Mr. Impossible (The Dressmakers 2)

“You look at me in that t’ala heneh way,” he said.

“I do not,” she lied. The need beat in her heart and hummed in her veins: T’ala heneh. Come here.

“Then why do I forget why I came?” he said. He sank onto the divan beside her. “It was vastly important. But the expression on your face made me forget everything.” He took up the notebook that had slid from her hand when she saw him. “Perhaps it will come to me by and by. What occupies you today? Or should I say whom? For here is a pair of those pesky cartouches.”

“Not a pair,” she said tautly. The space was too small. They were too isolated. Outside the crew launched into a love song. “They come from separate places.”

As she and he did, she reminded herself. Separate worlds. She needed to stay in hers, to keep her distance. She knew this.

Yet she drew closer and pointed at the page while she spoke, though it was unnecessary. He could see well enough. The matter wasn’t complicated. “The one on top is Ptolemy’s, from the Rosetta Stone. The one below is Cleopatra’s, from Mr. Bankes’s obelisk.” She was too close. His scent was in her nostrils and seeping into her brain and making a haze there.

His gaze lifted from the notebook to her face. She should look away, focus her mind, or else he’d read in her countenance what she wanted, every reckless thought, every mad feeling. She couldn’t look away. She wanted to trace the angle of his jaw with her fingertips. She wanted to lay her cheek against his.

“You’ve written letters over the signs,” he said.

“Guessing games,” she said. “Count the letters. Compare the letters. To keep my mind occupied.”

“Is it working?” he said.

Think of Miles, she told herself. Think of all he’s done for you. Will you make him pay for your weakness and folly? Say, “Yes, it’s working.”

“No,” she said. “It isn’t.”

“Nothing works for me,” he said. “It was stupid to come in here and close the door. Everything in here is yours. The goddess scent of incense. The scent of your skin. The smell of books and parchment and ink.” He stroked his hand over the few inches of divan between them. “This is where you sleep. I sleep all the world away. That’s how it feels. I miss you.”

She came up onto her knees and laid her fingers over his lips. She mustn’t let him say another sweet word. She would start believing things that couldn’t be true. Then, afterward, it would hurt even more. Men would say anything, do anything. Even Virgil had changed his tune with her when he felt amorous.

Outside, the sailors sang of love. One voice rose above the others in a wail of longing.

Love troubles my heart;

Sleep will not close my eyes;

This agony tears my vitals;

I weep endless tears.

Alas, if only we were together,

I would not sigh, I would not weep.

He brought his hand up and stroked down over the fingers covering his lips, down over the back of her hand. He clasped her wrist. She let her hand slide down and curl into his. Their fingers twined. He brought their joined hands to his chest and pressed them over his heart.

“Miss you,” he said. It was the barest murmur, scarcely a sound.

She missed him, too, missed the freedom they’d had in their tomb in Asyut: to touch, to kiss, to give and take pleasure, to hold each other. To be whatever it was they were when they were in each other’s arms.

She bent toward him and touched her lips to his. He answered with a gentleness that made her ache. She slid her hand from his clasp so that she could hold him with both hands, cupping his beautiful face and looking into those eyes, those dark, laughing eyes.

Even now the wicked spirit lurked there, a glint of mischief in the darkness of heat and desire. It made her smile, and she brought her smile to his mouth and gave it to him. “Miss you,” she whispered. “So much.”

She should move away, but it was too late. She’d breathed the scent of his skin, and got the taste of him on her lips, and felt the warmth and strength of his hands. She pressed her mouth to his once more, and all the longing she’d tried to stifle spilled from her in the kiss she ought to have held back. Her hands slid to his shoulders, and she clung when she knew she ought to let go. Later it would only be harder.

But later was so far away. Now all her world was him, and the long, tender kiss that turned fierce in a moment. His arm went round her waist, and he pulled her against his hard torso. She shifted into his lap, and pulled up her skirts, and wrapped her legs around his hips. She was shameless. With him she could be. She could do as she pleased. No rules. Only to please and be pleased. She caught at his shirt, tugged it up, and broke the kiss only long enough to pull the garment over his head. She dragged her hands over his shoulders, his back, his chest. He was as smooth and hard as marble but warm and vibrantly alive. She’d never known anyone so fully alive as he.

Outside the men sang:

My heart is wrapped in fire.

Who burns as I do?

Is there no remedy?

He caught the back of her head and pushed his long fingers into her hair. He held her away and looked at her. No words. Only the heat in his eyes and the glint of wickedness and the hint of a smile. Then his hands slid downward, and he undid the bodice fastenings, watching her face all the while. She remembered the first time he’d tried to undress her, against the door.

What are you doing? she’d said, like an idiot.

Taking off your clothes, he’d answered, clearly amazed at the stupidity of the question.

Now she laughed silently, recalling. He grinned, and she knew he remembered, too.

The bodice fell away, and his hands were upon her skin, and her brain slowed and thickened.

She pressed her fist to her mouth to keep from making any sound. She had craved his touch, his strong, clever hands tracing the curves of her breasts, her waist and belly and hips. She hadn’t understood how desperate it was, the ache, until now, when it swept over her like a sandstorm, blotting out everything but the piercing need for him.

He pushed her skirts up further and loosened the waist of his full trousers. She trembled when the garments slid away, leaving them skin to skin. She wrapped her arms about his shoulders and pressed her mouth against his neck to keep from crying out when his hands moved up her thighs. She drank in his scent, hot and male and his alone. At the first intimate touch she screamed silently. If she could have done, she’d have cried out her pleasure, her torment, and impossible, contradictory demands. More. No. Stop. Don’t stop. There. No, there. Oh, don’t. Oh, yes, please.

Laughter bubbled inside her along with a sorrow all but unbearable.

Madness.

Wonderful madness.

Her teeth dug into his shoulder, her nails into his back while his wonderful, dangerous hands found every pleasure point, and streams of sensation, violently sweet and hot, coursed through her.

The sailors’ drum was a distant echo, their aching song a counterpoint to the ache within. She longed for him. To be his. To be together. To be one.

She slid her hand down over his belly, and took his rod in her hand to guide it into her. He made a choked sound and pushed her hand away. He shifted her on his lap, and before she could tell him she couldn’t wait any longer, he thrust into her. His mouth covered hers before she could cry out. Yes, oh, yes. Like this. At last.

Outside, the sailors sang:

O first and only one of my heart

Show at last your favor to me

I am thy slave eternally.

Thou art my lord and master….

Outside was the wail of the pipes and the beat of the earthen drum.

Inside was an all-consuming need to be joined, completely and forever.

She took him deep inside her, wrapped herself about him, her hands moving over him, to have as much of him as she could, though it could never be enough.

She rocked with him, silently, to the music and beat only they two heard. Feelings s

welled, dark and ungovernable, and she let them take her. With him, she would go anywhere. With him she feared nothing. With him she was finally, truly alive.

She held onto him as she’d done during the sandstorm. She let the pleasure rage around her and inside her and between them until it shattered them both. It brought release, and a quiet like peace.

“WHAT ARE THEY singing?” Rupert said later, when he could breathe again, think again. They’d sunk down against the cushions and lay there for a long time without moving. He held her still, close to him, and she held him.

He ought to help her get her clothes back on. Not a great deal to do. Put her bodice back together. Straighten her skirts. Nothing else. No corset. No petticoats. No drawers. He grinned.

“Love songs,” she said. “What’s so amusing?”

“You,” he said. “You weren’t wearing any underthings. I collect you were expecting me.”

“I haven’t worn underthings in days,” she said. “It’s too hot. We need to get dressed. It’s getting late. We’ll be stopping soon for the night.”

“Love songs,” he said. Then he remembered. The reason he’d come. The excuse. “Yusef is sick with love for Nafisah.”

“That would explain the choice of song,” she said. “All the burning vitals and misery and ‘alas’ this and that.” She started to untangle herself from him.

He drew her back.

“We need to be sensible,” she said. “I need to be sensible.”

“Another moment,” he said.

“Mr. Carsington.”

“Rupert,” he said.