He crawled onto the bed with her and unhooked her corset with savage tugs. After spreading the garment open, he tore the thin layer of her chemise down the front. He bent to lick upward from her navel to her breasts. She wriggled as if to escape, and laughed breathlessly as he growled and pinned her hips to the mattress. But he was too far gone for amusement, too maddened by need. He mounted her, his shaft roughly probing until he found the right angle. As he slid inside, her intimate muscles gripped him fluidly, pulling him in to the hilt.

Pandora’s face changed, and she turned docile in the way of a wild creature accepting her mate, her hips canting upward to cradle and welcome him. He took her mouth with his, and thrust into the depths of her, building sensation until she began to gasp. He circled his hips, grinding sinuously, sending her into another climax. She nipped at his shoulder, dug in her nails, the little stings of pain inflaming him beyond sanity. Plunging deep, he took his own pleasure, letting it explode and shatter and dissolve him until he was lost in her, surrendering completely, wanting no other woman, no other fate.

Chapter 19

The following day, Dragon reported that his contact in the detective department had agreed to visit the print works in Clerkenwell and question Mrs. O’Cairre. In the meantime, Pandora could go about her usual activities, as the detective saw no reason for undue alarm.

The news was welcome, since Pandora and Gabriel had already agreed to attend a play that evening with Helen and Mr. Winterborne, and have a late dinner afterward. The comedy, a revival of The Heir-At-Law, was playing at the Haymarket Royal Theatre, the most fashionable playhouse in London.

“I’d rather not take you to a public place until the investigation is concluded,” Gabriel said with a frown, pulling on a shirt in his bedroom. “The area around the Haymarket is notoriously dangerous.”

“But I’ll be with you,” Pandora pointed out, “and Mr. Winterborne will be there as well. Furthermore, Dragon has insisted on going even though it’s supposed to be his night off. What could possibly happen to me?” She glanced in the mirror on top of the mahogany dresser and adjusted the drape of her double-stranded pearls over the lace bodice of her lavender-and-ivory evening gown.

Gabriel made a noncommittal sound, folding back the cuffs of his shirt. “Would you hand me the cufflinks on the dresser?”

She brought them to him. “Why aren’t you allowing Oakes to help you? Especially when you’re dressing for a formal evening. He must be distraught.”

“Probably. But I’d rather not have to explain where the marks came from.”

“What marks?”

For an answer, he pulled aside the open placket of his shirt, revealing the little red places on his shoulder where her teeth had nipped him.

Contritely Pandora stood on her toes to examine the marks, her color rising. “I’m so sorry. Do you think he would gossip about it?”

“Good God, no. As Oakes likes to say, ‘Discretion is the better part of valets.’ However”—his golden-bronze head lowered over hers—“there are some things I’d rather keep private.”

“Poor man. You look as though you’d been attacked by a wild beast.”

A husky laugh escaped him. “Just a small vixen,” he said, “who grew a bit fierce in her play.”

“You should bite her back,” Pandora said against his chest. “That would teach her to be gentler with you.”

Curving his hand along the side of her face, Gabriel tilted her head upward. After nibbling gently at her lower lip, he whispered, “I want her just the way she is.”

The interior of the Haymarket was luxurious and opulent, with cushioned seats and tiers of boxes decorated with gold moldings of antique lyres and oak wreaths. The domed rose-colored ceiling was covered in gilded ornamentation and hand-painted depictions of Apollo, while cut-glass chandeliers shed rich light on the fashionably dressed crowd below.

Before the performance began, Pandora and Helen sat in the theater box and talked, while their husbands hobnobbed with a group of men in the nearby box-lobby. Helen was in glowing good health and full of news, and seemed determined to persuade Pandora to join a ladies’ fencing class with her.

“You must learn to fence as well,” Helen urged. “It’s very good for posture and breathing, and my friend Garrett—that is, Dr. Gibson—says it’s an exhilarating sport.”

Pandora had no doubt that was all true, but she was fairly certain that putting a woman with balance problems in the proximity of pointy objects would have no good outcome. “I wish I could,” she said, “but I’m too clumsy. You know I don’t dance well.”

“But the fencing-master would teach you how to . . .” Helen’s voice faded as she looked in the direction of the upper dress circle seats, which were on the same level as their box. “My goodness. Why is that woman staring at you so fiercely?”

“Where?”

“On the left side of the dress circle seats. The brunette in the first row. Do you know her?”

Pandora followed her gaze to a dark-haired woman who was affecting interest in her theater program. She was slim and elegant, with classic features, deep-set eyes with extravagant lashes, and a pencil-slim nose angled perfectly over full red lips. “I haven’t a clue who she is,” Pandora said. “She’s quite beautiful, isn’t she?”

“I suppose. All I can see is that dagger-like stare.”

Pandora grinned. “It seems my skill at annoying people has now extended to ones I don’t even know.”