Knockout: A Hell’s Belles Novel

She closed her eyes when she said it, because she couldn’t bear looking at him. What kind of a person made such a brazen ask, and of someone who had just nearly died in a river . . . situation?

The words hung between them, bold and shameless, and her heart threatened to beat out of her chest in anticipation of . . .

Tommy was not moving. Nor was he speaking.

Oh, no. Embarrassment flared, hot and unyielding. She’d asked for too much.

“My lady?”

He used her title.

Awful.

“Yes?”

“Open your eyes, Imogen.”

“I don’t think I can.”

“Hmm,” he said, and the low rumble did something unreasonable to her insides, which should have learned a lesson of some kind by now, should they not?

He was moving, the whisper of his skin against the sheets like an explosion. And then he was there, touching her. A hand at her side. The sleekness of his beard at her shoulder. The warmth of his lips beneath her ear. “Alright. Don’t open them, then. Don’t watch.”

He pressed little, wild kisses along her jaw before taking her mouth again, slow and deep, until her arms were wrapping around him and she was sighing her pleasure.

When he broke the kiss, it was to say, “Don’t watch me touch you here.” His fingers stroked over her hip, along the swell of her backside. “Don’t watch me kiss you here.” He placed little, sucking kisses down her neck. “So soft,” he said to the swell of her breast as he stroked his beard back and forth across it, setting her on fire.

“Don’t watch me part you here.” His fingers tracked down her thigh, and she opened to him, writhing against him as his fingers slid to her core, where she ached. “Or here,” he said as he slipped a finger through her folds, drenched with her desire.

They both groaned then, and her hand moved to meet his to urge him on as he touched her. “I have to be gentle,” he said, low and dark. “I have to take care while you are so . . . aware of yourself.” One delicious finger slid inside her, and she gasped. “Are you aware of this, sweetheart? Of how wet you are? Of your impossible heat?”

She cried out and canted her hips up to him, her fingers on the back of his hand, as he petted and stroked her, making her beg, “More.”

“Of course you can have more, love,” he said. “But wouldn’t you like to look?”

Yes. She did, opening her eyes just in time to meet his gaze as he licked over the straining tip of her breast, sending a sizzle of heat through her before he claimed it, sucking, soft and rhythmic, in time to the glorious circles his hand painted over her, making her wild.

“Tommy,” she whispered.

He released her and stroked his beard to her other breast, his magnificent hand not stopping. “It’s better when you watch, isn’t it?”

When he claimed the other nipple, he changed his strokes, and the wild pleasure had her arching up off the bed, her free hand threading into his hair, holding him tight to her as she rocked against him. “Tommy, I cannot . . . oh . . . please . . .”

He growled, and the sound, a dark promise, sent an explosion through her as she cried out his name again and again, and rode the climax to the end—to the moment when the pleasure became too much and he shifted against her, holding her tight to his palm and whispering his wicked praise at her ear. “That’s it, love. You’re greedy for it.”

“I am,” she confessed.

His hum of pleasure was enough to rekindle her aching desire. “You told Lorelei I was yours.”

Heat spread across her cheeks. Not embarrassment this time. Indignation. “She was looking at you.”

His blue eyes met hers, the pupils blown wide. “You didn’t like that.”

“I didn’t.” She’d hated it. “You are mine. I am greedy. For you.” And she was. She wanted to drink him in, to keep him close. To spend every minute with him. She wanted him for herself, like the villain in a gothic novel. “It makes me feel a bit mad.”

He shook his head. “And if I told you I am greedy, too?” He was over her now, sliding down her body, pressing kisses over the swell of her stomach, setting her on fire with his tongue and the glorious pelt of his beard. “Because I am, Imogen.”

He spread her thighs apart with his shoulders, staring down at her like she was a feast.

“I am greedy for your brilliant mind and your beautiful smiles, and the taste of you. I am greedy for the way your sinful mouth feels against my skin, and the way your sinful body feels against my hands, and the taste of you.” And then his hands were under her, and he was tilting her up to his gaze, and staring at her with a hunger she recognized, because it was akin to her own.

“I am yours,” he said, hovering there, where she was desperate for him. Again. Already. “And fucking hell, I would do anything to make you mine.”

“I am yours,” she said, her eyes meeting his. “Whatever you wish. However you’ll have me.”

Something flared in his eyes, something bleak. Something she didn’t like—there then gone—his hunger returned. “Like this,” he said, and set his lips to the soft heat of her.

She did watch, then, the view of him, worshipping her, nearly sending her over the edge before he began. She reached down to put her hand to his hair, and he grabbed it with his own, lacing their fingers together as he worked her over with the flat of his tongue, strong and stunning until she was writhing against him, unable to stop herself from moving against him, over and over, again and again, faster and faster until she screamed his name in the darkness and collapsed into the sheets, liquid with pleasure.

He shifted, pressed a soft kiss to her stomach and whispered, “Mine.”

Yes.

“Tommy,” she sighed, his name the only word she could find when he rose over her and pulled her into his arms, wrapping her in his warmth.

She had been ruined after all, she thought as she closed her eyes and turned her face into his chest, reveling in him. Ruined for all others. Forever.

The realization made her want more. “What of you?” she said softly. “Are you . . . aware of yourself?”

His muscles tensed at the question. “I am fine.”

“What you are is a terrible liar,” she said, sliding her hand down the side of his body, delighting in the intake of his breath at the touch, and the low groan that rumbled at her ear when she found what she was looking for, the hot, heavy weight of him, so hard and impossibly soft at the same time.

“Imogen.” He hissed her name, his hand coming to hers as she encircled his shaft, testing the size of it. “You don’t have to . . .”

“And if I want to?” she asked. “If I want you to show me?”

His grip flexed on hers, tightening, and he groaned again, the sound simultaneously encouragement and protest. Her gaze flew to his. “Like this?”

A grunt of approval as he helped her find the pressure he desired.

“Like that,” she said, the lesson feeling like a reward.

He cursed in the darkness. “Yes.”

She shook her head. “It’s not enough.”

“It’s more than I can—” He lost the words when she shifted, mimicking his movements from earlier, her lips tracing over his torso as they worked him together. “Imogen,” he gasped when he realized what she was after. “No. Love—” But his free hand belied his words, coming to her hair as she moved lower, breathing him in, reveling in the tremors of his muscles as he held himself still.

And then she was there, kissing his hand over her own, urging him back so she could see—so she could marvel at the size and strength of him. She stroked her fingertips over the straining tip of him. “You are . . . beautiful.”

Before he could reply, she licked up over him, salt and sweet, temptation made headier by the way he said her name like a prayer, like she was a goddess. His hands were in her hair as he cursed, filthy and delicious—tightening with unbearable gentleness as she took him deep, testing the taste and feel of him on her tongue.

He groaned. Blasphemy. Prayer.

And Imogen felt more powerful than she’d ever been, desire humming through her as she claimed Tommy’s pleasure, following his lead, licking and sucking and drawing him deep, wanting to give him everything he had given her. Wanting to ruin him, as well. For all others. Forever.

Wanting to keep him with her. Forever.

When his hands tightened in her hair with a deep groan, she could not hold back her own, even when he said, dark and fierce, “That’s enough, love . . . If you don’t stop . . .”

“Don’t stop me.” She pressed a kiss to the tip of him, and he bit back another curse. “I want it. I am greedy for it. Please.”

“Yes,” he said, harsh and aching. “Take it, then. It’s yours. It will only ever be yours.”

The words sent them both to the edge as she found a rhythm that made them both wild, and he gave himself over to her and to his release.

When he’d returned from his pleasure, he reached down to lift her back into his arms, his hands stroking over her skin as he whispered her name and kissed her in long, lingering pulls until she was sighing in his arms.

They lay there for a long time, Imogen’s thoughts untethered and quiet, her pleasure having stolen her wits for a bit.

And perhaps it had, because she did not expect it when Tommy swore in the darkness, not at all quiet, not at all untethered, and said, “This must be the end of it.”

Shock had her immediately looking at him. “What?”

“I have put you in danger, keeping you here. This has to be the end of it. I mustn’t take advantage of you again.”

She sat up. “You believe you have taken advantage of me?”

“Imogen—what I have done to you . . .”

“What we have done together.”

He closed his eyes. “Fine.” Opened them. “What we have done together . . . None of it should have happened. What you have given me . . . what I have taken . . . it is not for me.”

Her eyes went wide. “Who is it for if not for the person I have given it to?”

Sitting up, he faced her. “You misunderstand. I am saying you deserve more.”

“I understand you deserve to be hit in the head,” she interrupted, climbing out of the bed and pulling the red silk dressing gown on once more.

He followed her, unbothered by his own nudity, reaching for her, pulling her to face him. “Imogen.”

“No. Whatever this”—she waved a hand in the air between them—“misguided nobility is for, don’t make the mistake in thinking it is for me. Not when I’ve been very clear about what I want. Who I want.”

She paused, her throat tight, wishing it were not. Dammit. She would not cry. Why did women always cry when what they should do was rage?

“It is for you,” Tommy was saying, and if she was less consumed with her own aching sadness, she might have heard his. “It is for you, because I am not.”

Instead, she heard the words themselves, and felt their sting. “I see.” She turned away, her chest tight, her throat tight, a hum in her ears. “I see.”

“I don’t think you do,” he said. “For God’s sake, Imogen. Think of it! I am the son of a street sweeper . . . was to be a sweeper myself until I was plucked from the gutter and sent to Scotland Yard, which has turned out to be dirtier than the cobblestones of Shoreditch. So now I’m a man with nothing. No title, no future. A rented flat in Holborn, and I nearly got you killed today!”

She blinked. “So?”

“So?! Are you mad?” He seemed headed there. “So, that’s not how it should be for you. You shouldn’t be running from men with clubs and knives! And now, beside me, you’ll always be in danger. You think the Yard will stop coming for us? They won’t.”

“Let them come,” she said, raising her chin. “We meet them together.”

“No.” His reply was full of frustration. “You should be somewhere far from me. Somewhere—”

“Dancing and doing needlepoint?” she asked. “How many times must I tell you—I don’t want that. You think that if you are not with me, I will not face down men with clubs and knives?” She shook her head. “You say you want to keep me safe? Keep me safe, then. But you’re right. Whatever you think marriage is, Tommy—it is not for me. I am not going to wait at home for you to fight your battles and then tell me about your day. I want my day. I want my battles. And I want us to come home together.

“You have severely misread my interest in men with name and fortune, Thomas Peck. So today, for one terrifying minute, when I thought I had lost you to the river before I’d even had a chance to have you, you weren’t my guard. You weren’t my blade. It didn’t matter.”

She was hot with anger, and she couldn’t bear it. “It didn’t matter because you were my—”

Don’t say it.

She bit back the word. She didn’t want it to be like this. In anger. In pain. In the waning minutes of whatever they might have been, before he ended it before it could begin.

But Tommy saw it, anyway. And when he asked for it, when he said, “Say it,” she couldn’t resist giving it to him.

“. . . you were my love.”

The words slammed through him. She saw them land, sending him back on his heels. He fisted one hand at his side and shoved the other through his hair.

“It’s not enough, though, is it?” she asked. Knowing the answer even as he pulled her into his arms, curling his huge body around her.

“When I said I’d never take a penny from your brother . . . it wasn’t because we’re even,” he said reverently, into her hair. “Imogen . . . we’ll never be even. I’ll always owe you for deigning to look at me. But you . . .” His words came ragged, like they were torn from his chest. From hers.

“You will meet someone better than me. Someone worthy of you. Not because your brother decrees it, but because you choose it. You’ll go to some dinner or some ball a month from now, and you’ll wear a dress the color of sunset because you look beautiful in orange.”

“I do?”

He ignored her. “Or purple or green or yellow or blue. Because you look beautiful in all of them, like a jewel in a crown.”

She caught her breath at the words, more than she’d ever imagined anyone ever saying to her . . . let alone Thomas Peck. So why did they hurt so much?

“You’re wrong. I will never marry, Tommy.” Her eyes met his and she willed him to understand. “Not if I cannot marry you.”

She wanted to fight. To scream and yell and do her best to convince him that he was wrong. She wanted to explode his nonsensical logic. She wanted chaos. Mayhem. All the things in which she so regularly found comfort.

But it would change nothing. And even if it could, even if she could convince him, it was not what she wanted. It was not, as he had said, what she deserved.

And so, Imogen nodded and chose stillness. “I once told you that heroines captain their own fate,” she said softly, straightening her dressing gown and pulling the sash tight.

He nodded, seeming to sense the shift in the room. “Yes.”

“Then I shall begin doing so here. Now. With you.”

His beautiful blue gaze went wary.

“I am tired of asking for people to love me. Just once, I’d like someone to love me freely, in all my truth, without my having to ask for it.”

“Imogen—” Her name was broken on his lips, and she turned away from it, knowing that if he touched her again, she wouldn’t be strong enough to leave.

“I’m going home. To my brother’s.”

A lie. She’d called that place in Mayfair home for her whole life, and it had never felt like his mother’s flat in Shoreditch. Had never felt like Tommy’s rooms in Holborn. Had never felt like this dockside bordello on Dirty Lane. It had never felt like Tommy’s arms.

“I’ll take you,” Tommy said, already moving to follow her. “You’re not safe.”

She shook her head. “No. You’re not safe.” He was a danger to her heart.

He sucked in a breath, understanding what she meant. The words landing like a blow. Good. Later, she’d regret the wound. But right now, she wanted it. Wanted him to hurt like she did.

Imogen pulled the dressing gown around her and made for the door, knowing that when she opened the carpetbag that Duchess had delivered, she would find a fresh change of clothes—Duchess was always prepared. She would beg Lorelei for another room in which to change, but first . . .

She extracted a stack of blue files from within the bag. They were copies of the original files held at Trevescan House, each one about one of the names on the list Imogen had given Tommy on the riverbank earlier that day.

She lifted them out and set them on a nearby stool. “For you.”

He stared at the files for a moment, knowing instantly what they were. “Imogen.”

“They’re not from me,” she said, knowing she sounded petulant, and still wanting him to know that though she was the messenger of these files, she had not chosen to be as she had so many times before. That game was over.

He’d made sure of it.

She turned to the door. Spoke to it, and not him. “Goodbye, Tommy.”

“Goodbye, Lady Imogen.”

The reply might have broken her heart, if he hadn’t already done that so well.