Page 23 of The Lady Sparks a Flame (The Damsels of Discovery #2)

23

These electricities seem to me to be a kind of chemical spirit, which animates the particles of bodies, and draws them together.

—Mrs. Jane Marcet

“Oh, look. A bed.”

Phoebe bit her lip and stared hard at the ceiling, but she couldn’t help it.

She laughed.

Sam had knocked on the door to her room in the Retreat’s guest wing a minute ago, his face drooping—like a child whose favorite toy had been smashed.

With her tiny capitulation, he glowed.

That damned glow.

“Yes. A bed,” Phoebe echoed. “It’s comfortable, actually.”

How proud she was of herself. Standing upright, breathing, smiling at the same man who had crushed her heart beneath his heel only a few minutes ago.

That’s what you get for eavesdropping, she supposed. Usually her anger kept her warm, but this wasn’t simply anger. Phoebe grasped for the heat of her rage but couldn’t break past the cold. The room, her hands, her lips—so cold.

They stood inside the bedroom facing each other. Phoebe shivered as the draft from beneath the windowpane swirled round her ankles.

“Did Grantham finish telling you the family secrets you hadn’t yet uncovered for them?” she asked, embarrassed by the slightest of tremors in her voice. It was difficult to speak naturally when your body had suddenly turned to glass.

Expecting him to placate her with excuses or to distract her in the same manner he used to keep people from looking past his charm to see the real man beneath, Phoebe turned away from him and walked toward the window. She twitched shut the heavy linen curtains, hoping to stop the draft.

Sam followed, standing behind her. When she didn’t say anything, he hooked her smallest finger with his.

They touched only there, but somehow Phoebe felt his embrace.

Didn’t he know she was fragile?

Didn’t he think she would break?

“I would have gone even if Grey never said anything to me.”

“Yes, I know. All the better to woo my sister.”

The way Sam drew breath was different from any other man she knew. As if in the next moment he would need all the air in his lungs to laugh, long and hard.

As if he lived with purpose.

“If you will remember, my attempt to woo Karolina was over before it began.”

“Stop.”

Ignoring her, Sam moved closer, not touching, but close enough that Phoebe could feel the outline of him.

Of the many discoveries by Michael Faraday that interested Phoebe, the most compelling was electromagnetic induction.

Electromagnetic induction proved when magnets circle each other around a conductor, they don’t just create an attraction, they create an electrical current. An unseen force strong enough to run a motor; perhaps someday to light a household—a city even.

When she and Sam circled each other, they created an electrical force. Unseen and devastatingly compelling.

“I made Karolina and your mother cry when I told them the story of the frog because it reminded them of how powerless princesses truly are in most fairy tales,” Sam said quietly.

“Powerless in real life as well,” Phoebe said.

“If you had confided in me, I would’ve told them my story about the nun and the blacksmith instead.”

Genuine sorrow gentled the teasing. Unhooking her finger from his, she stepped away, then turned to face him.

This room was painted the same color as the inside of a mussel shell and was spacious enough to include a bed, a dresser, two night tables, and a writing desk. A stained oak door to the left led to a bathing chamber and the heavy linen curtains were dyed a deep indigo.

Phoebe and Sam stood inches from the foot of the bed.

It had too many pillows and a garish purple velvet bedcover. Whoever picked the furnishings for this room was enamored of that dressmaker, Madame Mensonge, for the entire space was riddled with pinks and purples, mirrors, and crystals hanging from this light or that candelabra.

As if the Retreat was in the habit of hosting Parisian courtesans rather than a group of outcast scientists.

“We could end things here,” she said. “In that bed. One last time.”

Sam’s eyes flicked toward the bed, then back at Phoebe.

“One last time,” he repeated without inflection.

“Once Grantham finds out who set off the explosion, I am leaving. It shouldn’t take long. Whatever information you gave them won’t make any difference.”

Shaking his head, Sam let go a loud sigh. “I never spied on your family, Phoebe. Greycliff asked me to keep an eye out for anything strange or incriminating—”

“Shut up, Sam.”

He fell silent, regarding her as though she were feral. Somewhat dangerous. His lips and jaw moved a few times, his thick gold brows pulling together to make a V of concern on his forehead.

Testing out words, hoping for the right ones.

“I’m not going to hurt myself,” Phoebe lied without pause.

Sam’s shoulders dropped down from his ears, and he relaxed his jaw.

“I am supposed to meet Violet and Letty for supper tonight,” she said, licking the top of her teeth, her mouth gone dry. “Until then, no one will look for me.”

His eyes darted to the bed and back to her.

“This isn’t a good idea, Phoebe.” He was disciplined enough not to sound disappointed. “My plan was to get you out of here—”

“And into a bed,” she interjected.

“Yes, well. I’m no monk.” Sam flapped his hands at the bed as though fighting it away. “Eventually, into a bed. In the immediate future, out of this room.”

From an early age Phoebe learned to ease the pain inflicted by others with pain she inflicted on herself. Eminently more satisfying.

With no blade, Phoebe needed a different weapon with which to wound.

She walked toward Sam, who had the natural intelligence to know himself cornered. There was no place for him to run. Reaching out her ungloved hand she ran it, palm down, from his sternum to his belly. They stood close enough that her skirts brushed his toes. She let her hand rest on his slowly hardening cock between his legs.

Anything could be used as a weapon.

“Take me to bed, Sam,” she whispered, aware of the memories this sentence stirred in them both.

Good.

All the better to split her skin.

“Take me to bed and tell me what I like.”

Sam breathed in as though she’d slapped him, and his fingers curled into fists, as though he could fight her—fight for her, even.

His hesitation was born from consideration, not distaste. That Sam wanted her was evidenced by the familiar darkening of his eyes, the cadence of his breath, and the lengthening of his cock beneath her hand.

That she wanted him in return might have been as obvious to him. Perhaps her own eyes darkened, her breath became heavy, or he could smell the desire blooming between her legs.

Tugging at his cravat without finesse, Phoebe scratched his throat in her haste. Sam grabbed her wrist, gently enough that he would leave no marks, firmly enough that she could not move her hand. He put his mouth close to hers and she tasted the tea he’d had some time before.

Before she lashed him with words so sharp, he wouldn’t know he bled until moments later, Sam touched his mouth to hers, then caught her bottom lip in his teeth.

Anticipation clenched her quim, and Phoebe nearly toppled against him as her legs turned liquid. He further reduced her spine to yarn by biting down and at the same time clasping her arse firmly in his hand and holding her hips against his cock.

Phoebe wanted to climb him, rub herself along his lean frame like a cat in heat, and press herself tightly to him, melting into his skin and against his bones.

“I do know what you want.” He spoke against her lips, sending a vibration through her body.

Electricity.

“Then give it to—”

“You want me to be the blade you press against your skin.”

The prickling heat of a numb limb coming back to life crept over Phoebe’s skin. Was she so transparent? What did that make Sam? Omniscient? Or was Phoebe predictable?

He wouldn’t let her out of his arms. Instead, Sam ran his fingers through her upswept hair and pulled the tiniest bit. Sparks of almost pain peppered her scalp and quickened her pulse.

“I will tell you now, I will be a soft place for you to land. I will never hurt you intentionally. I will never let you hurt yourself by using me.”

What was there to say to this?

“You already did hurt me,” she said, setting her forehead to his chest. “You come into our lives with your laughter and your bloody jokes and want to pull the curtains down, and what you don’t know is how much it hurts to know what life could have been like. What I was supposed to want. What I will never have.”

Phoebe would admit she used ice to fashion her knives, cold to freeze people so they stayed away. Sam—and it had taken her overlong to figure this out—Sam used warmth. He used his smile and that bright blue gaze of his to turn down the intensity so he could back away to safety.

“Do you know, Sam,” Phoebe said carefully, “you do not always have to be cheerful or kind.”

Sam’s body stilled and his eyes narrowed before he rearranged his features to pretend confusion, but Phoebe knew he understood her.

“People will still care for you if you are grumpy or selfish sometimes.”

His head jerked back as though Phoebe had slapped him.

“You are compelling for the whole of you, not only the part that makes me laugh.”

There. Now she’d done it. If he was going to strip her bare and see her scars, Phoebe wanted him naked as well. This satisfied her urge to wound, but the pain was from the lancing of a boil, the cracking of a shell.

“All of me, Phoebe-girl?” Sam whispered, taking her chin in his hand and tilting her head up for examination. “You will not run away if I grow angry? If I lose patience? You will not be afraid and compare me to your father?”

“Do not”—Phoebe’s breath caught on the tightness in her throat—“do not deflect, Samuel Fenley. There is no comparison between my father and a man who is genuine and honest. You could be miserable and insulting, but I know, and you know, it wouldn’t last forever. There is dark as well as light in you. Be yourself with me.”

A plea. The need in her voice, the craving in her chest embarrassed her.

The room tilted when he picked her up, wrapping her legs around his waist as though she were light as a feather. As though the weight of her was nothing in comparison to his need for her.

“I will try,” he said. Sam set his forehead against hers and she fell into his eyes. “You might change your mind, once you see the whole of me.”

“I promise I won’t,” Phoebe said.

“I will hold you to that.” This time, when his smile returned, it was fierce and wicked. “But first, I am going to make you scream, Phoebe-girl.”

Not a promise, but a warning, and like the slap of a palm against the skin of a drum, the pulse between her legs thrummed in expectancy.

The soft golden features of this beautiful man hardened as he stripped each item of clothing from her body while backing her up to the bed without saying a word; the tinkling of tiny buttons hitting the floor, a counterpoint to the sound of her skirts falling to the ground, followed by her petticoats, her corset, and her chemise.

Setting a hand on her stomach, he guided her so she lay on the purple bedcover still wearing her pantalettes with her legs partly splayed. Standing above her, he touched his eyes to the places he most coveted while he undressed himself. Not rushing, but fast enough he was naked before her within seconds, his body outlined by the wan sunlight falling through the window behind him.

“Touch yourself,” he demanded.

Phoebe gasped, her hand covering her quim.

What was this?

Who was this man to tell her what to do?

Who was she to do as he told her?

“Show me,” Sam demanded.

Phoebe decided she was simply humoring him when she touched herself, opening her legs for him. He said nothing but nodded approval, then took himself in hand with long, hard strokes.

This was wrong.

The world had turned light and soft and blurry around the edges.

Compelling.

Beautiful.

The damned man couldn’t help himself, as he covered her body with his own and pushed one long finger into her, then crooked it, rubbing against a place deep within her, and when she came, hard and wet, he smiled.

Smiled in satisfaction, yes, but dear God, when Sam Fenley smiled, the entire world lit up around her.

“Condoms,” she whispered, running her fingers through his soft hair. He didn’t answer at first, busy pushing her body up the bed until her head rested on the pillow, dipping his tongue in and out of her mouth, palming her breasts, nipping at her chin and neck as though she tasted sweet.

Where were her thorns? Where was her armor?

“Not yet,” he said, eventually, then suckled her nipple and left a trail of tiny red marks down her stomach and over her thighs.

“When?” she gasped.

He set one of her legs over his shoulder and answered before he put his mouth to the center of her.

“After you call my name.”

···

He’d read that in the American west, wildfires would spring up spontaneously in their dry season. Infernos would appear from nowhere and burn everything in their path. Rather than leaving a dead and blistered landscape, they cleared the forest floors of debris, leaving new trees space to grow.

Phoebe Hunt’s passion was a wildfire.

After he’d brought her to climax with his mouth, she’d found his cravat and tied one of his hands to the bedpost. Certain he wouldn’t “have the upper hand,” she’d gone rummaging in her valise for a tin of condoms.

Forbidden from helping, Sam watched with pleasure as Phoebe used her mouth again to make him hard, harder than was comfortable before she relented and tied the condom around the base of his cock.

They both knew he could pull his hand away from the bedpost at any time.

It didn’t dampen either of their pleasure, though. She came over him then slid down, inch by torturous inch, until he was deep within her.

Pretending Phoebe had no effect on him despite the beads of sweat sliding down his temple, Sam toyed idly with her nipple, pinching and rolling it between the fingers of his free hand while she rocked her hips.

“Well, hello again, my queen,” he said, lifting his hips and meeting her thrusts with shallow ones of his own.

Phoebe gasped and he stopped, uncertain if she’d enjoyed it, until she leaned over and sucked his areola into her mouth, then bit lightly.

“Do that again,” she demanded.

This wasn’t the same as their night in the emporium. Phoebe had regained her equilibrium. She didn’t pull the cover around her to hide the largest of her scars, didn’t close her eyes when her head dropped, and she watched the place where his cock pushed into her quim.

So brave, his Phoebe-girl.

Because she was brave, because she was a queen, Sam pulled his hand loose from the cravat and grabbed her by the waist, rolling them both to the center of the bed, stopping when he rested over her.

The purple velvet coverlet beneath them was a shade lighter than the color of Phoebe’s irises. With one long, smooth thrust, Sam seated himself deep within her, so deep, a haloed depression appeared around her body where she sank into the mattress.

“Say my name,” he demanded, nudging his hips even tighter against hers, relishing the hiss of her breath and the pinch of her fingers digging into his arms.

“Fenley.”

Oh, he could spar for hours with this woman, on this bed.

Sam reached down and pushed Phoebe’s legs so her heels rested on the blanket, her knees bent to give him more room.

“Say my name.” His thrusts were gentle, shallow, and he canted himself to brush against the sweetest part of her.

“Uhhhh, Fenley-boy,” she groaned, a smile sharper than the edge of a leatherworker’s knife flashing below him.

He swallowed a laugh and thrust a little harder, a little faster; she had to hold on tighter to his arms, lifting one leg and wrapping it around his back.

By God, he was going to explode. At the base of his spine spun a buzzing sensation, and Sam forgot the challenge, forgot his name even, as the climax approached.

“Sammmm.”

A jolt of pleasure shot from his spine out of Sam’s body and into Phoebe’s when she purred his name. They gasped in unison as they shook, and Sam nearly fainted from the force of his climax.

This woman. This queen.

Phoebe Hunt was a gift from the universe, and he was never, ever going to let her go.