupils looking back at her.
For an instant they both froze.
If he pulled away and offered some vague excuse about her being his servant or too young—or anything else—Benna