“Oh god, okay this is one cliché you can keep,” she groaned, and he chuckled and kissed her. They had spent the entire night together, but something about their joining felt urgent. He didn’t take his time, as he had the second, fourth, and fifth time they’d come together in her bed. He thrust fast and hard, plunging more deeply each time, and groaning to match the muffled squeals of pleasure Portia released against his lips as she held on for dear life.
His desk began rocking loudly, slamming with each thrust, and then Portia felt his hands scoop under her and lift her up. Her legs wrapped around him, and she used them to lever herself up and down as he lifted. The new position provided a different and deeper kind of friction, and she rocked against him, taking his mouth with her own, not thinking of anything but her tongue against his and his hands holding her tight and his cock sliding against a spot she hadn’t known existed.
“Fuck, Portia, I’m so close,” he said, and the strain in his voice as he tried to hold back—and one frantic, solid stroke—sent her spinning into her next orgasm, shuddering against him as he groaned and tightened his hold on her.
He dropped into his chair and they rolled back until they hit the shelving behind his desk. There was nothing but the sound of their heavy breathing and cold summer rain pattering against the window. She realized she would miss the rain and cold when she left, even though she missed the heat and humidity of New York. She would miss Tav holding her like this even more, which was why she needed to end this, now. Why she shouldn’t have ever convinced herself to start it.
“About this ball,” Tav said, breaking the silence. “I’m gonna need a date, I figure.”
“You can go with Leslie,” Portia said. In that moment, she was deep in her head, had already pushed him away. She was already gone.
Tav’s exasperated sigh shifted her from her comfortable position on his chest. “Fuck’s sake, can you wait until I pull out before fobbing me off on another woman?”
Portia twisted her head so that she was looking up at him. “Oh. You were asking me.”
She hoped he attributed her quick heartbeat to the impromptu workout they’d just had. She hadn’t defended her castle well at all. She’d let down the drawbridge and invited the invader in, and now he was wreaking havoc on her heart, and not just with his heavy, long two-hander.
Tav shrugged, not knowing that she was already deep in PANIC! EJECT! mode. “It’s the kind of thing you like, right? Fancy clothes and dancing and all that shite. Who else would I bring?”
“Oh, you hopeless romantic, Tavish.” She didn’t know why she was disappointed. He wasn’t her boyfriend. This wasn’t some fairy tale where he would get on one knee and beg her to go to the ball. He was being practical, and so should she.
“Maybe you want to bring someone else?” he asked. “That’s fine, too. I know you don’t want anything serious. I just thought it could be a bit of fun in all this madness.”
She drew back and glared at him. He had crossed the line from practical into annoying. “Remember that ‘still inside me’ thing from a few seconds ago?”
She stood slowly, separating them, and grabbed her underwear. “I don’t have a date. I’m going with you. As your squire.” She had to rebuild those boundaries and this was as good a place to start as any. “I’ll go work on the statement and then we’ll figure out what you need to get prepped for the ball.”
“Sure thing,” he said. His voice was flat. There was barely any burr on the r in sure. She felt awkward and stiff as she pulled on her pants, and she fumbled her tablet as she snagged it from the seat.
“Well. I guess our systems have been flushed,” she said in what she hoped was a carefree and casual voice. They had wanted to cut the attraction between them, it had worked, and now she wanted to be as far away from him as possible.
“Mission accomplished,” he said darkly.
This was good. Right?
“Later.”
Tav grunted in response. She didn’t look back as she hurried out the door. She had a second shower to take, and maybe this one would succeed at washing him from under her skin.
Chapter 21
Tavish watched Portia across the breakfast table. A few weeks ago he would have called her rude for constantly swiping her finger across the screen of her tablet and typing away at her tiny keyboard as she picked at her beans and toast. Now he knew she was handling online social media responses to his statement. She was responding to requests for interviews. She was answering private messages, emails, and public posts in a witty, engaging, and professional manner. And she was doing it all without breaking a sweat and without complaint.
She can’t do this forever.
The low-level panic that had gripped him since she’d left his office the other day seized Tav. He was struck with dual realizations, like two attackers coming at him from different angles and impossible to fend off. One: for him, being a duke was completely tied to Portia. Spending time with her, learning from her, watching her nimble mind come up with new ideas, was one of the only good things that had come of the revelation. Would he be able to do it without her? Two: outside of the duke thing, he liked her very much. VERRA much. Was it really possible to separate his feelings for her from her helping him? Was it possible for her to be in his life without helping him? Because when he thought of her now, it wasn’t as an employee. He had thought of her as more than that for some time now.
Sweat broke out at his temples as he wrestled with where exactly Portia fit in his life, and the fact that in a few weeks she would be out of it given their current plan.
“Bruv. Tav. Tavish!”
He pulled his gaze away from Portia to find Jamie regarding him with a look of annoyance. “Hullo. Did you hear anything I said?”
Tav considered lying, but Jamie’s rare scowl wasn’t something that could be overlooked.
“No, sorry—”
Cheryl huffed. “He said what is he supposed to do about the media calling us all hours of the day and night?” She stormed over to the window and peeked through an opening in the curtains. “Look! There’s one of them right now, loitering about. I’m tempted to go wave a sword at him, but I’d end up on the cover of the Looking Glass with some bloody awful headline.”
Tav looked out the window and saw a man dressed in black, leaning against a pole. He was smoking lackadaisically, but one hand rested on his camera, ready to spring into action. Tav wanted to smash it, but it didn’t matter. The photo that had run in the Bodotria Eagle had already been purchased by news outlets. Once word had gotten out how exactly it had been discovered he was a duke, the story had spread like wildfire, along with conjecture about every aspect of his life, including who Portia was to him. He wouldn’t have had a good answer for that, even if they’d bothered to ask him instead of creating stories likely to grab attention.
“One of these guys left a message asking about my police record,” Jamie said. “I don’t have a record, unless they mean the cops almost arresting me that time because they were bloody racist and wrong.”
“They’re just making shite up, now. I don’t want these people trying to paint him as the dangerous thug brother of the new duke,” Cheryl said. Her voice was trembling, which it only did when she was furious.
“You think I want that?” Tav snapped, the rush of anger stiffening his neck. Part of the reason he’d thought the duke thing worthwhile was that he might be able to ensure his family’s security in a way swordmaking never could. There was that idea gone.
“Well, you’re the one who brought this on us, you need to deal with it,” Cheryl said. “You’ve already broken the kids’ hearts by abandoning them at the exhibition. Can’t you spare a moment from your aristocratic time to take care of this?”
Christ. As if he didn’t feel shitty enough. “I’d love to be at the exhibition, but I literally have to throw a party for the Queen. The fucking Queen. Trust me, I’d rather be with you lot.”