At his carnal words, her knees went weak. She couldn’t draw enough air. These wretchedly tight corset laces. With every shallow breath, her br**sts pushed higher against the restrictive red silk. The exquisite friction chafed her ni**les to hardened peaks.
“You wouldn’t do that.” She swallowed hard. “You’re not the sort of man to take advantage.”
“I don’t need to be a man who takes advantage.” He sent one hand to burrow under her skirts. “Just one who takes an invitation.”
He hooked a hand under her knee and lifted, drawing her leg to the side and propping her heel on the first shelf above the ground. Using the weight of his own knee, he pinned her in this lewd position.
Her heartbeat stalled as he pushed the folds of her petticoats and shift aside. She wasn’t wearing anything but stockings beneath. But she couldn’t bring herself to protest or shy away. His possessive touch excited her, and she found herself growing aroused even before his hand moved to cradle her sex.
She didn’t want to scurry back to the dining room and continue pretending. She wanted to be here with him, raw and craving. Her flushed, breathless response to his touch . . . This was honest. The need gathering between her legs . . . It was real.
His thumb slipped over her crease, parting her gently for his explorations. Pleasure shuddered through her, and she gripped the nearest shelf for strength.
“Yes.” He groaned. “I knew it would be like this. I knew you’d be so wet for me.”
The crude words made her wild. He slid a finger inside her, and she bit her lip to keep from crying aloud.
Yes.
He knew just what she needed. He worked in and out, stroking a fraction deeper every time.
And still she craved more. She rocked her hips back and forth, trying to draw him deeper, deeper. She needed him. She needed him so deep inside.
“No one else has any idea, do they? What a naughty, wanton girl you are. No one else sees what I see. No other man makes you twist and pant and moan.”
She arched off the shelves, gasping. “No.”
“Only me.” His fingers thrust deep. “Say it.”
“Only you.”
With a soft groan of approval, he bent his head to lavish kisses on her br**sts. Using his teeth, he tugged her bodice downward. Before she could protest that the gown was borrowed and already stretched to its seams, she felt the small rip of fabric.
Her br**sts spilled forward, and a dizzying rush of air flooded her lungs.
“Yes.” He eased her breast from her stays and circled her nipple with his tongue. “I know what you need.”
He slid both hands to her hips. In one swift motion, he lifted her six inches off the ground, setting her backside on the next shelf up. Nudging her skirts to her waist, he moved between her legs.
“If you don’t want this, tell me.” His voice was hoarse. “You don’t have to scream. You don’t have to push me away. You’ve only to say it.”
Izzy didn’t know what to say. Her body wanted his. That much was certain. But was this going to be her first—and possibly only—experience of lovemaking? A furtive, angry tupping against a dusty shelf? He wouldn’t be making love to her. He’d be striking back at the very idea of love.
“I . . .” She worked for breath. “I’m not saying no.”
He moaned and lifted her, so that she straddled his hips.
“But I’m saying, not like this. I want emotion. I want tenderness. I think you want those things, too.”
His fingers dug into the flesh of her backside, and he ran his tongue across her chest. “Curse tenderness. To hell with emotion. I’m not the man to fulfill your heart’s desires, but I can give you everything—everything—your body’s craving.”
“Just because . . .”
He sucked her nipple into his mouth, and she lost her voice to another wave of bliss.
She wove her fingers in his hair and tried again. “Just because she ran away, it doesn’t mean a woman can’t love you. Ransom, I . . . I know there’s more to you than this.”
“There’s a great deal to me.” He rocked his pelvis against hers, and the hard ridge of his erection stroked her core. “You could have it all. Just as long and hard and deep as you need it.”
Oh. Oh, how she needed it.
He ground against her in a firm, delicious rhythm. The warmed, weathered buckskin teased over her thighs. Izzy whimpered and clung to the shelving, helpless to do anything but hang on for the ride.
With every roll of his hips, he was pushing her higher. Closer to release.
And he knew it.
“Come for me.” He slid his hand between their bodies, and his fingers filled her deep again. As he worked them in and out, the heel of his hand rubbed against her pearl. “I need to feel it. I need to hear it.”
A thin whimper of pleasure caught in her throat.
“My name.” He stroked deeper. “Say my name. I want you to know it’s me.”
“Ransom.” Her grip tightened on the shelf.
And then suddenly—
Something gave way.
With a creak and a whoosh, her whole world turned on its axis. Plunging them both into the dark.
“Wh-?” She panted for breath. “What happened?”
Damned if Ransom could say. One moment, he was in paradise. Izzy gasping his name, all that tightness and heat surrounding his fingers . . . Victory, right in the palm of his hand.
A moment later, they were in hell. The entire section of wall, bookshelves included, had swung on its axis, depositing them here.
Wherever “here” was.
He couldn’t tell. He just knew that everything in it was close. And dank. The air smelled of rot and the mustiness of centuries.
“Is it some kind of secret passage?” Izzy asked, still breathing hard.
He withdrew his hand from her quivering flesh and lowered her skirts as much as he dared. However, he held her pinned against the shelving with his hips, keeping her feet well off the floor. God only knew what muck or misadventures lay at his boots.
With his free hand, Ransom felt around the space. “More like a secret closet. If this was ever a corridor, it’s been closed off now.”
“It must have been a priest hole. A hiding place. They built them in the sixteenth century when Catholicism was made illegal. There should be a way out of here. A lever, or—”
“Let me.”
He scouted the shelves, pulling and pushing on each ledge. Nothing. He tried throwing his weight against one side of the panel in an attempt to make it rotate back the other direction. Nothing.