it, the canny bastard. Lightness bubbled up within her breast.
His grin became outright when she hauled up her skirts and climbed on to the bed to carefully straddle him. The moment her weight settled on his upper thighs, he groaned and his hands came to her knees. “I needed that.”
She laughed again, a breathless sound, for his rough palms trailed up her thighs, catching her attention. “You needed to be crushed on your sickbed?”
His eyes gleamed, no longer winter cold but blazing with heat. “I needed to feel you against me.”
How well she understood that need. Something within her had settled the moment she touched him. She sucked in a breath as his thumbs came to rest upon the crease of her hips. Lightly he stroked there as he looked up at her. “Certain events in the past few months have taken years off my life, I’m quite sure.”
“Win, don’t even joke about that.”
“Years.” The imperious look came back. “Undo my trousers.”
His trousers tented over the rippled expanse of his abdomen. She’d been ignoring it, as he was injured. But Win in a mood could not be ignored. Her fingers shook a little as she obeyed. The first button set the crown of his cock free, and her gut tightened in response. Dark, smooth, and hot. Her knuckles grazed the head as she set about her work. With each give of a button, a bit of her tension released as well. Soon, he was free.
Win sighed in response, and his hands slid up to cup her bottom.
Laid out beneath her, he was a banquet of male beauty, golden skin, and taut muscles. The expanse of his chest lifted and fell with each light breath he took. He’d have a scar there, to match the hash marks covering the left side. A warrior’s body, hiding beneath a gentleman’s veneer. His ruddy cock lay thick and heavy against his skin.
“Touch me,” he whispered.
Heat swirled and nipped her skin as their gazes clashed, and she filled her hand with him. Win twitched within her grasp. He licked his lips quickly. “Stroke me.”
“Like this?” she whispered, gliding her palm lightly along his silken length.
He shivered. “Harder. Ah… Now there’s a good wife.”
Biting her lip to keep from laughing, Poppy stroked him. With a grunt, he wrenched her closer so that she rested on his hips, the tight sac of his cods nestling against her heat. Poppy stifled the need to rub against him. Later. Now was his turn. She worked her hand up and down the length of him, and his eyes closed.
He lay like that for a moment, panting and prone from her attentions, then his eyes opened and settled on her with slumberous contentment. “Not once have I truly regretted the danger, Boadicea.” His fingers clenched her bottom. “Never have I felt so alive as when I have faced death and known that you would be there waiting for me should I defeat it.”
Poppy searched his face, taking in the ragged scars, and the wild heat and the joy in his eyes. Her heart leapt within her breast as she smiled. “It is always going to be like this, isn’t it?”
His grin was slow to unfurl, but when it did, it was wicked. “What is?”
He knew perfectly well, but she told him anyway.
“You craving danger, seeking it out.” Gently, she kissed his mouth before pulling back to look at him. “Somehow, I fear you are going to be difficult to manage, Mr. Lane.”
“Oh, extremely—” He chuffed out a breath when she gave him a decadent squeeze, “difficult.” He rallied and met her eyes once again. His voice turned to smoke and sand. “Afraid, Mrs. Lane?”
“Afraid?” She swirled her thumb around his crown, eliciting a gasp. “I can hardly wait.”
Epilogue
Jack preferred darkness now. It soothed. Muted the harsh angles of reality. In darkness, he did not have to fear talking to others or trying to pretend that he was not broken. In darkness, he could sit. And watch.
Crouched on the edge of a roof, the whole of London lay out before him. The round dome of St. Peter’s and the endless chimneys tucked between the roof peaks. Smoke drifted up from those chimneys, black even against the night sky. Thousands of funnels of smoke lifting to the heavens, like souls leaving the earth. Yet his attention was focused on the window below him. A rectangle of golden light, a small patch of room—a table before the window, the thick rug upon the floor…