Page 23 of Blueprints, Battlelines and Ballrooms
Chapter Eleven
Itwouldtakealot of strength to throw a punch that sat a man on his arse.It took a lot of strength to upend a table and, she imagined, it took a lot of strength to heft a chair so hard it shattered a window and bent the frame.
But as Florence watched Johannes suck a long, pained breath between his teeth while he gathered the bank notes into his palm and pushed down his fury… as she watched him direct staff to board up the windows and reassure guests who returned from the theatre… as she listened to him speak in steady, measured tones when he sent a message to his parents…
She’d never seen a stronger man in her life.
His heart was breaking—it must have been.Yet his every word rang with encouragement and consideration.His every thought appeared to be focused on the comfort of the guests.
‘Hopefully it won’t snow tonight,’ the concierge, Matteo, said.
‘Have heated bricks ready in the breakfast room upstairs if it does.And check the boilers for fuel.Make sure all the guests have warm water for their basins in the morning.Sometimes just the thought of it being cold makes them feel it.’
‘You look properly exhausted.You should call it a night.We can handle things from here.’Matteo tipped his cap to Florence and Johannes before he wandered back into the dining room to oversee the last of the clean-up.
Florence slid her hand into Johannes’s palm.Just like when he had kissed her, he wrapped around her with effortless ease.Everything about him was so hard and bulky, but he held her so gently.
‘Why didn’t you thump that man?I know you wanted to.Iwanted you to.’
‘I could have.But it wouldn’t do to give the hotel a reputation that the owner’s son flattens the guests, no matter how bad their behaviour.’He gripped her hand a little tighter.‘And just because Icandoesn’t mean Ishould.’
She’d come here to tell him why she’d run.How he scared her because he was too kind.How she wasn’t ready because she’d disappoint him, and while she’d borne the weight of failing George with resignation, she lacked the strength to carry that burden again.But the words she’d practised in front of the mirror left her as voiceless breaths, dissolving into the atmosphere as frosted air.She pressed her palm to his cheek and, with the lightest direction, turned him from the desolation of the dining room towards her.The memory of those lips had haunted her all day.Why not steal another kiss?Why not build some comfort between them?Because for all their mute efficiency, she was certain that none of the staff, no one else in this building, understood how he felt.They only saw shattered glass and bent iron.Yet she knew it was fragments of himself that glinted on the carpet, a part of his very being that had bent and broken.
With an unflinching hand around her waist, Johannes raised her the last half inch to his lips.They tasted salty, like he’d shed a quiet tear while no one was watching, like all of the aching loss of the evening.A flick of his tongue, then another.She tilted back, gripping his shoulders for balance as he consumed her.Florence offered herself up as comfort like the cold wasn’t inching into her knuckles.She hid her pain in the insides of his coat, and he huffed a little moan against her.
‘I should take you home,’ he mouthed, more mist than words.
Florence brushed her lips against his earlobe, then whispered, ‘Pretend I’m one of your ladies you meet in the dining room.’
His grip on her tightened.‘You aren’t like that to me.You are so much mor—’
‘Shh.Let me be one.Let me imagine I’m a woman without obligations who makes poor decisions and allows herself to be led astray.Let me be young and reckless.’
She could pretend to be a beauty without a care in the world, a woman with freedom, one not beholden to the whims of others.‘What would you do if I was one of them?’
Johannes bent his head and pressed his lips to hers.Florence let him curve around her.Her back ached, and if she moved too much, she might cause some crick or a stab of an ache or a shot of pain that would destroy the magic.That would shatter the illusion that she was just a young woman desired by a man.He moved slowly, tracing her lips with his tongue, and she opened her mouth in invitation.When she sucked his lower lip between her own, he sighed, a hint of longing and an ache in his breath.
‘I would kiss you until you are too stupid to talk.You taste so good,’ he mumbled against her.‘So sweet.’
‘I’m not sweet.’With a bold stroke, she ran her hand over his trousers.He was already growing hard, and he gasped in surprise.‘I am heedless of consequences.Irresponsible.And I want you to take me to a room.’
His grip tightened.His fists bunched her skirts until they pulled taut where he held her against him.Then he broke away, cast a quick glance at the dining room, and stepped behind the desk.She leant against the counter, watching him fill in the guest register.
Mr Jones, room 205.
‘Is it always Mr Jones?’
He smirked.‘Gentlemen never tell,’ he said, then turned to scan the keys on the wall.His confidence in the routine kindled a spark of envy.How many?How many women were noted in the guest book?How many times had he done this that he had a favourite room?And how would she compare?She had so little experience…
He plucked a key from the wall, and when he turned to look at her, all his reticence had vanished.He took her in with a breath, his chest heaving as he scanned her body.Then he grabbed her hand and made for the stairs.
Blasted stairs.
‘Carry me,’ she demanded, and Johannes scooped her up with ease.Once she could no longer see the floor of the entrance hall, she kissed him again, hot and voracious.She wrapped her good arm around his neck and rested the hand that belonged to her bad shoulder against his cheek.He cupped her breast, and the key in his palm pressed through her dress like an illicit promise, like a brand, like he was claiming her already.
They scrabbled up the rest of the stairs like that.Mouths tasting, hungering, licking, hands squeezing.Florence could only hold tight and let him find the way.On the second landing and a little down the hall, he lowered her to her feet, then pushed her against a door.Still kissing, he slipped her collar button with the deliberate skill of a man who had made that move before, all the while scrambling to fit the key into the lock.He caught her as the door opened, and they stumbled into the room, still grasping at each other.The walls shuddered as he slammed the door closed.
A sliver of light hung like a faint line in the room, but apart from that, all was darkness.A few blinks, and a vertical thread trembled into focus—the gap between heavy curtains.A few more blinks, and a tall bed with posts and curtains resolved itself.Johannes caught her in one arm.Nothing about him reminded her of the measured instruction she’d received from her husband.Johannes engulfed all of her senses, her very presence.He flicked open her buttons with too much skill, and she helped him, if only to reclaim a small sense of agency, scrabbling at skirt ties, then flinging her collar away.Every time a breath of night air brushed her skin, he covered it with his mouth or his hand, kissed her or licked her, his undressing of her chaotic and eager.
