Unveiled (Turner, #1)

He nodded gravely. “You make an important point,” he said. “I must respect your wishes.” But instead of leaving, he stepped into the close confines of the room with her, pulling the door shut behind him. Her skirts squished against him.

Oh, God. She could feel the heat wafting off him. He couldn’t have kept his distance, not in the tiny space allotted for storage. His limbs brushed hers. His hands covered hers in the dark.

“Forgive me for my social ineptitude. What are the rules of etiquette,” he asked conversationally, “for conversations in a closet?”

“One ought never have them.”

He nodded once. “Sensible enough. I agree.”

He stepped closer to her. His eyes, rendered mahogany by the dimness, sought hers.

“You agree? Then why aren’t you leaving?”

“Hush,” he said. “You just told me: closets are not for conversing.”

He put his hands on her shoulders. He lifted one hand and brushed a wisp of hair from her face. She could barely see him, but in the close confines of the closet, she could feel her skirts bunch as he leaned into her. She had every chance to move away, every chance to shove him six inches and have him land atop the pile of rags on the floor.

She didn’t do it.

When his lips touched hers, they were soft and sweet. When his arms wrapped around her, she rested against him. She drank him in, like water after a long thirst. He didn’t say a word, just kissed her. Tongue touched tongue. Hands entwined with hands. His body was so familiar, and she needed him, desperately. He pulled back from her briefly.

“Ash.” Margaret knew her voice was trembling. “Why are you doing this?”

“Because I adore you. Because you looked so stricken when I saw you and I couldn’t bear not to comfort you.” His voice was warm breath against her skin. “Did you know, when you left that room, you took all the light with you?”

“Stop,” she said. “Stop trying to seduce me.”

He smoothed back her hair against her forehead. “If I were trying to seduce you, Margaret, I’d have done it by now.”

“In here? But—there’s no room to actually do that.”

His breath hissed out. “I should have done it sooner,” he said. “I should have done it more, and Mrs. Benedict be damned. No room to seduce you?”

His hands came down on her hips, hard, but not painfully. And then he was lifting her up and holding her against the wall. He pulled her bodice down as far as it would go, exposing the tip of one nipple. “No room? Margaret, we don’t have to lie down for me to do this.” And then his mouth was on her breast, his tongue swirling around it. She gasped and shivered. But he did not relent. Instead, he brought his hand up to cup her bottom, pulling her into him, grinding her against the hard ridge of his erection. She wrapped her legs around his, bringing herself that much closer, and his hand crept beneath her skirts, sliding aside her drawers to dip into the warmth between her legs.

“Tell me we need to be lying down for me to do this,” he said, his finger sliding inside her passage. “I can still feel you, can I not?” And then he adjusted her weight against the wall behind her and undid his breeches. She could feel the hard tip of him against her, blunt and powerful.

He sucked on her nipple again, and sensation swirled through her.

“And you already know we need not lie down for this.”

She said nothing, throwing her head back.

“Tell me you don’t want this.”

“I want it.” The words jerked from her, unwillingly. But she couldn’t lie to him.

He entered her. Slowly. Surely. Her body adjusted to his thickness. Then his hand slipped between her legs, touching, rubbing. And finally, he began to thrust, pushing her against the wall as he did so. Her senses danced. She felt pleasure build and burn, build and burn, until it overtook her, and she was caught up in flames, aware of nothing but his touch, his slow heated slides. Their joining now, when she needed to tear them asunder.

It was both beautiful and ugly, the pleasure that rose up. White-hot radiance filled her, melding them into one indivisible being. Her hands clenched and the entire world washed away.

Just as she was gasping against his chest, he slammed inside her, hard. She clutched him tight. For one moment, they stood, entwined in motionless wonder.

But as her breath stilled, all her doubts crept back. They weren’t one. They were, indisputably, two.

But he didn’t seem to notice. “There,” he whispered in her ear in satisfaction. “That is what we had room to do.”

“Ash.” Her voice trembled.

“Don’t tell me you can’t. Don’t tell me you mustn’t.”

“But—”

“No, Margaret. If you won’t look at me in public, at least hold me in private.”

Nobody could see them. Nobody even knew she was here, that they were together. This wasn’t a betrayal of her brothers—just a physical expression of something she did not dare say aloud.

And perhaps he finally recognized how delicate that balance was, because he held her tightly and did not say a word.