in and look,” the younger voice taunted him. “I promise not to lock you in.”
The light moved away, and Melisande felt relief flood her body. “Do you seriously think I’d be fool enough to trust you, Pennington? Your sense of humor has always been a bit outré.”
“Coward.”
“I could call you out for that.”
“You could. But we have better ways of settling our differences, do we not?” The man called Pennington had a smooth voice, but there was a chill to it.
The other man chuckled, though. “True enough. There are few things more enjoyable than watching two whores trying to cripple each other.”
Melisande jerked, sickened, but Rohan simply pressed harder, keeping her still, his hand over her mouth to silence her. She closed her eyes, forcing her body to relax. Much as she wanted to leap up and start beating at the degenerates in the room beyond, she wouldn’t get very far with a sprained ankle and no stout stick to bash them with. She would have to find other ways to stop them.
She could feel him pressing against her, their bodies almost plastered together. Her breasts felt strange up against his chest. Sensitive, almost abraded, and tingling. His legs were between hers, she realized, holding her down, and his hips were cradled against her.
He was getting hard, she realized. She thought about it, concentrating on the sensation, and realized he was becoming noticeably more aroused, the longer he stayed pressed against her. And yet he couldn’t very well move, not without drawing attention to their hiding place.
So she couldn’t shove him away, or slap him, or do any of the dozen or so things she could think of to halt the direction in which his body and her mind were going. Because her mind was most definitely going there, whether she wanted it to or not.
He was lean and strong, delightfully so. She’d never thought whether there was one particular physical form she preferred—she’d done her best to concentrate on the person rather than their appearance. But in truth she liked being around tall men, and she liked strength, and she liked long, lean, elegant bodies. She liked the way Benedick Rohan looked, and felt, and, yes, tasted, and she could feel a slow heat begin to build between her legs.
It was all wrong. They were in danger, and those two men, members of the foul Heavenly Host, could walk in on them at any moment. She should be concentrating on anger and escape. Not on the feel of him, the hardness between his legs pressed against the softness between hers.
And then, to her shock, he bumped against her. Just a tiny little bounce almost, and her body tightened with surprise.
He did it again, and she realized it was deliberate. She was pressed up tight against him, and he was holding her head against his shoulder, her face hidden, and his other arm was tight around her waist, imprisoning her there. She knew she should try to get her hands up between them, to push him away, but there was simply no room.
He bumped again, and she could feel her nipples harden almost painfully. She wanted him closer still, she realized, moving her legs so he could settle more fully against her. With the next jerk against her she pressed her face harder against his shoulder, to stifle her instinctive cry.
She was burning up. Her breasts, her heart, between her legs, everything was on fire, and she waited for the pulse of him against her welcoming heat once more.
But Rohan didn’t move. The voices had drifted away, though she could still hear them, and the light was faintly visible when she lifted her head from his shoulder. He moved his head, just a bit, and she tried to look up into his face. She could just see his eyes, and they gleamed as they looked down into hers.
She shifted beneath him, restless, longing, half hoping he’d move away from her, half hoping… She couldn’t think clearly. She didn’t know what she wanted.
And yet Rohan asked her the one thing she couldn’t answer. “What do you want, sweet Charity?” It was just a taunting breath of sound, and no one outside of their tiny cave would hear it.
She turned her face away from him, staring at the wall, trying to control her wayward body, envisioning it packed in ice, frozen. But the ice melted against him, and her body was soft and welcoming.