She wanted to scream her approval, but settled on a quick, harsh “Yes, please.”

  “Mmm,” he rumbled, his tongue tracing the curve of her ear. “These stockings are so smooth,” he marveled, stroking up her leg, palming the curve of her calf as his teeth worried her ear. “And here.” He played at the back of her knee, and she laughed. “Ticklish?”

  She lifted her chin to give him more access—aching for more of his touch, his kiss, whatever he would give her. “I didn’t know until now. No one has ever . . .”

  Breath punched out of him. “No one has ever touched you here,” he finished for her, the words dark and full of something like pride. “No one but me.”

  She turned her head to meet his gaze. “You like that.”

  “I shouldn’t,” he said. “I have no right to.” And still, he pushed her thighs wider, pressed closer, let his fingers travel higher.

  “But you like it, nonetheless.”

  “I do,” he said harshly. “It makes me want to lay claim to you.”

  “You already have,” she said. “You do every time you call me my lady.”

  He stilled at the words, turning his face to the ceiling and closing his eyes. “Fuck,” he whispered. “Imogen . . . don’t say that. This . . . it’s one time. After this . . . we must . . .”

  “One time. For exposure.” She reached down and pressed her hand to his, where it lay just above her knee. “But I am glad it is you, Tommy. Touching me. First.”

  He stole her lips for another deep, wild kiss, exploring higher, until—

  He stopped, breaking the kiss. “Imogen?”

  She grinned, knowing what he’d found. “Tommy?”

  “Is this a blade?” His fingers stroked over the leather strap at her thigh.

  “It is.”

  His brow furrowed. “Why?”

  Her fingers tangled in his hair. “One never knows when one might meet a nefarious character in the darkness.”

  His touch traced the holster on her thigh. And then a gruff, “You don’t need a blade.”

  “I don’t?”

  “Not tonight.”

  She shivered at the words, punctuated by the stroke of his beard at her neck, and then replied, breathless, “Experience tells me it’s much better to have a weapon and not need it than it is to need one and not have it.”

  A beat. And then, “This is your weapon of choice?”

  “No, but they tend to frown upon explosives at balls.”

  “Mmm,” he said. “Unfortunate.”

  His hand was still on her blade, unmoving. “Isn’t it? But if I have to carry a blade, that one is quite special.” His nearness turned the words to breath more than sound. “It was made for me by a lady bladesmith in Scotland.”

  “I am unsurprised you have a lady bladesmith.”

  “I have a lady most things,” she replied. “You should try it.”

  “Mmm. I confess, there is a lady I am tempted by right now.” The words sizzled through her. “But you misunderstand,” he added. “When I say you don’t need a weapon tonight, it’s because I am your weapon, now. You have me.”

  Her eyes flew open and she pulled back to meet his, intensely blue. “My guard?”

  “Your blade.”

  She shouldn’t have liked it, but it sounded so . . . romantic. As though he were a Scottish warrior and they were in the wilds of the North Country and he was about to wrap them both in his plaid for the night—putting his back to the cold with the single purpose of protecting her.

  His lady.

  Her man. Not for long, of course. She was not being coy when she said marriage was not for her. That she was too wild for marriage. But tonight, in that moment, in that place, he was hers. And so she did what any self-respecting woman would do—she reached down and grasped his hand, guiding it off the hilt of her blade, higher, along the curve of her thigh, to the tops of her stockings. Where she stopped, because he’d reached skin, and she’d never felt anything like it.

  They both groaned, and he added a second hand to the first, toying with the ribbons. “Tell me . . . are these tied with pretty bows the color of fire?”

  It was difficult to find her voice. “Yes.”

  “May I see them?” A pause, and then, “My lady?”

  She trembled at the question, but caught her skirts in her hands, lifting them up, over her thighs, revealing herself. He watched, his body tense, jaw set like steel as he stroked over the wide satin ribbons. “I wondered how soft it would be,” he said, more to himself than to her. “Your skin. And now I have my answer. Too soft for hands like mine.”

  She instantly shook her head. “No.” His rough fingertips were strong and work-hewn and perfect, stroking along the edge of her stockings, tracing her inner thighs.

  He cursed again. “So soft. How are you softer than silk?” He traced further over her skin, and her thighs opened wider, giving him access to the place where an ache had begun that she did not recognize but absolutely understood.

  Tommy also understood, his blue eyes capturing hers in the darkness as he followed her silent instruction. “Here,” he said, the word a marvel. “I wondered about this.”

  He was so close—a fraction of an inch from where she wanted him. “What else did you wonder?”

  “It would take a lifetime to catalogue all the ways I have wondered about you, Imogen Loveless,” he said. “I have wondered about the color of your skin and the shape of your body and the feel of you against me . . .”

  She should have been embarrassed by the whimper that came at the words, but she couldn’t find room for embarrassment for all the desire that coursed through her. “Tommy—” she said, urging him on.

  “I wondered how soft your skin would be. And now, I wonder . . . how soft will you be . . .” He trailed off, his words hot at her ear as he moved in exquisite torture to—

  She gasped and he growled, low and dark and full of arrogant pride, like he’d known what he would find and was more than pleased to be proven right. “And now I don’t have to wonder,” he whispered, holding her gaze. “Here . . .” His fingers stroked over the seam of her and she couldn’t keep her eyes open. “Impossibly soft, aren’t you? And so wet.”

  His words threatened to undo her even as he gave her the kiss she was aching for, a long, lush claiming that captured the cry of pleasure she couldn’t keep in when he parted her folds and delved inside, painting over her again and again until he found the place she strained for him and circled once, twice, pausing only when she rocked her hips into his hand, urging him closer. He broke the kiss, lingering on her full lower lip with a little suck before he said, “There?”

  Imogen sucked in a breath. “Yes.”

  Another circle, devastatingly slow. “Like this?”

  The breath punched out of her, ragged and fierce. “Oh, dear God.”

  “He’s not here, love,” he whispered like sin. “It’s just me.” Her hand scrambled down his arm to his wrist, clutching it tightly. “Go on, then,” he urged. “Show me.”

  Her fingers tightened on him and she rocked her hips against him, searching for his touch, wanting him to resume it. “Please, Tommy.” He gave her what she wanted—what she could not find the words to ask for, the slow, unyielding circles that tracked the movement of her hips. Over and over in a rhythm that she couldn’t have imagined for herself—like in all the time he’d wondered about her, he’d somehow divined the exact way she liked to be touched.

  He knew it in detail when, if she’d been asked an hour earlier, she would have said, simply, By him.

  Soon, her thoughts were scrambled, nothing but the pure pleasure he wrought as he teased and tempted and played without purchase.

  The muscles of her thighs tensed as she held him in the exact place she wanted him, and he widened his stance, holding her open. “No,” he said. “I want to watch it hit you.”

  It was coming—roaring toward her as she held him tight to her and said, “Don’t stop.”

  “I wouldn’t dare,” he said, low and dark, the words barely more than a growl. “It’s yours, love. Claim it. Use me.”

  And she was using him, rocking against him, along his strong, knowing fingers, as his thumb continued in perfect rhythm. “That’s it.” He caught her jaw in his hand, tipped her up to him. “Look at me. I want to see you—”

  “I’m—” She gasped, and he caught her scream as she pressed her mouth to his, going wild against his hand and his lips, needing him to guard her—to guide her—through her pleasure as she came hard and fast against him, rocking against his touch as he drank down her cries.

  As she returned to herself, he held her, pressing soft kisses along her jaw to her ear, where he praised her for what she’d done, calling her a half-dozen things that no one had ever called her. Magnificent. Beautiful.

  “Like fire,” he spoke at her ear, moving just slightly, just enough to send a shock of pleasure through her before he lifted his hand and, looking directly at her, sucked his fingers into his mouth.

  It was wicked and sinful and made her want to do it all over again. Her eyes went wide and he grinned. “Like fire, and like honey.”

  She couldn’t stop herself—she reached for him, pulling him down for another kiss, knowing even as she did that it was a very bad idea. That she was supposed to walk away from him now—that they were to go back to their lives, having achieved a level of exposure that afforded them some immunity.

  Except she was not immune to him.

  She feared she was the opposite.

  But she kissed him rather than think about it, and he seemed perfectly satisfied with the plan, tipping her back, licking into her mouth, stroking down over her chest to toy with her breast, which sent a fresh jolt of excitement through Imogen, making it her turn to wonder . . . if perhaps they could continue their investigation. Immediately.

  Before she could suggest it, however, he lifted his head. “Do you hear . . .” She opened her eyes and met his gaze, feeling unmoored. He cursed, soft and wicked. “Christ, Imogen. You are so pretty.”

  It was not a word that was ever used to describe her, and so she couldn’t help the way she dipped her head, looking away from his attention.

  And then she heard it, too.

  A bell. In the hallway beyond.

  She froze for a moment, at once knowing what it was, and wishing it to be anything else. Anywhere else.

  Not now. Not while she was here in Tommy Peck’s arms, and he was telling her she was pretty.

  The bell sounded again, and it was her turn to curse.

  “What—”

  She released him and pushed him away, and he went, the gorgeous man, watching as she lowered her skirts and hopped down from the table, and made for the door.

  Imogen threw the lock and opened it a crack, peering out to discover Adelaide in the hallway beyond. “Oh!” Adelaide said. “Good. You’re still here.”

  “Where else would I be?” Imogen asked, pulling the door tighter around her as Adelaide craned to see inside the room.

  Her friend cast an amused look at her. “You realize you are quite short, Im . . . and that man is very tall. And directly behind you.”

  Imogen turned. “One moment, if you will, Detective Inspector.”

  He stepped back and spread his hands wide, and she stepped into the hallway, closing the door behind her.

  Adelaide’s brows were halfway to her hair. “When we have more time, I shall want every detail.”

  “I don’t know what you’re talking about,” Imogen said, nodding at the bell in her friend’s hand. “What is it?”

  Her expression grew serious. “No time. Duchess has the carriage waiting.”

  Imogen looked over her shoulder, toward the closed door.

  “Your body man won’t like it,” Adelaide said softly.

  “No, he won’t,” Imogen agreed, already moving down the hallway. “But there’s no reason to make it easy for him.”

  A wide grin broke across her friend’s face. “It’s to be a hunt, then?”

  Imogen’s heart was pounding at the idea that he might follow her. She shouldn’t like him chasing her. She should want him to leave her alone. And still, she couldn’t stop her reply. “I prefer to think of it as an adventure.”

  Chapter Fourteen

  Tommy was furious.

  He’d realized his mistake less than a minute after she’d left him alone in the library, and he’d headed immediately for the door, fairly ripping it from its hinges to reveal the empty hallway beyond. He’d gone for the ballroom first, full of the misguided hope that he was wrong, and that he’d find Imogen starry-eyed, in the arms of some toff with dreams of squiring her straight out of Trevescan House and directly to the nearest altar.

  God knew that scenario would make everything easier.

  Even if it made Tommy want to put a fist into something.

  She wasn’t in the ballroom. A quick glance around the crowded space revealed that she was not alone in her disappearance. The Duke and Duchess of Clayborn were gone as well. Tommy had no doubt they were all together, and that they were headed toward trouble.

  Like followed like, did it not?

  Goddammit, she was headed into trouble without him, and he had to navigate a roomful of aristocrats to find her.

  Fucking hell.

  Through his frustration, Tommy saw a flash of silver blue at the far end of the room, near the hidden door he’d catalogued earlier in the evening. He knew that color—had noticed it on the Duchess of Trevescan not an hour earlier, before everything had changed. Before he’d manhandled Imogen Loveless in the darkness, in absolute defiance of his responsibility toward her safety and his investigation.

  Responsibilities he continued to fail now that she was out of his sight.

  He was already headed for the door, ignoring a half-dozen calls for his attention, eyes trained on the place the Duchess had disappeared. The woman couldn’t leave her own ball in full swing, could she?

  Apparently she could. By the time he’d made his way down the dark servants’ stairs to the rear door leading to the Trevescan House mews, he was moving at a clip, having gained enough ground to catch a glimpse of the ice blue hem of the Duchess’s gown as she disappeared into her carriage.

  Her unmarked carriage.

  Tommy cursed in the darkness and ran for the street, flagging down a hack and shocking the driver when he climbed up on the box to offer the man half his monthly rent to relinquish the reins.

  “’S madness,” the older white man said before passing him the leather straps and blowing into his hands, chapped red and raw with the cold. “But I’ll take your money.”

  The Duchess’s carriage turned out of the Trevescan mews and Tommy followed at a distance, growing more and more enraged as they traveled farther and farther from the lights of Mayfair.

  “If we get robbed,” the driver said as they crossed through Seven Dials, “I’ll be chargin’ more.”

  Where were they headed?

  Thirty minutes later, Duchess’s carriage turned into the Docklands and Tommy swore and stopped. This was no place for a lady. Even less of a place for three of them—a husband with them or not.

  Imogen didn’t have a husband.

  She didn’t have Tommy, either.

  He tossed the reins to the driver and leapt down from the hack. He’d be quicker and undetected on foot. “Thank you.”

  The driver didn’t say anything as Tommy counted out the coin he’d promised. Only once the money had exchanged hands did the older man tip his chin toward the river and say, “In there . . . friend or foe?”

  Tommy looked over his shoulder at the looming dark warehouses of the Docklands. “A bit of both, I expect.”

  “You know what you’re in for?”

  Tommy told the truth. “I expect it’s trouble.”

  The driver looked down the dark alley toward the water. “Worth it?”

  A vision of Imogen came, unbidden, head back, dark curls gleaming, eyes half closed as she took her pleasure. Perfection. He pushed it aside and it was replaced with another. The carriage bearing down on her outside The Place, along with the fear that had consumed him at the possibility that he might not reach her.

  “Yes.”

  The old man nodded sagely. “Must be a fair bit of money . . . or a fair bit of woman.”

  Tommy didn’t respond, already moving toward the labyrinthine streets of the Docklands, telling himself that hack drivers knew next to nothing about the world.

  Tucking himself into the shadows of the warehouses along the river, he listened for carriage wheels—and heard something else entirely. Shouting.

  He followed the sound—the noise becoming louder and more cacophonous as he drew closer, a handful of bellows melding into a symphony of sound. The Docklands were a maze of dark, narrow alleys and cobblestone streets that bounced against the looming warehouses, making direction impossible to discern.

  It took Tommy several moments to find the path—feeling his way toward the noise in the pitch black—finally arriving at a wide street connecting the docks and the high land of Whitechapel. And there, with a straight shot to the river, he found what he was looking for . . . though he felt no triumph in the discovery.

  Something was on fire.

  The river gleamed with the reflection of the flames on the slick surface of high tide, and a dozen men rushed back and forth, their faces gilded in the light. At the end of the street, Tommy stopped to take stock of the damage, flames licking out of a high window on the upper floors of a riverfront warehouse.

  Where was she?

  At a distance, the Duchess of Trevescan—now out of her carriage—was deep in conversation with Sesily and Caleb Calhoun—who hadn’t been at her ball—and a young Black woman who wore a heavy leather satchel at one hip. As he watched, the woman extracted a thick stack of papers from her bag and passed them to Calhoun.

  Tommy’s gaze narrowed. What were they? He should stop them. They might contain valuable information related to whatever had happened. But he didn’t. Calhoun was already headed in the opposite direction at a clip—Sesily at his side—and Tommy made a decision he knew he would not regret.