Page 57 of What a Courtesan Wants
Despite her protestations, he felt her responding to him, nipples puckering, thighs parting, hips arching as if to invite him in.
“Is this what happens when one marries a courtesan, I wonder?” she teased. “One finds themselves with a husband looking to tup her every five minutes?”
“Of course not,” he chided. “You are unique in that you’ve managed to awaken a part of me that has been asleep for years. No keeper has stoked my need the way you have. It is as if I’ve just come to after a long sleep and foundthiswaiting for me, willing, naked, and mine.”
She gasped when he emphasized ‘this’ with both hands cupping and squeezing her breasts. Bracing her hands on his chest, she surged against him, angling the opening of her channel over him and poising to take him inside.
“Then by all means, take your fill.”
He closed his eyes on a groan as she sank down onto him, drawing him in deep and connecting their bodies in a way that always felt as if it could never be undone. Even when he was no longer inside her, they remained a part of one another, forever intertwined.
“I must warn you, it will take a long time for me to get enough,” he rasped, slowly undulating his hips and nudging himself deeper into her. “And by a long time, I mean forever.”
Rocking against him, she graced him with a radiant smile. “It is a good thing that’s exactly how long I intend to belong to you.”
Epilogue
Benedict slowed his pace, chest heaving and burning as he went from all-out sprinting to a moderately paced run. Sweat slicked his torso and cooled his face, making his shirt cling to his chest and tendrils of hair adhere to his forehead and neck. Only a fortnight until his next match, against a fighter who’d knocked him out cold in their first contest. It wouldn’t be happening again. The man who had trained him as a pugilist had taught Benedict that to fight a man was to know him. He understood his opponent in a way he hadn’t during that first match, which meant when he stepped onto the field to face him in a few weeks, he would be equipped to lay him flat amid a cacophony of cheers.
It was a pity he didn’t understand hisotheradversary so well. As he ran past a row of lodging houses, the sun just beginning to creep over the rooftops, he scowled. He preferred to begin his morning runs before dawn, when the streets would be relatively empty. Intermittently dashing at full speed and then slowing to a steady pace helped hone his endurance for the long, grueling rounds of a match, some of which could last an hour or more apiece. He typically spent this time puzzling over some problem or another, hoping to untangle certain threads or think up solutions by the time he returned home. However, the conundrum ofThe London Gossipcontinued to vex him—a problem with no discernable solution.
His friends had urged him to let it go. The writer had fallen silent on the matter of the Gentleman Courtesans, and all seemed well now that some months had passed without any mention of them in the papers. But, while everyone else seemed content to let the matter drop, Benedict couldn’t help the feeling of unease welling in his gut. He felt as if he stared at the surface of dark waters, waiting for the splash of something dangerous coming out of the depths.
It wasn’t over; he could feel it.
The problem was, he had no way of knowing which way to look to prepare for the coming onslaught. He couldn’t even see his opponent, let alone figure her out. He was fighting blind, something he hadn’t done since his days as a student under Captain Barclay. He’d much rather be blindfolded and taught to land blows while anticipating being struck than go through this.
He slowed to a brisk walk, cranking his neck from side to side and shaking his clenched hands to loosen the building tension there. Just ahead of him, a familiar sight had him tensing, his muscles coiling and preparing him to run again.
A boy no older than ten trotted along the other side of the street, a bundle of papers held under one arm. Benedict’s skin prickled, every hair standing on end as he watched the lad pause every few houses, disappearing down service entrance steps to make his delivery before reappearing. Benedict shortened his strides and did his best to remain inconspicuous—difficult to do when he was one of the only people on the street at this hour.
Narrowing his eyes, recollection niggled the back of his mind as he watched the boy. He felt certain he recognized the lad as being one of those he and Aubrey had chased back to Seven Dials. The more he watched the boy, the more certain he became.
Indecision warred within him as he took in his surroundings. He was a long way from home and had quite a walk ahead of him to get back. Hunger gnawed on his insides, reminding him that breakfast would be waiting when he returned to his townhouse. But what if encountering this boy gave him the opening he needed to gather more information on his enemy? What if he turned around to walk home, missing the one chance he’d ever have to track downThe London Gossip?
“Fucking hell,” he muttered under his breath, making up his mind in an instant.
He stepped into the street, kicking up his pace to avoid a horse-drawn wagon, reaching the other side just as the boy ducked down an alley.
Benedict followed, biting his lip and working to keep his steps silent. So far, the lad didn’t seem to realize he was being followed, and he wanted to keep it that way. Stepping over fallen refuse and holding his breath against the stench of one of the less reputable London neighborhoods, he pressed on. Avoiding a rather questionable puddle and coming out on the other side of the alley, Benedict found that the boy had halted and now gazed left and right, as if uncertain which way to go next.
Glancing down, he clearly saw the typeface identifying the mysterious bundle of papers as being copies ofThe London Gossip.
Perfect.
Reaching out with one long arm, he grasped the boy by his collar and dragged him back into the shadows. Slippery as an eel, the boy began to flail and twist, trying to get out of his hold. Papers went flying, littering the walkway and fluttering into the alley as Benedict wrestled with the boy. Clapping a hand over his mouth, he wrapped an arm around the body squirming like an eel and squeezed. After a few more kicks, his prey stilled, the little chest swelling rapidly for trying to draw in air.
“Settle down. I won’t harm you,” he whispered, giving the child a little shake when he kicked Benedict’s shin. “I have some questions about the person who hired you to deliver these papers, that’s all. Tell me what I want to know, and I’ll even let you go with a sovereign for your trouble.”
He always kept one in his left boot while out for his morning runs in case he had need of it, and wouldn’t hesitate to part with it in exchange for information.
The boy looked up at him with wide eyes as Benedict spun him around. Lowering his hand from the lad’s mouth, he maintained a tight hold on one scrawny arm.
Wary brown eyes peered at him from a dirty face shadowed by an overgrown mop of blond hair.
“Let’s see it,” the boy demanded with a rough, unrefined accent. “The coin.”
He’d given up attempting to escape, and based on his emaciated frame and tattered clothing, Benedict supposed a sovereign was more than enough to coerce him into staying.
