“I’m sure.”

  “But the river—”

  “Imogen,” he said, stroking a hand over her cheek, setting one finger to the furrow in her brow. “I am well. No worse for wear.”

  Her gaze tracked over him. “You nearly died.”

  “You saved me.” He leaned forward and kissed her, gently. “Tell me the rest.”

  She nodded. “You know much of it. I didn’t care for dancing or pianoforte or needlepoint or learning to keep a house or any of the rest of the things young unmarried ladies were supposed to care for.” She paused. “Truly, I don’t think they do care for them. I think they go along with it because that’s what they’re supposed to do.”

  He nodded. “Men have a good lot.”

  She cut him a look. “Rich, moneyed, powerful men, especially.” A pause as she returned to her story. “My father didn’t mind my lack of interest. He was more than happy to hire me tutors for Norse myth and anatomy and fencing—did you know I could fence?”

  “I did not, but I am unsurprised to learn it.”

  She smiled. “I’m not good at it like I am with pyrotechnics.”

  A memory returned. “You exploded a man this afternoon!”

  “I didn’t explode him,” she insisted. “I stunned him. His ears will ring for a bit, but I’d have needed something a bit stronger to actually harm him.”

  “And you without your carpetbag.”

  She laughed, tiny and sweet, and he couldn’t stop himself from pressing another kiss to her forehead. “And so? What happened to turn you to a life of crime?”

  “I beg your pardon, is it crime if you’re meting out justice?”

  “It absolutely is crime, but I’m warming to the idea.”

  Another smile, and then she said, “My father died.” She took a deep breath, her eyes going distant. “In his sleep. They said it was peaceful. His heart just . . . stopped.” Her fingers played absently at the collar of the silk dressing gown as she spoke. “And then I didn’t have anyone. Charles returned from wherever men in their twenties go, but he didn’t know what to do with me—a girl who made gunpowder in the cellar? I think he hoped that if he ignored me, one day I’d disappear, and he’d never have to worry about me having to step into a ballroom. Or a chapel.

  “I did try, for what it’s worth. To be the kind of sister he could love.” A flash of humor in her dark brown eyes. “I would have liked for him to have been proud of me. To have thought highly of me. To think highly of me, instead of thinking of me only as a weight about his neck.” She sighed. “I ate a great deal of lamb for the man.”

  He couldn’t find a laugh. He was too busy imagining putting his fist into the Earl of Dorring’s face. Because if there was one thing in the world that was easy, it was loving Imogen.

  “Your brother is an imbecile.”

  Surprise lit her face. “Not a very kind thing to say about your employer.”

  It occurred to Tommy that the Earl of Dorring was no longer his employer. Even if he were staying at Scotland Yard, he couldn’t imagine Imogen’s brother would take kindly to the number of hours Tommy had spent naked in the company of his sister. And aside from all that, “I wouldn’t take a penny from him. Not now.”

  Her fingers skated over his beard, tracing the line of his jaw. “Because we are even now that I’ve pulled you from the Thames?”

  “Because you’re perfect,” Tommy said, knowing it was a mistake. Knowing he should dress and leave this place now, before he fell further under her spell. “Explosions and gunpowder and whatever you keep in that bottle that I hear knocks men out cold be damned.”

  A blush chased across her cheeks. “You always say such nice things.”

  “You deserve to hear nice things. Now finish your story.”

  “Duchess found me. Duchess is how the Belles find anyone. And, it seems, she is how the News finds you.” She gave a little shrug. “I’m not sure I should tell you this part.”

  She absolutely should tell him this part. And everything else she had in her magnificent head. “Why not?”

  “Well, it is not the least criminal of my activities.”

  He tugged her closer, full of her. “You forget, my lady. I, too, have a criminal past. I am a known thief of unmentionables.”

  Her laugh rang through the room. “That is true. Imagine what the world would say! Noble Tommy Peck, corset stealer. Alright,” she said. “She stopped me from blowing up Charles’s carriage.”

  His eyes went wide.

  “It was an experiment!”

  Tommy had been a detective long enough to know a lie when he heard one, so he stayed quiet.

  “It wasn’t an experiment,” she confessed almost immediately. “I was young and angry and rebellious. And I wanted someone to pay attention to me. Thankfully, Duchess was doing just that, or we might have met at Whitehall long ago, under very different circumstances.”

  “For six years with you instead of fourteen months,” he said quietly, “I would have taken my chances with young and angry and rebellious Lady Imogen.”

  She smiled, soft and tempting. “I would have liked that.” And then he was consumed by all the other things about her that were soft and tempting. The taste of her. The feel of her. The way she wrapped herself around him and gave herself up to him.

  The way she looked at him, like he was a god among men, not seeming to realize that it was he who was the mortal. That it was she who was divine.

  “Tommy,” she said softly. “I wonder if you would mind very much if . . .”

  “Anything,” he said. “All you wish.”

  She closed the distance between them, her kiss heady and sweet, her tongue stroking along his lower lip gently, carefully, as though he might break.

  He growled and deepened it, pushing her back to the bed and coming over her, working at the tie of her dressing gown, parting the silk so he could slide one hand over her warm skin. God, the things he wanted to do with her.

  Except . . .

  He lifted his head, breaking the kiss. “Wait.”

  “No,” she retorted, lifting into his embrace once more.

  He resisted. “Imogen . . . sweetheart. Last night—are you . . . uncomfortable?”

  Imogen blushed, and Tommy knew he shouldn’t like it. He knew he should be concerned by her pink cheeks, an answer in themselves. He’d done his best to take care of her the night before. Made certain she’d come apart in his arms . . . more than once. But he knew his size, and no matter how careful he’d been—

  She finally looked to him, her dark eyes, the color of rich sable, meeting his. “A . . . touch?”

  He cursed in the quiet room, pulling her close, intending to whisper his apologies into her hair. He was too big for her. Too much a brute. Too coarse.

  And he’d hurt her.

  “Love,” he whispered. “I am—”

  “Don’t you dare apologize,” she said, the words sharp. “That’s just the sort of thing you would do, Tommy.”

  Confusion flared. Wasn’t that the gentlemanly thing to do?

  If he were honest with himself, the gentlemanly thing was not to have fucked Imogen Loveless in the first place, but now that he had, he could certainly tell her—

  “When I say I am uncomfortable it is not unpleasant. It is . . . I am . . .”

  He thought he might die in the way her words trailed off.

  “. . . aware of . . . myself.”

  Aware. Christ . . . had that word ever been more devastating? Imogen, aware of herself. Aware of her heat. Her slick softness. Of that place that had tempted and tormented and ruined him.

  “Aware of yourself,” he whispered.

  “Yes,” she said, and it was the prettiest confession he’d ever heard. And then she closed her eyes tightly and asked, “I wonder if you might be interested in also being aware of me.”

  As though there was a possibility he might ever say no.

  Chapter Twenty-Nine

  She closed her eyes when she said it, because she couldn’t bear looking at him. What kind of a person made such a brazen ask, and of someone who had just nearly died in a river . . . situation?

  The words hung between them, bold and shameless, and her heart threatened to beat out of her chest in anticipation of . . .

  Tommy was not moving. Nor was he speaking.

  Oh, no. Embarrassment flared, hot and unyielding. She’d asked for too much.

  “My lady?”

  He used her title.

  Awful.

  “Yes?”

  “Open your eyes, Imogen.”

  “I don’t think I can.”

  “Hmm,” he said, and the low rumble did something unreasonable to her insides, which should have learned a lesson of some kind by now, should they not?

  He was moving, the whisper of his skin against the sheets like an explosion. And then he was there, touching her. A hand at her side. The sleekness of his beard at her shoulder. The warmth of his lips beneath her ear. “Alright. Don’t open them, then. Don’t watch.”

  He pressed little, wild kisses along her jaw before taking her mouth again, slow and deep, until her arms were wrapping around him and she was sighing her pleasure.

  When he broke the kiss, it was to say, “Don’t watch me touch you here.” His fingers stroked over her hip, along the swell of her backside. “Don’t watch me kiss you here.” He placed little, sucking kisses down her neck. “So soft,” he said to the swell of her breast as he stroked his beard back and forth across it, setting her on fire.

  “Don’t watch me part you here.” His fingers tracked down her thigh, and she opened to him, writhing against him as his fingers slid to her core, where she ached. “Or here,” he said as he slipped a finger through her folds, drenched with her desire.

  They both groaned then, and her hand moved to meet his to urge him on as he touched her. “I have to be gentle,” he said, low and dark. “I have to take care while you are so . . . aware of yourself.” One delicious finger slid inside her, and she gasped. “Are you aware of this, sweetheart? Of how wet you are? Of your impossible heat?”

  She cried out and canted her hips up to him, her fingers on the back of his hand, as he petted and stroked her, making her beg, “More.”

  “Of course you can have more, love,” he said. “But wouldn’t you like to look?”

  Yes. She did, opening her eyes just in time to meet his gaze as he licked over the straining tip of her breast, sending a sizzle of heat through her before he claimed it, sucking, soft and rhythmic, in time to the glorious circles his hand painted over her, making her wild.

  “Tommy,” she whispered.

  He released her and stroked his beard to her other breast, his magnificent hand not stopping. “It’s better when you watch, isn’t it?”

  When he claimed the other nipple, he changed his strokes, and the wild pleasure had her arching up off the bed, her free hand threading into his hair, holding him tight to her as she rocked against him. “Tommy, I cannot . . . oh . . . please . . .”

  He growled, and the sound, a dark promise, sent an explosion through her as she cried out his name again and again, and rode the climax to the end—to the moment when the pleasure became too much and he shifted against her, holding her tight to his palm and whispering his wicked praise at her ear. “That’s it, love. You’re greedy for it.”

  “I am,” she confessed.

  His hum of pleasure was enough to rekindle her aching desire. “You told Lorelei I was yours.”

  Heat spread across her cheeks. Not embarrassment this time. Indignation. “She was looking at you.”

  His blue eyes met hers, the pupils blown wide. “You didn’t like that.”

  “I didn’t.” She’d hated it. “You are mine. I am greedy. For you.” And she was. She wanted to drink him in, to keep him close. To spend every minute with him. She wanted him for herself, like the villain in a gothic novel. “It makes me feel a bit mad.”

  He shook his head. “And if I told you I am greedy, too?” He was over her now, sliding down her body, pressing kisses over the swell of her stomach, setting her on fire with his tongue and the glorious pelt of his beard. “Because I am, Imogen.”

  He spread her thighs apart with his shoulders, staring down at her like she was a feast.

  “I am greedy for your brilliant mind and your beautiful smiles, and the taste of you. I am greedy for the way your sinful mouth feels against my skin, and the way your sinful body feels against my hands, and the taste of you.” And then his hands were under her, and he was tilting her up to his gaze, and staring at her with a hunger she recognized, because it was akin to her own.

  “I am yours,” he said, hovering there, where she was desperate for him. Again. Already. “And fucking hell, I would do anything to make you mine.”

  “I am yours,” she said, her eyes meeting his. “Whatever you wish. However you’ll have me.”

  Something flared in his eyes, something bleak. Something she didn’t like—there then gone—his hunger returned. “Like this,” he said, and set his lips to the soft heat of her.

  She did watch, then, the view of him, worshipping her, nearly sending her over the edge before he began. She reached down to put her hand to his hair, and he grabbed it with his own, lacing their fingers together as he worked her over with the flat of his tongue, strong and stunning until she was writhing against him, unable to stop herself from moving against him, over and over, again and again, faster and faster until she screamed his name in the darkness and collapsed into the sheets, liquid with pleasure.

  He shifted, pressed a soft kiss to her stomach and whispered, “Mine.”

  Yes.

  “Tommy,” she sighed, his name the only word she could find when he rose over her and pulled her into his arms, wrapping her in his warmth.

  She had been ruined after all, she thought as she closed her eyes and turned her face into his chest, reveling in him. Ruined for all others. Forever.

  The realization made her want more. “What of you?” she said softly. “Are you . . . aware of yourself?”

  His muscles tensed at the question. “I am fine.”

  “What you are is a terrible liar,” she said, sliding her hand down the side of his body, delighting in the intake of his breath at the touch, and the low groan that rumbled at her ear when she found what she was looking for, the hot, heavy weight of him, so hard and impossibly soft at the same time.

  “Imogen.” He hissed her name, his hand coming to hers as she encircled his shaft, testing the size of it. “You don’t have to . . .”

  “And if I want to?” she asked. “If I want you to show me?”

  His grip flexed on hers, tightening, and he groaned again, the sound simultaneously encouragement and protest. Her gaze flew to his. “Like this?”

  A grunt of approval as he helped her find the pressure he desired.

  “Like that,” she said, the lesson feeling like a reward.

  He cursed in the darkness. “Yes.”

  She shook her head. “It’s not enough.”

  “It’s more than I can—” He lost the words when she shifted, mimicking his movements from earlier, her lips tracing over his torso as they worked him together. “Imogen,” he gasped when he realized what she was after. “No. Love—” But his free hand belied his words, coming to her hair as she moved lower, breathing him in, reveling in the tremors of his muscles as he held himself still.

  And then she was there, kissing his hand over her own, urging him back so she could see—so she could marvel at the size and strength of him. She stroked her fingertips over the straining tip of him. “You are . . . beautiful.”

  Before he could reply, she licked up over him, salt and sweet, temptation made headier by the way he said her name like a prayer, like she was a goddess. His hands were in her hair as he cursed, filthy and delicious—tightening with unbearable gentleness as she took him deep, testing the taste and feel of him on her tongue.

  He groaned. Blasphemy. Prayer.

  And Imogen felt more powerful than she’d ever been, desire humming through her as she claimed Tommy’s pleasure, following his lead, licking and sucking and drawing him deep, wanting to give him everything he had given her. Wanting to ruin him, as well. For all others. Forever.

  Wanting to keep him with her. Forever.

  When his hands tightened in her hair with a deep groan, she could not hold back her own, even when he said, dark and fierce, “That’s enough, love . . . If you don’t stop . . .”

  “Don’t stop me.” She pressed a kiss to the tip of him, and he bit back another curse. “I want it. I am greedy for it. Please.”

  “Yes,” he said, harsh and aching. “Take it, then. It’s yours. It will only ever be yours.”

  The words sent them both to the edge as she found a rhythm that made them both wild, and he gave himself over to her and to his release.

  When he’d returned from his pleasure, he reached down to lift her back into his arms, his hands stroking over her skin as he whispered her name and kissed her in long, lingering pulls until she was sighing in his arms.

  They lay there for a long time, Imogen’s thoughts untethered and quiet, her pleasure having stolen her wits for a bit.

  And perhaps it had, because she did not expect it when Tommy swore in the darkness, not at all quiet, not at all untethered, and said, “This must be the end of it.”

  Shock had her immediately looking at him. “What?”

  “I have put you in danger, keeping you here. This has to be the end of it. I mustn’t take advantage of you again.”

  She sat up. “You believe you have taken advantage of me?”

  “Imogen—what I have done to you . . .”

  “What we have done together.”

  He closed his eyes. “Fine.” Opened them. “What we have done together . . . None of it should have happened. What you have given me . . . what I have taken . . . it is not for me.”

  Her eyes went wide. “Who is it for if not for the person I have given it to?”

  Sitting up, he faced her. “You misunderstand. I am saying you deserve more.”

  “I understand you deserve to be hit in the head,” she interrupted, climbing out of the bed and pulling the red silk dressing gown on once more.