Page 30 of To Heist and to Hold

As it happened, the place Ethan brought her was somewhere she had already been. He, of course, wouldn’t know that, seeing as she had been hidden behind the velvet sofa for the majority of her previous visit.

Yet she couldn’t bring herself to dredge up even the slightest bit of disappointment.

She told herself the warm glow of pleasure she felt as he guided her into the owners’ suite with a gentle hand to the small of her back was from triumph.

After all, her plan to infiltrate the inner workings of the club via becoming his lover was working splendidly.

But she knew, deep down, that wasn’t what had her chest filling with emotion. No, it had nothing to do with her schemes, and everything to do with the fact that he was letting her in. Something she felt instinctively he did not do easily.

A pang of guilt wormed its way in then: Wasn’t she going to betray him in the end? Wasn’t this all heading toward complete destruction?

She flinched, an unconscious reaction to the battle being waged in her, so violent it caught his attention. He stilled at her side.

“Is something wrong?”

Ah, God. At this rate all her efforts would be for naught, her damn conscience threatening everything. Pull yourself together, Heloise. Forcing her lips up in a smile, she gazed about her as if seeing it for the first time. Which, as far as he knew, she was.

“I’m just shocked, is all,” she replied. “I never imagined a place like this existed. You can see the whole of the casino floor from here.”

And she could. Walking to the large, tinted window, she took in the scene before her.

While she had seen something of this view on her previous visit, it had been nothing like this.

Then, the gaming floor had been quiet, the tables empty, the chandeliers dark.

Now, however, the whole scene was lit up with the brilliance of the sun, the floor crowded with people, each table surrounded by men who laughed and shouted and talked in a cacophony of sound.

It was an undulating mass of fine black wool and jewel-colored silk, like the constant churning of waves against the shore.

Placing her hands flat on the glass, heart pounding with a strange excitement, she peered down.

“Goodness,” she breathed. “It’s… it’s…”

“Chaotic, I know,” he murmured, coming up beside her, humor coloring his words.

She looked at him then, saw the pride in his eyes as he took in his kingdom. “Actually,” she said with utmost honesty, surprised at how true the words were, “I was going to say it’s beautiful.”

He blinked, looking at her. “Beautiful?”

“Certainly.” She indicated the whole of the scene with a sweep of her hand. “The excitement, the drama, the richness and the splendor.” She paused, surprised at how much she meant it. Then, because she couldn’t help herself, she said, “It’s a work of art.”

He considered her for a long minute, the muted gold light of the chandeliers that soared over the gaming floor catching in the angles of his face, casting dancing shadows across his features, making it difficult to distinguish whether her words pleased or offended him.

She soon had her answer as, giving a low groan, he hooked a hand behind the nape of her neck and pulled her against him, claiming her lips with his own.

The muted taste of brandy washed over her tongue, making her mouth water.

The next minute, however, she gasped, pulling back sharply.

“Someone might see,” she managed, sending a meaningful look at the glass wall and the mass of men below in all their evening finery.

A familiar burly figure caught her attention, Mr. Copper, the floor manager, deep in conversation with someone.

Just then he glanced up, toward the window, toward her .

Did he see them? Surprised, she involuntarily took a step back.

When she looked toward Ethan, however, her worry melted away like ice on sunbaked pavement.

There was no mistaking his expression for anything but what it was: a hot, intense desire.

For her. She shivered, though her body felt consumed by flames, and gripped her hands tight together to keep from reaching out for him.

“We keep the lights low in this room,” he explained, “to prevent those below from seeing in. That, along with the bright lights of the casino floor and this tinted glass, is enough to keep it quite private in here.”

She cast a glance about the room, but there were no gas lamps here.

No, there was only a low fire in the hearth, hardly giving off a glow, casting most of the suite in shadow.

It gave the space a surprisingly intimate feeling despite the crush of humanity on the other side of the window.

Her heart pounded in her chest in a strange anticipation.

“But,” he continued, his voice gone husky, “to add a bit of safety…”

He went to one side of the window, grasping the gossamer drapes there, pulling them across the expanse of the wall so that only the most brilliant of the chandelier lights reached them.

Then, taking her hand in his, he pulled her with him farther into the shadows before, snaking an arm about her waist, he drew her flush against his body.

“No one can see in,” he murmured. “Anything can happen in this room, and no one will be the wiser.” He smiled again, and she felt it down to her toes.

“I even had the wherewithal to lock and bolt the door.”

She should say something witty or clever to distract him. She should push him away and ask all the questions she needed to about this private area of the club, a place she had hoped, in her seduction of him, that she would be invited into.

She, however, did neither of those things. Instead she reached up, grabbed his face in her hands, and dragged him down for a kiss.

It was all the encouragement he needed. Groaning into her mouth, he stumbled his way to a couch tucked in the darkest corner, then dropped down onto it, pulling her astride him. Then his hand was between them, opening the fall of his trousers, and he was guiding himself inside her.

“Bloody hell,” he ground out through tightly clenched teeth as his fingers moved to her hips, bringing her down fully on him.

It was a sentiment Heloise herself would have willingly echoed, had she not been completely devoid of a voice. They stayed that way for a time, breaths ragged. Her inner muscles pulsed around his shaft, and he jumped inside her in response.

“Our game is still not done,” he suddenly said, breath hot on her neck.

Still focused quite thoroughly on the feel of him inside her, she did not immediately understand what he said. When she finally did comprehend it, she pulled back and gaped at him. “You still wish to play that game? Are you mad?”

He laughed, the sound strained. “Most likely. I have never in my life done something like this. But it’s my turn, is it not?”

“Yes.” She gasped as he shifted beneath her, angling himself even deeper within her. “W-what do you want to ask of me?”

With the small portion of her mind still capable of coherent thought, she half expected him to request something intimate in nature. But instead he asked, “How many have there been for you after your husband?”

“Just you,” she breathed. “There has only been you.”

“Oh God, Heloise,” he groaned a moment before, hand hooking around the nape of her neck, he dragged her down for a kiss. And it was not just any kiss, but one of desperation, of need. It branded her, that kiss, as surely as a hot poker pulled from her forge would.

Nearly mindless now, her fingers began working desperately at his clothes, tugging and pushing them from his body. His fingers were busy, too, moving with impressive dexterity down the long column of buttons at her back. Soon the only articles of clothing left on her body were her silk stockings.

She should feel wicked, naked in his arms as she was, with half the men of the ton on the opposite side of the thin pane of glass.

Instead, as he pulled her tight against him and the hard, hot expanse of his chest pressed against her sensitive breasts and quivering stomach, she found she could only think how deliciously right this was.

“You feel like heaven,” he breathed.

She smiled and kissed his shoulder, a thrill going through her when he groaned and buried his face in her neck.

Snaking her arms about his back, she pressed her fingers into the broad expanse.

But the skin beneath her fingertips wasn’t smooth.

In fact, it was rough, a veritable map of ridges.

She frowned, momentarily distracted from the feel of him filling her…

Until he pressed an openmouthed kiss to her collarbone. His hands were tight on her hips as he began to move her on him, and she had no more time to think.

“Ride me, sweetheart,” he pleaded hoarsely.

She did as he begged, holding tight to him, her hips moving seemingly of their own volition, the friction at the very heart of her building.

His low moans and harsh breaths and large hands on her body played in concert with the sensation, and she quickly came apart, splintering into a million pieces.

She had no sooner descended back to earth than Ethan lifted her from his member, quickly spending himself in a handkerchief before pulling her back into his arms, holding her more tenderly than she had ever been held in her life.

Some time later—it could have been minutes or centuries for all Heloise knew—she shifted in Ethan’s arms, achingly aware of their hearts slowing in concert with one another’s, as well as her body’s utter unwillingness to move.

And so, snuggling closer, smiling as his arms tightened ever so slightly about her, she began a slow, languorous stroking of his sweat-slicked back—only to feel those peculiar ridges against her fingertips again.