even closed over the window. It gaped, wide and betraying, the rope hanging like a declaration. ‘I’m fine,’ she said, straightening, ignoring the pain shooting through her legs and taking a stumbling step towards the other end of the mews. Gritting her teeth, she forced herself to walk.
‘Not too fast, or we will draw unwanted attention. Push your hat down over your face.’ Elliot caught up with her, put his arm through hers. His grip tightened.
They walked together back to Hans Town through streets blanketed in silence. Now that it was over, Elliot was astounded at himself for placing Deborah in such danger. ‘I should not have brought you.’
She turned the key in her door and pushed it open. ‘Don’t say that. I’m glad you did, Elliot. It was wonderful. Please don’t say you regret it.’
‘I would be lying if I did,’ he replied gruffly.
She was safe home and it was over. Deborah was awed by her own daring, filled with an exuberance that made her want to clap her hands with glee. ‘I can’t believe we did it,’ she said. ‘We really did it. We really did!’ She felt buoyant, her delight fizzing, bubbling over, making her want to laugh so much that she had to stifle the sound with her hand.
Plucking Deborah’s hand from her mouth, Elliot pressed his lips to the palm. Her presence had added spice to the whole venture, there was no denying it. Her daring roused him. Her excitement, too. He licked the raw, slightly swollen pad of her thumb where the rope had chafed. He felt the intake of her breath. She leaned into him. His exhilaration sharpened and focused into desire, like molten metal poured into the mould of a blade. He pulled her roughly into his arms and took possession of her mouth.
It was a kiss without finesse. A hard, dangerous and demanding kiss. For a moment Deborah did not respond, shocked by the rawness of his barely leashed passion. This was not the Elliot she had kissed before, but some other, more feral creature of the night. As she was, tonight. Just for tonight.
But his ardour, the very unstoppableness of it, unleashed her inhibitions. As Elliot pressed her against her own front door, feverishly seeking the soft flesh concealed beneath the constricting layers of her clothing, Deborah kissed him back. Her tongue clashed with his, her mouth opened to him and she returned his kiss with a fervour that cut them both free of thought and control. Where he led she followed. When he kissed her more deeply, his tongue penetrating, thrusting, she kissed him back, her tongue duelling with his, her lips clinging.
Never, ever, not even in her darkest fantasies, had Deborah been kissed like this. Never had she kissed like this. Not even Bella had kissed like this, for Bella was at heart a creature driven by colder, darker motives than plain passion. Deborah’s kisses, like Elliot’s, were pure passion in that moment, wild and fierce, abandoned kisses, transporting them both to a place which was all red velvet and raw silk.
His mouth plundered hers, but she did not feel conquered, incited instead to return pressure for pressure, by doing so asking for more, and still more. Nothing mattered, save that she have more. It was as if everything that had transpired this night had been arrowing to this moment, as if all she had experienced had by some process of alchemy transformed itself into this white-hot lust, must culminate in this rushing, tumbling, headlong flight to fulfilment.
She moaned in frustration as Elliot’s seeking fingers found only layers of clothing and buttons. He fumbled for the latch and they tumbled together into the dark seclusion of the narrow hallway, still kissing.
The back of her legs encountered the hall table. The candlestick atop it fell over. He wrested her greatcoat to the floor, his own following. Her hat and his, too, her hair unfurling. She curled her fingers into the soft silk of his skin, on the nape of his neck above his neckcloth. Warm skin. He smelled of sweat and soap. Salty and tangy. Irreducibly male.
The rasp of his chin on the soft skin of her face reminded her of the stinging sensation of the rough rope chafing her legs. She was burning between her thighs, but it had nothing to do with the descent. She wanted him there. Touching her. Plunging into her. Shocking images, vivid in their clarity despite her lack of experience, filled Deborah’s mind, making her moan. The solid ridge of his shaft was hard against her belly. Powerful. Fierce. Like the rest of him, incredibly, intensely male. Man. Elliot was all man. And such a man. She moaned again as he ground his hips against hers.
Elliot’s breath came in harsh gasps. Under her coat, Deborah wore a shirt. No waistcoat. And no corsets. Oh God, no corsets. Her nipples thrust at him through the linen. He cupped one of her breasts, his thumb stroking the delightfully hard nub, relishing the way it made her quiver, made the blood pulse in his already aching groin. Her kisses were like molten silver, burning and searing. His knees bumped against the legs of some sort of table. He picked her up, placed her on to it, spreading her legs, one hand in the heavy fall of her hair, the other on her breast, cupping, stroking, moulding. He wanted to feel her flesh. Tugging the shirt from her breeches he nudged between her legs, wrapping them around his thighs, dipping his head to taste the hard peaks of her nipple.
Her heels dug into his buttocks; her fingers plucked ineffectually at the big silver buttons of his coat. The table shook. It was just the right height to allow him to slide into her, thrusting into the welcoming heat, the slick tightness of her that would envelop him. He was so hard, the release would be spectacular. He had known it would be like this. He had known it! He put his hands around the curve of her bottom to pull her closer. She was still trying to free his coat buttons. Impatiently, Elliot yanked them open.
The crushed canvas fell on to the floor.
‘Damn!’
‘What? What was that?’ Deborah was hazily aware of a pain in her back. She tried to sit up and whatever she was perched on rocked violently. She was sitting on a table!
‘The painting,’ Elliot muttered. ‘I dropped it. I can’t see a damn thing.’
She seemed to have lost a good many of her clothes. And the painting, which they had risked life and limb for, was on the floor somewhere. Deborah slithered back down to reality considerably more quickly than she had slithered down the rope not long before. The candle she’d left for her return was on the floor somewhere, too. It would be easier to fetch another from the parlour. ‘Just a minute,’ she muttered, stumbling down the hallway, feeling her way to the door, trying to tuck her shirt back into her breeches at the same time.
Lighting the candle from the still-smouldering embers of the parlour fire, she studiously avoided looking in the mirror above the mantel as she did so, having no wish to see her shame confirmed in her wanton reflection. Concentrating on trying to get her breathing back under control, she made her way back to the hallway. Elliot was as dishevelled as she. Clothes awry. Neckcloth untied. His lips looked frayed. Such kisses! Deborah held the candle aloft, well away from her own face, turning her gaze to the floor. ‘Here it is.’ The canvas had rolled under the table. She picked it up and handed it to him, embarrassed in the frail light, mortified by her behaviour in the dark. She had more or less ravaged the man. Savaged him more like, for she clearly remembered biting into him, her nails tearing at his skin. Oh God!
Elliot made no attempt to look at the painting. He wished to hell he’d let the bloody thing lie. Another minute of those kisses of hers and he wouldn’t have given a damn. Looking at her now though, seeing the way she avoided his gaze, he knew the chances of him having another minute of her kisses were almost nil. Whatever had caused her to let go that iron control of hers was now firmly leashed.
And it was probably just as well. He, who prided himself on his finesse, had all but ravished her in the hallway, for God’s sake! To say nothing of the fact that in their lust they had forgotten all about the extremely valuable painting they had stolen. A painting which was now looking rather the worse for wear. A wholly inappropriate desire to laugh took hold of him. He struggled, but could not stifle it. ‘I’m sorry,’ Elliot said helplessly, ‘it’s just—well, ludicrous. I assure you I didn’t plan it. The last bit, I mean—at least not like that. Only you were so—and I was so—and there was the painting abandoned on the floor, after we went to such extremes to get it.’
To his surprise Deborah’s