“So you’re still after that bastard, are you, Aidan my love?” Marie said as she closed the door behind her and set a valise down on the rug. “You don’t give up.”
“Never, Marie. You know that. The constables can’t hold him, it seems, so someone has to take care of it.”
Marie shook her head. “You just have a care for yourself out there—that’s all I’ll say. I know I can’t stop you.”
“But can you help me again?” Aidan said. “Have you heard anything?”
“I might have. Jasmine has a sister who works in a tavern down by the docks. Jasmine was all worried-like because she’s heard this sister had taken up with Beaumont after he got back to London. To get the opium, y’know. You can talk to Jasmine in a bit; she’s with a client now.” Marie suddenly turned to Lily. “And you must be Sandrine’s girl.”
“I… yes. I’m Sandrine’s daughter,” Lily answered. It felt strange to say her mother’s name again, when it had only been a whisper of a thought for so long. She stiffened her shoulders under Marie’s steady regard.
“It’s good to see you again, and looking so well too,” Marie said. “I’ve heard about you from Aidan. You must be somethin’ special.”
Lily glanced at Aidan, who gave a wry smile. “I don’t know about that,” she said.
Marie gave an unladylike snort. “Anyone who’ll go chasing after the likes of Tom Beaumont must be special. Brave or foolish, one of those. And I ain’t never heard Aidan talk about a woman like he does you. Here,” she said, tossing the valise to Lily. “Something to change into. You can’t go running into Whitechapel dressed all in silk like that, can you?”
“Thank you,” Lily murmured. Her mind still whirled as she wondered what exactly Aidan had said about her.
“I’ve got to go now,” Marie said. “Can’t let the likes of Beaumont get in the way of business. Someone will come to take you to Jasmine soon.” She hurried across the room in a cloud of sweet lilac perfume to grab Aidan by the shoulders and kiss his lips soundly. “You be careful, love. You hear me? My girls would go into weeping and wailing if anything happened to you, and that would
definitely
be bad for business.”
“I will be careful, Marie,” he answered.
Marie patted his cheek, smiled at Lily, and whirled back out of the room. There was a burst of laughter outside as she opened the door, and then they were closed into quiet again.
“Love?” Lily said, watching Aidan as he wiped rouge off his jaw.
“I told you,” he said ruefully. “We’re old friends.”
“So it would seem.” Lily opened the valise and dug through the clothes packed there. They weren’t the fine satins Marie and her girls wore, but the garments of a dockside streetwalker. Scuffed boots, a faded red-striped skirt, a chemise with a low, gathered neckline, and a black
bodice laced up the front. The theatrical side of Lily, the one that knew how to play a role, approved.
“Need some assistance?” Aidan said.
Lily slowly unfastened the jet buttons of her jacket. “You are quite good at playing ladies’ maid, I remember.”
“Oh, I’m good at many, many things,” he murmured.
She remembered that as well. Despite the dangers they faced, and the knowledge of where they were, she felt a warm shiver of awareness slide over her skin as he watched her. She laid her jacket aside and turned to let him unfasten the back of her dress.
His fingers were deft and quick as he slid the buttons free and eased the long, tight sleeves down her arms. The gown fell to the floor in a silken whisper, and he moved to unlace her corset. As its restriction eased, she felt him trace the back of his fingers along the groove of her spine, his touch warm through the fine silk chemise he had given her.
“Lily,” he whispered, and he bent his head to kiss her on the vulnerable nape of her neck. His lips were parted, hot as he tasted her. Lily trembled, and he tossed her corset to the floor. His hands slid around her waist and pulled her back against his body. She curved into him and cried out when his teeth bit down lightly on her bare shoulder.
“Do you trust me, Lily?” he said against her skin. “Do you trust me to keep you safe?”
“I trust you, Aidan,” she said, and to her shock, she realized it was true. She did trust him, did feel safe with him. Even here, she no longer had any fear. “But do you trust me? Do you trust me to work with you to find Beaumont?”
“Yes,” he said. “I should lock you up here and not let you out until the bastard is dead. But God help me, there
is no one I want by my side in any fight more than you. My fierce warrior goddess.”
Those words meant more to Lily than anything else ever could. They trusted each other; they were together in this. For just a little while longer, she was not alone.
She reached down for the hem of her chemise and drew it off, letting the thin silk drift to the chair. She took up the rougher cotton of the borrowed chemise and pulled it on before she could give in to temptation and spin around in Aidan’s arms to twine her fingers in his hair and draw his mouth to her naked breast.
She handed him the black bodice and let him fit it around her waist. He drew the laces of it tight, working in silence.
By the time she was dressed in the new clothes and her hair was rearranged, released from its tight, smooth coil into loose, tangled waves, the maidservant had reappeared.
“Madame says I’m to take you to Jasmine now,” she said with a curtsy, as well mannered as if she worked for the queen. She led them out of the sitting room and into a secret passage tucked behind the main corridors.
“Wait here, if you please,” the maid said as she ushered them into a small room. “Jasmine will be done in just a few minutes.”
Lily slid into the chamber as Aidan followed and closed the door behind them. It was even smaller than the sitting room where they had been before, a dark space lit by one wall sconce. As she blinked, letting her eyes adjust to the dimness, she saw a small, grille-covered opening midway up one wall that let in a bit more light. From beyond that opening, she could hear a man’s shouts of pleasure, the whistle of a whip against bare skin.
And it seemed this room was meant to be a possible extension of the scenes in there, a place where those so inclined could watch. Lily could make out iron rings bolted to the walls, with chains hanging down from them. A table covered with a jumble of ominous-looking instruments lurked in one corner, while in the other was a velvet chaise draped with a fur throw.
She leaned against the wall and studied it all. She thought of the assembly rooms, all those respectable-looking, morally correct people who kept on the right masks to keep their places at the queen’s court. Which of them would faint if they knew such a place existed? And which of them visited here in secret, paying Marie’s high prices for the ultimate in secret fulfillment?
She almost laughed to imagine it all. But then she remembered Aidan’s naked, gorgeous body stretched out under her, and the laugh turned into a choking cough.
Aidan went and peered through the little window into the next room, and a wry smile curved his lips. “I think Jasmine will be more than a few minutes,” he said. “She appears to be quite occupied for the time being.”
Lily went to his side and went up on her toes in her borrowed boots to look through the window. Jasmine’s customer, a portly, red-faced gentleman, was bent over a brocade ottoman, his bare backside in the air. The skin was already a bright pink, but Jasmine, a tall brunette fully dressed in a stylish black velvet ball gown, still wielded the whip over him.
“You have been naughty indeed,” she said sternly. “I don’t think you are sufficiently punished yet. You don’t seem truly sorry.”
“I am sorry! I truly am,” the man babbled.
“Not enough.” And the whip flashed through the air again.
“She’s very good,” Lily commented wryly.
“Not as good as you, I daresay.” Aidan slid his arm around her waist and spun her back to the wall. She was caught there with his hands braced to either side of her, his body pressed to hers. He bent his head to trace his lips lazily over her neck. “Whatever can we do to fill the time while we wait?”
She could think of a few things, things involving those intriguing items left so conveniently near. But then his mouth moved over the curve of her shoulder, his teeth scraping lightly over her skin, and she could hardly think at all. She knew she should push him away and concentrate on what they had to do—find Tom Beaumont. Aidan’s mouth, though, his touch… He made her
want
to forget. To believe there was only him. And the danger around them only made her want him more urgently.
She caught the back of his head in her palms, twisting her fingers in his hair. His kiss slid lower, his tongue licking along the soft swell of her breast pushed high by the tight-laced bodice. Behind her closed eyes, she could feel every shifting movement he made, every soft breath. His hands closed hard on her hips and pulled her against him until she could feel his erection. She could hear the whip from the next room, and the man’s screams of ecstasy.
“I fear I’ve also been very, very bad,” Aidan whispered darkly against Lily’s skin. His fist closed in the fabric of her skirt and dragged it slowly up her leg until he could trace his fingers over the soft bare skin of her thigh above her garters.
Before his touch could reach her damp, aching core, she pushed him back with a laugh. He fell away a step,
staring down at her with burning eyes. Something came over her at that look of his, that hot desire that seemed to heat her skin wherever he stared at her. Something that felt powerful and needful at the same time, so wonderful after the helplessness of facing Tom again. Aidan, this handsome, sexy, powerful man, wanted
her.
She seemed to find a strength from that knowledge, a strength she didn’t even know she possessed.
She slid her hands up his chest and untied his cravat as she made him walk backward to the wall. When he leaned against it, still watching her, she quickly unfastened his shirt and peeled it away from his chest. His whole body grew taut, and she sensed again that way he had of watching a woman so closely, responding to her, gauging her desires and answering them with his mouth, his hands, his penis. As if he could read what a woman needed just from looking at her.
It was no wonder so many women loved him, Lily thought as she ran her hands lightly over his naked chest. No wonder
she
needed him, when she had pushed away and denied her own needs, her own nature, for so long.
His skin was smooth and warm, slightly damp with sweat under her touch, the muscles hard. She traced her fingers over his flat stomach, then his hip bones as she nudged his trousers lower. His erection sprang free, hard and ready, and she smoothed her fingertip over the pearly drop of liquid at its tip.
Aidan groaned and reached out for her, but she caught his wrists and pressed them back to the wall. She moved his arms up and wrapped his fingers around the chains that hung there. A muscle flexed in his jaw, and for a moment, she was sure he would break away. But then his grasp tightened on the chains, and she smiled.
She leaned against him, bracing her palms on his strong shoulders. She could feel the tension in his muscles there as he held himself bound. “You
have
been very naughty,” she whispered, and she caught his nipple between her teeth.
He groaned as she bit down lightly and sucked. Her touch glided down his sides, over the stretch of his ribs, his lean waist. She swept her palms over the taut curve of his buttocks, scoring him gently with her nails, pressing her fingertip over his puckered opening before she traced her caress along the top of his hair-dusted thigh.
“How should you be punished?” she mused.
“A good, hard fuck should do it,” he said hoarsely.
Lily laughed. “That doesn’t sound like punishment, now, does it? I suppose I could get out the whip like Jasmine, but I remember you rather like that too.” She went up on her toes to whisper in his ear. “I think I know what else you like…”
The chains rattled as his fists tightened around them. “Lily,” he said warningly.
“Shhh.” She kissed his neck, bit at the curve just where it met his shoulder. She slid down his body until she knelt at his feet. She shook back her hair and looked up at him.
His eyes were hooded, his skin drawn taut over his jaw and his aristocratic cheekbones as he stared down at her. The veins in his arms stood out as he wrapped the chain tightly around his fists. She gave him a smile and slid her parted lips over his erection.
The chains clashed again, and his hips jerked against her. She pressed her palms to his buttocks and held him to her mouth. She traced her tongue flat over his length, tasting the faint, warm saltiness of him, inhaling the sweet musk of his desire. His desire for her.
She slid deeper, slowly wrapping one hand around his base, until he touched the back of her throat, and she swallowed.
“Oh, God, Lily,” he groaned. “Suck me. Just like that.”
She drew off him, until her lips touched just the sensitive tip. “So naughty,” she said, and licked up his length again, harder. She slid her hand around his base to cradle his heavy testicles, and she could feel how tight they were with need. Then she drew him deep again and sucked hard.
Aidan’s control snapped. With a shout that echoed the cries in the next room, his hands released the chains and closed tightly over her shoulders. He dragged her up into his arms and carried her to the chaise in the corner. As they went, she felt one of his hands reach for something, but then he laid her down on the velvet cushions and fell between her spread legs, and she didn’t know anything but him.
“What do you do to me, Lily?” he muttered as he kissed her neck, openmouthed, hot, wet. His hand roughly pushed her skirts up around her waist and tugged down her underthings until he could thrust two fingers into her wet folds. He crooked them, brushing against that spot that made her cry out.
When she reached out for him, he caught her wrists in his free hand and pushed them into the cushions above her head. His other hand left her, even though she cried out in protest and writhed against his hold. Her cry turned louder when she felt the cold metal of manacles snap around her wrists.