Beth Ciotta - His Clockwork Canary

“I like him,” Willie said when the door closed.

“I heard that,” Fletcher called even though it sounded as though he had already reached the landing.

She laughed then, a welcome feeling after being so tense and anxious throughout the day.

“Music to my ears. You should laugh more often, Willie. We’ll have to do something about that.” Simon smiled whilst dragging off his paisley scarf. “What do you think of this room? Will it do? I know the decor is quite masculine but—”

“You forget I lived as a male for the past ten years,” she said whilst shedding her sunshades and outerwear. “I’m not accustomed to frilly things.”

“Not even in the privacy of your flat?”

“I couldn’t afford the slightest chance of giving myself away.” She swept off her derby, admiring the whimsical mechanical bird and lace as well as the charmed chain around her waist. Small considerations, yet they made her heart swell with immense pleasure. They made her feel pretty. “It’s astonishing to me that I denied my true self for so long.”

“Yes, well that’s over now.”

She shook her head. “I cannot move on entirely until we have solved the mystery. Until I understand what happened to my mother. Until we have—”

“Hush now.” Simon moved forward and took her into his arms. “We’ve been at this all day. Time to rest our minds. We’ll have another brain buster in front of us tomorrow whilst we try to narrow down and pinpoint which underground passages to explore. Good thing the Golden Jubilee and hence the announcement for the Triple R prize is a few months away. Realistically it could take a while to locate that vault. Especially if Filmore opted for the New York City rather than the London safe house.”

Willie stiffened in his arms. “We cannot afford months, Simon. We need to find the engine before it falls into dangerous hands.”

“The Houdinians have successfully protected the time-traveling engine for over thirty years.”

“Aye, but the Houdinians are quite possibly down to one, and the Triple R Tourney has inspired thousands of adventurers and explorers to set off in search of a technological invention of historical significance.”

Including Strangelove. Her stomach turned just thinking about that man. Now that she was back in London, she felt that his eyes were upon her, his spies everywhere. Imagined or not, the notion rankled.

“I cannot believe that in all these years news did not leak of the survival of the clockwork propulsion engine. Remember my mother’s words regarding a traitor? We cannot be the only ones searching for it.” Willie palmed her brow. “Gadzooks! Maybe the man who shot me was looking for it! Why did that never occur to us?”

Simon shushed her mounting hysteria with a demanding kiss. She struggled but a moment before giving in, giving over. She parted her lips and welcomed his tongue, reveled in the feel of his hands smoothing down her back and squeezing her bottom. Her panic ebbed and her passion flowed. Indeed, her heart was beating most frantically, her desires flaring most earnestly. “Take me, Simon,” she begged whilst tugging his shirttails from his trousers. “Take me now and completely. Ravish me. Make me forget my name.”

One night of oblivion. She was desperate to rest her mind.

He looked down at her with such fire, she was certain she felt flames licking her most intimate places. “My dear Willie, do you know what you’re asking for?”

“Everything you have.”

In a blur of a second he had doused the wall sconces and locked the door. She was fumbling with the front laces of her new corset, her actions slowed by her weak hand. Simon accomplished the task with quick and nimble fingers, kissing her all the while. Her neck, her chin, her cheeks, her eyelids. His mouth skimmed over her face with butterfly kisses, so soft, so teasing. Astonishing that those barely there kisses invoked such an aggressive response. She fairly ripped Simon’s shirt from his body. She most assuredly heard fabric tearing.

“So that’s the way of it, pet.”

A statement. Not a question. The breath whooshed from Willie’s lungs as Simon backed her against the wall and yanked up her skirt. She felt his fingers stroking her bare inner thighs. She tensed, shocked when he homed in on her most sensitive and sensual region, his fingers teasing, rubbing. Good Lord. Her back arched as an erotic ache coiled tighter and tighter. Whilst one hand worked wicked magic on her nether region, the other hand caressed her breast whilst he kissed her senseless. Still mostly dressed, her clothes askew, Willie felt almost as exposed and brazen as if she were fully nude.

“Come for me, pet.”

He had never called her that. He had never been this forceful. It drove Willie deliciously mad. Her body quivered and clenched as she acquiesced to her husband’s bidding.

“Tell me your name,” he ordered as she shuddered with a colossal climax. “Your name, dammit.”

“Willie.”

“So we are not finished, then. Marvelous.”

Her mind grappled to make sense of his words as he swooped her off her feet.

A knock on the door. “Tea is served.”

“Leave it!” Simon bellowed over his shoulder.

“That was rude,” Willie whispered, half-dazed.

“He’ll get over it.” Simon bent her over the side of his massive bed. “Don’t move,” he ordered whilst ridding her of her boots, her stockings, her petticoats, her skirt.

Willie shivered with anticipation as he peeled each article of clothing from her body, and none too gently. At once she was completely naked, bare feet on the floor, torso plastered to his feathery soft mattress, her bottom scandalously exposed.

Simon trailed featherlight fingers over her shoulder blades, her spine. “Your name?”

“Willie,” she whispered.

“Yes, well, remember you asked for this.”

One palm at the small of her back, the other brazenly gripping her bottom, Simon slid into her from behind. The intrusion was shocking and welcome. She was slick with desire. Delirious with need. She groaned low with the initial thrust, then moaned, mewled, begging for harder and faster when his fingers twisted in her hair.

Scandalous.

Wicked.

She cried out in ecstasy, embarrassed by the vehemence but unable to temper her response to Simon’s fervent and imaginative lovemaking. This was not the young, reckless man she’d fallen in love with twelve years past, but the experienced, confident man she’d fallen in love with all over again.

“Name?” he asked as she shuddered with yet another orgasm.

“Wilhelmina Darcy.”

“Christ.”

He lifted her and suddenly she was on her back, in the center of a wondrously masculine bed. Simon’s bed. She realized in a far-off way that in all the frantic lovemaking he had been most careful not to harm her shoulder. That, in itself, heightened her senses. Along with the glorious feel of his tongue, lips, and hands honoring every inch of her body, pleasuring her in ways that made her cheeks flush and her pulse skitter. Just when she thought she would expire from the erotic sensations, Simon ceased his avid ministrations.

Her breath caught and her mind reeled. It was as though she was perched on a precipice, teetering on the brink of a breathtaking fall. The anticipation consumed her being, obliterated the outside world.

There was only Simon.

“Open your eyes,” he demanded in a measured voice. “Do not deviate from my gaze.”

She nodded, incapable of words. And then . . . he did nothing. He held his magnificent body above hers, poised, promising wondrous pleasure yet not delivering. Her breath stalled in her chest, his gaze . . . so intent, so unsettling.