Page 53 of The Hellion is Tamed
His family, his good fortune. His profession, his good fortune. Even his supernatural gift, his good fortune. His love—he glanced to the bed and the slumbering figure tucked beneath her mother’s tattered quilt—hisextremegood fortune.
He knew, in what fortune tellers liked to call thelook back, that he’d never have been able to share his life with anyone except a woman who understood what survival and desperation on the mean streets was like.
His heart being taken by a rookery girl made all the sense in the world.
Simon left his inspection of the waking city to check on Emma. She’d been sleeping for—he slipped his watch from his pocket and checked the time—going on thirty hours. Henry had returned them to theminutein 1882. The only issue with the trip being that his brothers now knew he owned a lumbering former paint mill overlooking the worst section of New Oxford Street. Unfortunately, Julian and Finn weren’t the kinds to linger before popping by to check out his investment. The security of the neighborhood, the safety of the dwelling…and so on.
However, he loved them. Consequently, their behavior was tolerable.
Love brought all manner of disturbance into one’s life.
He wasn’t up to fighting it anymore.
Swiveling the chair sitting next to the bed around with the toe of his boot, a spindly, fragile effort he’d also pinched from Julian’s attic, he looped his arms along the high back and settled in. The button he’d lifted from Finn’s coat for kicks in hand, fingers occupied, mind resolved. She had to wake soon for food and drink and to use the utilities, which were admittedly sparse. But this woman, he knew, would see promise in the space, in his plans, in hislife.
She’d seen promise from the very beginning, when he’d seen little promise himself.
“Something stolen, I imagine, that you’re shuffling between those talented fingers,” Emma whispered minutes later from the depths of fine bedding. Everything else in the loft was rough, like her mother’s quilt, but the bedding he’d made sure was fit for a queen. The same maker Victoria used. So when he slept here, he slept well. And alone. Never having brought anyone to this space.
“You’re not a burden,” he said, diving in before his idiotic side, incorporating a man’s hesitant reasoning, kept him from divulging the truth.Burden. The wrong word, although lovewasburdensome if one felt it strongly enough.
He felt it strongly enough.
The quilt lowered, and her eyes found his. In her bright blue gaze, he read all kinds of things. Affection, exasperation, offense. The last chilling and putting him on guard. “I spoke without thinking. Apologies for what rolled out of my mouth.”
She scooted high, coming up and out of the tangle of silken sheets, in a shift but nothing else. Victoria had undressed her, but now, he was benefitting, his blood racing through his veins to see her nipples, dark pink and pebbled beneath thin linen. The gentle curve of her breasts. Collarbone, slender neck. Tongue sliding along her lips to moisten them.
He’d undressed to his trousers and shirt and slept beside her, listening to her soft breaths. Nothing but his heart involved.
Now, his cock was stepping into the mix.
When her gaze met his, he found a complementing hunger, emotion sizzling, stinging him where he sat.
Emma looked to the crate acting as a bedside table. The Soul Catcher glowed in a puddle of amber light. A soothing pulse, like a heartbeat, because it was where it should be.
With her.
“You’re trusting me with the swish stone now, is that it?”
He shifted on his rump, thinking the chair felt harder than it had seconds ago. She was still irked.Women. “I’m trusting you with everything, Emma.”
“More than you trust Josie?”
He cursed and vaulted to his feet, leaving the chair rocking on its frail legs. Ate up the distance to the window, braced his arm on the iron frame and gazed out at the bruised horizon. “You’re going to fight me at every step. Damned if I shouldn’t know that already.”
The coils squeaked as she crawled from the bed. An issue he’d have to repair if they were going to use it like he wanted to. He forced aside a frantic urge to swallow his pride, stride over to her and kiss her senseless. Seduce her while destroying those luxurious sheets, until there were no words to be spoken. “I’m sorry for not giving you the Soul Catcher in the first place. It’s yours. The League agrees, if you care about that piece.” He traced a jagged gash on the frame with Finn’s button. “Is this what I’m supposed to say? Josie is—”
He exhaled and tunneled his hand through his hair, thinking it’d been ages since he’d had it cut. Overlong, which he liked. He wondered which man Emma preferred. Unkempt scoundrel or London toff. “Josie is a friend. And never more than. While you’re…”
Her arms circled his waist from behind, sending his pulse spiraling. Then, after a moment, she laid her cheek on his back and squeezed tight. “The thought of you with anyone else, those women, the gossip rags. I can’t stand it. I won’t standforit. Iwon’t. Even if you did give me the loveliest violin I’ve ever seen.”
Simon released a relieved whistle through his teeth. She loved him; she did. Hanging his head, he placed his hand over both of hers, trapping her, should she think to leave him. Ever again. It was going to be fine, somehow, all of this. He and Emma were going to find their way through a complicated world. Protect each other, love each other, and go on.
“Em, there’s never…will never be another woman for me. How could there be?” He shrugged a shoulder, brought her hand to his mouth, brushed his lips over her palm, the veins running along the inside of her wrist. “When you’re all I want, all I’ve ever wanted. Ask anyone in my family. Piper, Victoria, Delaney. Julian, Finn, Humphrey. Since that moment in Oxfordshire when you stepped out of a dream and into my life, I’ve never wanted anyone else.” He laughed against her skin, power coursing through him when she trembled. “They worried greatly because not finding you meant my life was over.”
“Simon,” she whispered, her breath streaking through his cambric shirt to warm his skin, “stop.”
“No, never again,” he vowed and turned, enclosing her in his arms, lifting a hand to cradle her head as he seized her mouth. Her surrendering sigh parted her lips just enough to let him in.