Page 37 of Strict Confidence (Rochester Trilogy 2)
The thought of making that trade—my shame and submission for him to stay, stay, stay—tears a gasp right out of my mouth.
“That’s it,” he says, close to my ear. I shouldn’t let him do this. I should stand up tall and demand to finish the conversation on my own terms. Demand more than a stiff apology from him. I can’t even make an attempt at pulling my body away from his. I want it too much.
I let all my weight come down on his leg. Let his hand coax my hips into rocking against him. The rest of me follows. I want my hands in his shirt, my lips on the side of his neck. I want more of him. More of him than I can possibly have in the hall. More of him than I have time to take right now. I press a kiss to the side of his neck. Drag the tip of my tongue through the ocean-salt taste of his skin. Swallow another gasp.
It’s only when I’m near frantic with the need to come that he pulls back, eyes dark with warning. “The fire chief said it was set on purpose.”
It’s humiliating, how close I am to coming. He delivers this news right as I go over the edge so I have no choice but to hear it while I shudder out the kind of needy orgasm that makes my face burn. It doesn’t sate me. Not when it’s followed so closely by awareness of what he said.
My nerves against his leg send me up and up and up again. He’s doing it on purpose. He’s making me come because he has more to say.
The horrible anticipation of it gets overrun by pleasure.
“Someone was in the house that night.” His steady voice has an edge of certainty. An edge of anger as he rubs me to climax. “Someone lit a goddamn match.”
Shock moves through me, chasing down the pleasure. Fear comes next. Cold in my veins. Of course it was possible. Possible that someone else came into the house and started the fire. I hoped it wasn’t. The idea that someone walked above our heads while we were sleeping—while we were having sex, even—makes my skin crawl.
I hadn’t suspected a thing, so consumed by Beau Rochester.
Whoever it was, they took advantage of us. The memory seems violated somehow. I was in Beau’s arms while someone plotted to kill us in his house.
I don’t know what to do. Throw myself fully into his arms or step away? I can’t do either one. I’m still pinned on top of his legs. His hands on my hips hold me in place.
He lifts a hand to my cheek. “Jane—”
“I want to get out.” Paige’s voice rises to a shrill shriek, and the slap of bath water hitting the floor comes a second later. “Jane. Jane. Jane.”
I untangle myself from Beau and cross back through the bedroom to the bathroom. Paige stands in the tub, arms crossed over her chest. It’s the pose of an angry little girl but her face isn’t upset. It’s relieved, almost. Like I was gone a second longer than she could handle. I grab a towel off the hanger by the sink and hold it out, both arms wide.
Paige steps out of the tub and lets me wrap her in soft cotton. Her little shoulders look even smaller through the drape of the towel. “Where did we put that brush?” I muse, mostly to myself. Mostly to calm my racing heart. The hormone warmth of two orgasms heats my veins.
“In the top drawer.” Paige draws the towel tighter around her as I retrieve the brush.
I focus all my attention on combing her hair. All of it, except the part that’s still hearing Beau’s words from the hallway. Someone was in the house that night. It’s scarier than the fire starting. Knowing that someone was there. Someone else could have tiptoed past my room. Someone could have pressed their ear to the door, listening to us together.
Someone could have used that fact against us.
It occurs to me now that Joe Causey knew Beau and I had sex. He knew from the very first time I met him in the hospital. How did he know?
“Jane?” asks the small girl in front of me.
“Yeah?” I say, too quickly, smiling back a beat too late at Paige’s reflection in the mirror.
“Can I have a glass of milk before bed?”
I shake off the urge to tell her no. I don’t want to go to the kitchen of the inn. In the face of Beau’s news, what I want to do is lock ourselves behind the nearest bedroom door and not come out until the police have found the person.
In the meantime, what if they come looking for me?
They could.
Someone was in the house that night.
