Page 27 of Blueprints, Battlelines and Ballrooms (Tales from Honeysuckle Street #4)

Chapter Sixteen

Johannes wiped a hand through a sunbeam that had landed on Mr Holt’s desk. ‘I think there’s enough sun to fix them.’

Florence adjusted the tilt on the table so it lay flat. ‘How many drawings do we need to copy? There are a few clouds. I don’t think the weather will hold.’

‘We’ll start with the plans. We can do elevations if it stays light.’ He ran a thumb along the crisp edges of the vellum copies of their drawings. ‘I can’t believe you managed all of them.’

‘I couldn’t sleep. I sat up far too late, tracing them. But when I finally made it to bed, I slept like a kitten.’

Florence looked up, peering out of the window and at the rooftops of the adjacent building.

Weak yellow light flexed and glowed through the room.

It fell in an uneven rectangular patch around her and across the hatching of her gingham dress.

He knew this dress. It was almost a uniform for the days she did not receive callers or head out with her mother.

Easy to remember because she wore it so often.

But more than that, it belonged to another memory.

A more lascivious memory, one that he recalled far too often.

This was the dress she had worn to the hotel when she’d come to talk to him.

As they’d stumbled upstairs in the dark, he’d scrabbled with those same buttons until he’d prised them loose.

Then she’d pushed that skirt down, he’d pulled that ribbon, and she’d climbed over him…

‘Johannes? Will you help me with the glass?’

He startled. ‘I… pardon? I mean, yes. Do you have the first page?’

Florence picked up a sheet of white vellum around two feet long.

It fluttered a little as she crossed the room to his desk.

‘I’d forgotten all those foundation hallways we put in at the start.

I’ve been so worried about managers’ offices and doorways.

It wasn’t until I started tracing that I even remembered them.

It’s so functional, yet full of light. It really is a beautiful building for busy people. ’

Johannes adjusted the angle of his desk so that it pulled away from the sunlight.

He placed the first glass plate over the woodgrain.

Through its opalescence, the swirls of wood and splotches of stray ink and paint seemed fixed and deliberate, instead of the knocks and accidents they actually were.

He opened the folder and gingerly took hold of the first sheet of heavy paper that he’d painted with the cyanotype solution the day before.

Florence lifted the vellum and held it on its long side.

‘Are you ready?’ he asked.

She nodded. ‘Always.’

The paper rubbed rough against the layer beneath as he pulled it from the case.

He slid the straw yellow page over the glass.

It sat uneven, with little bumps and distortions where the solution had dried in patches.

With a hasty snap, he locked the rest of the papers back into the darkness of the folder while Florence stepped forwards to place the vellum over the sheet.

Fresh soap and orange oil, lemons and cloves, and underneath it, a whisper of exertion, of ink and industry.

She smelt so good . As she bent over the table to make small adjustments to the vellum, her arms brushed against his.

So focused, everything about her was so focused.

She tilted and turned her head as she swept her gaze across the entire sheet, her small smile of recognition flooding his vision as she retraced their plan.

He’d slipped that top collar button.

Right before he’d run his tongue over her neck.

And he’d pressed his lips right there, against her jaw, and she’d tasted like eternity.

She touched his arm. ‘Johannes?’

Johannes blinked rapidly to bring himself back into the room.

‘One day I will figure out where you go in your mind,’ she said with a laugh. ‘What are you thinking about when you disappear like that?’

‘It’s possibly for the best if you don’t know,’ he said gruffly, then swallowed. ‘Are you happy?’ He nodded at the vellum.

‘I think so. The top glass, if you wouldn’t mind.’

Johannes grasped the large matching plate on either side.

He hoisted it up, then held it out, suspended over the pages.

Florence leant in closer, squeezing into the space between him and the desk as she reached out to pin the edges with her fingertips.

If he moved too fast, the shift of air would ruin her alignment.

He knew it was necessary, but dear heavens, did she have to rub against him?

Did she have to curve against him with such familiarity?

This was too much, too close, and the memory of her tight around him was so delicious.

The glass settled, and the push of air sucked it into place. Florence passed him a clip. ‘One each?’

They clipped the sides in silence. Florence shuffled out of his path so he could carry the glass across the room to slide it onto the desk in the sun.

On a day like today, it might take as long as half an hour for the colour to change.

The photosensitive wash he’d painted on the day before would react with the sunlight and change from the wishy wash of yellow and green to the richest of blues, to deep cyan.

Only the lines that Florence had traced in black ink would block out the sun to resist the reaction.

Once he’d washed the page, those lines would stay behind, crisp and white, and the building they’d planned together would be there: transposed onto another page, copied like magic.

And from that vellum, they could make another copy, and another, all identical.

As many blueprints as they needed, as long as they had paper and sunlight to fix them.

‘I never tire of this.’ Florence leant against the wall beside the window.

She hugged her arms across her waist and stared at the plate on the desk.

‘Seeing the colour darken, hoping nothing shifts and ruins the process. There’s something about this moment that turns an idea into a firm thing.

It’s both elation and fear. The moment of truth. ’

‘I remember the first time I made blueprints that worked.’ Johannes rested against the wall on the opposite side of the window, keeping his shadow to one side.

‘It took me at least half a dozen goes because Elliot kept opening the folder and exposing the sheets. But when I finally made a drawing that worked, it was like magic.’

‘Blues are made for sharing,’ she added. ‘They become a little less your own each time you reproduce them, a little flatter. Less creative, more construction.’

‘Truth and beauty,’ he said. ‘The beauty belongs to the sketches. The truth is all in the builder’s hands.’

Florence stroked her bodice with her thumb.

She really was so lovely, so captivating, the soft grey flannel a monochrome against the fire of her, against the vibrancy of her spirit that sparkled in her eyes.

Once again, he was subsumed by the memory of her thighs against his cheeks and her delectable hollering and the rocking of her hips.

How well they had fit together, how alive and wanton they had both been free to be.

There was a question in her eyes, and she raised a brow and parted her lips, but before she could ask, where do you go, he rushed into his own query.

‘Do you… do you ever think about that night at the hotel?’

‘Yes,’ she replied, her voice low and rich. ‘Oh, dear lord, yes.’

And Florence flung herself at him with such intensity that Johannes staggered backwards when they collided.

Hungry kisses… just her and him… They moved like they were each other’s oxygen.

He pressed his palms against her back, cupped a breast as he sought to make the cravings of his imagination tangible and real.

He caught her sharp inhalation with his mouth and tasted it, tasted her, the sunshine, the light. Her orange-scented sweetness.

She unfastened two buttons of his shirt in the middle, then slipped her hands through the gap.

Tugging at his undershirt, she pulled at his clothing until she found his torso and scraped her nails over his skin.

They bashed against the back wall. He could only groan and wrestle with her much tighter fastenings as he tried to find some entry to her body, to her delicious thighs and her nub that hardened so responsively when he rolled his tongue over it.

‘How the hell do I get to you through this?’ he asked.

Florence rested one foot against the chair seat, then pushed herself up onto his desk with a grunt. ‘Like this,’ she breathed, and gathered her skirts.

Johannes moved between her knees. She spread a little wider, bunching her petticoats and flannel.

He grabbed the hem of the skirt and flung it up, then ran his palms over the length of her stockings to her drawers.

Was nothing easy? She had worn closed drawers without an easy opening to guide his path.

He rubbed between her thighs, and with a few strokes, the fabric dampened.

Florence tipped her head back, her moan far too loud for this time of the day. ‘The tie is at my waist. Let me—’

Johannes grabbed a fistful of cotton on either side of the seam and pulled. Her gasp almost smothered the ripping sound of thread, then morphed into a throaty grunt as he slipped two fingers inside her. Wet and yielding, she quietened to a whimper.

‘I don’t have a sheath,’ he muttered in her ear. ‘Would you like me to stroke you? Or lick you again?’

‘I want you to fuck me. Pull out if you are worried. Just fuck me.’ She worked at his buttons until she could slide her hand inside his trousers. His knees went weak as she wrapped her hand around his cock and ran her palm along his length. ‘I want you inside me.’

If she fell with child, he’d marry her. He’d do anything for her, so indeed, what did it matter if they fucked right now, like this?

She tilted her hips just a little, and between the torn bits of fabric, he caught a slip of her naked slit.

Johannes let her pull him closer, and with a steady hand, she guided him into her body.

He could not breathe or think or open his eyes as the tip of his cock entered her. Barely inside her, he paused and relished the sensation. She felt glorious, raw and warm, wet and soft. She widened with need, and he pushed a little deeper.

‘I’ve never done this without armour before,’ he said, tugging her towards him for better leverage. He trailed his lips from the exposed skin above her collar to behind her ear, tasting her with every thrust. ‘You are extraordinary. How does that feel?’

Florence arched as he thrust into her. ‘So good. Like I’m not even human. Like we’re just stupid animals.’

‘You want to fuck like animals? Let’s fuck like animals.

’ Johannes withdrew from her and, keeping her skirts bunched with one hand, he rolled her over on the desk, found the gap in her drawers and re-entered her, harder and deeper than before.

She bit back a howl and forced it into a grunt.

She gripped the edge of the desk as he raised her hips.

His fingers followed the curve of her, flicked their way forwards to find her clitoris.

As she rocked, he teased and circled, faster and faster. Yes. Yes.

He gritted his teeth to hold back. Her broken cries built as she worked herself against him until she let out the most glorious, guttural moan.

As her voice turned to heavy gasps, he took hold of her skirts, bent her over a little more, and kept going until everything in him tightened and cascaded and he spent inside her.

Utterly depraved, totally wanton, completely magnificent. All of her was mesmerising and golden. He loved her so much. Johannes pressed his forehead against the back of her neck. Loved her. Beyond a doubt.

‘I shouldn’t have done that,’ Florence muttered. She slid back and raised herself from the desk.

‘You don’t have to worry.’ He pulled out and tucked himself away. The ebbing gratification turned to fear. Not again, he could not lose her again. ‘I… I don’t think any different of you. And if anything happens, I’ll look after you…’

‘I don’t mean that.’ She huffed a laugh, then groaned as she steadied herself on her feet and turned to face him. ‘ That felt amazing. But my shoulder pinches sometimes when I move too fast. I forget my limitations when I’m with you.’

He gathered her against him. Caught the little puff in her chest and the smile in her voice. ‘Good. You should have no limitations or barriers in your way. I’ll knock them all down. You should fly.’

She rested her cheek against his chest. He stroked a curl from her forehead. Her next breath was laboured, and she felt awkward in his arms.

‘I think I need to lie down. I did not sleep so well last night. Can you finish these?’

She was moving away before he could reply. He made to follow but paused in the doorway and watched her slow progress down the hall with her sluggish step. At the bottom of the stairs, she gave him a little wave. Like she was brushing him and his concerns away.

He laughed to himself, then checked the light.

On the paper, the cyanotype wash was starting to change colour, and the blues were starting to bloom.