“I’m not sure,” said Stephen, fixing his mind on higher things, or at least trying to. “I don’t want to kill the men outside—particularly not if Ward didn’t hire them.”

“No,” said Mina, quiet but firm. “You said you didn’t think they’d go away for a while?”

Stephen shook his head. “One of them said it was a long time until dawn. This place has no back door, either—at least not one we can get to from the staircase. We could break the lock on one of the ground floor offices and break a window from there—”

“—but that would get as much attention as going out the door.”

Stephen looked down at his hands, and the silver ring caught his attention. “I could talk to Colin, at least. I’m not sure what help that would be, though. ‘Excuse me, sir, but my brother and his friend snuck in there and would like to come out now.’ It doesn’t sound promising.”

“Doesn’t have to be him,” said Mina, sitting up as an idea struck her. “And it doesn’t have to be the truth. Have him hire someone to distract the guards. They could…I don’t know, start a fire or break a window round the back and start yelling, and then run for it. You could get a couple men for half a pound each, I’d think.”

“At this time of night?”

Mina laughed. “Especially at this time of night. It’s the sort of idea that’ll sound wonderful to drunk men.”

Without thinking, Stephen put an arm around Mina’s shoulders. “Cerberus, you’re a wonder.”

“A real criminal mastermind,” she said and laughed again, breathless this time. “You’d better talk to your brother, hadn’t you?”

She didn’t move away, though, or try to shrug his arm away. Beneath his hand, her shoulders began to relax a little. Stephen rubbed his hand along her arm gently, almost absently, as he triggered the ring.

“Colin?”

“Here. And not in the wine cellar, before you ask.”

Overhearing that, Mina giggled.

“I’d imagine you’d have no need to go yourself,” Stephen said. “You’d just make eyes at Polly and get her to bring you half the bottles down there. We’re a bit stuck here.”

He explained the situation in a few words and added Mina’s suggestion. Colin made a thoughtful noise. “I’d imagine that will work well enough. It’ll take a while for me to get it done, though. Can you hold out for an hour or two?”

“As long as we’re out before anyone else comes in,” said Stephen, “that’ll be good enough.”

“Right, then. Try not to set the place on fire while you’re waiting,” said Colin, and cut the connection.

“Well,” said Mina, sounding thoughtful. She leaned against Stephen’s side, possibly for warmth and possibly for reassurance of a sort he didn’t think she’d ask for, any more than he would. He put his other arm around her, glad for the human contact. He was also hard again, despite the clearly transient distractions of escape, and her breasts brushed against his chest when she breathed in a way that was going to drive him mad soon, but he was a MacAlasdair and several centuries old, and had at least a measure of self-control. He would be fine.

He realized she’d said something. “Hmm?”

“I said that we have some time on our hands.”

Surely she hadn’t meant that the way it sounded. She couldn’t intend anything suggestive, even if her voice had been like warm silk when she spoke.

“Aye,” he managed roughly. “It’s a pity we don’t have a deck of cards. And, er, a light, I suppose.”

“Yes,” said Mina, sounding almost annoyed. “Quite a shame.”

“You’ve my apologies for getting you into this,” Stephen said. He wished he could see her face better. Her body was tense again, though she wasn’t pulling away.

“It’s not your fault.”

“I could have kept watch on the building beforehand,” he said and tried to keep his voice even, tried not to think about the way she smelled and the way he could feel each breath as her chest rose and fell against him. “I might have seen—”

“We didn’t have time. You can’t know everything. Sometimes you’ve got to take a chance.”

She fell silent. Then she took a deep breath and looked up at Stephen, her breath warm against his face. “Especially at times like these.”

She leaned forward and kissed him.

* * *

As long as it had taken Mina to work up her nerve, as much as she’d hesitated at the last moment and almost backed down, that first kiss wiped away all of her remaining reservations in an instant. She clung to Stephen, every nerve in her body rejoicing at the strength of his arms around her and the heat of his mouth on hers.

If the kiss had caught him off guard, he didn’t show it. He met Mina’s invitation with equal parts skill and hunger. Already aroused by his nearness and by her wish to distract herself, she quickly found herself aching for more and welcoming the pressure of his body as he pulled her against him.

When Stephen’s hand found her breast, she whimpered and arched up against him, not-so-silently begging him to continue. Another time, such a blatant display of need might have embarrassed her, even through her desire. Now it didn’t matter. She and Stephen were alone together. They’d be alone together for a while, in the dark. Nothing counted. And the way he stroked her breast, then the harder pressure of his fingers on her nipple, felt so good she couldn’t have stopped herself anyhow.

Stephen certainly didn’t seem to mind. His organ pressed against her thigh, hard and insistent, and when Mina arched upward, the friction made him groan and thrust forward. She tilted back, glad to go, eager to have their bodies line up properly for once, and—

“Ouch!”

The edge of the step had caught her in the spine. The pain wasn’t very bad, but it was unexpected enough and in the right location to make her cry out.

Stephen pulled back instantly, though he kept his arms around her. “Are you all right?”

His touch was gentle now, with no urgency, and Mina could sense how much effort that took. “Yes,” she said, “but I think we should move up to the landing.”

She started to get up, but Stephen clasped her hands in his before she could rise. Despite the darkness, she felt his gaze on her face, searching and intense. “Mina,” he said. “Are you sure of this?”

“Yes.”

Mina spoke without thinking, but she knew that further thought would have led her to no different conclusion. She’d read George’s journal and Colin had confirmed what it had said: there was nothing for her to fear in the way of consequences. And even if they defeated Ward and she could go back to her life, she knew she’d never find anyone else like Stephen.

If they didn’t defeat Ward, he might well kill them both.

One way or another, this opportunity would never come again. Mina discovered that she didn’t want to die—whether at twenty-seven or seventy-two—without lying with this man.

“I’m very sure,” she said.

“Then I’m honored.” His lips brushed hers, gentle and brief. “Wait here a bit.”

“All right,” she said, half laughing, and waited with her hands in her lap, feeling the yearning in her body as a sure and pleasant thing. This was good; it would take her somewhere better yet. For the moment—there was the moment.

Then Stephen touched her on the shoulder. When she rose, he took her hand and led her up to the landing. “You could lie down,” he said, “if you’d like.”

When Mina lowered herself to the floor, she found that the surface beneath her was soft. Exploring with her hands, she made out the outlines of a coat and a shirt, laid out in some approximation of a bed, and a waistcoat folded for a pillow.

“Kind of you,” she said. “No trousers?”

Stephen’s laughter washed over her. “I’d like to have some control of myself,” he said and cupped her face to kiss her again.

The equilibrium she’d been holding steady spilled over again, and desire flooded through her in a second. Mina let Stephen guide her to the floor, and as he worked the buttons on her dress, she ran her hands over his bare skin. She trailed her fingers through the hair on his chest, then brushed a fingertip across his nipple and heard his quick and frustrated inhalation.

“You’re not making this task of mine easy,” he said, half growling.

Mina laughed. “Should I stop?”

“Nae. I’ve always liked a challenge,” he said. With that another button came open, and Stephen slid his hand inside her dress, where the hooks of her corset proved considerably easier.

Then he slid downward, and Mina protested at first at the change in angle and the fact that so much more of him was out of reach. That didn’t last long, though. Not when he took one of her nipples into his mouth and let his tongue play across it. She wasn’t complaining at all then—she couldn’t even remember words to complain with—and then one of his hands was beneath her skirts, sliding up her leg to her thigh, up her thigh to—

Ohhhh.

She wasn’t sure if she’d made the noise or simply thought it. Stephen’s hand was very light against her sex at first, but even that contact was devastating. She was melting at his touch, dissolving and yet still striving, aching, wanting more.

Slowly, very gently, he slid one finger inside her, then a second. Mina caught her breath. It was good; it was strange, though not wholly unfamiliar. Stephen’s fingers were much larger than her own, and the way he stroked her was much more skilled, much more certain than she’d managed during her brief moments of self-exploration, hindered as she’d been by shared bedrooms and unfamiliarity.

However he’d learned more, she blessed his education.

“Lovely girl,” he muttered against her breast, and his thumb found the spot at the top of her sex that made her cry out. He circled it slowly and then faster, and Mina’s hips moved to meet his hand. “That’s it—let me—”

And then desire, passion, sensation exploded within her, waves of pleasure that made the darkness glow. At the last moment, she remembered that she shouldn’t scream and bit down hard on her lip. If it hurt, she was miles away from noticing.

As she caught her breath, Stephen slid away from her for a moment. She heard rustling cloth in the darkness and realized what was happening. “I wish we could see each other,” she said.

“Aye.” He was breathless too, his voice husky. “Although it might be more than I could stand just now. If you want to stop—”

“Ask me again and I will,” she threatened.

“I’ll not risk that,” he said, and then he was lying on top of her again, his weight on his elbows. His bare chest pressed against her stiff nipples. His legs were warm between hers, and the head of his organ was hot and rigid at the opening to her sex. Instinctively, she pushed up against it.

As before, Stephen moaned and pressed forward—this time, pushing into her with his full length. There was a flash of pain—her collision with the steps had been worse—and an odd feeling of pressure and fullness, with pleasure waiting just behind it.

He went still. Waiting, Mina realized. Without asking, he was asking, or perhaps just offering. She wouldn’t have made him stop now, though, earlier threats aside. Mina wouldn’t have stopped for another hundred pounds.

As an answer, she wrapped her legs around him as much as her skirts would allow, which tilted the scale very emphatically back toward pleasure. So did the sensation when Stephen began to move. He went slowly at first, with that sensation of leashed power that still excited Mina. Then, when she started to get breathless again, to writhe under him and feel desire building again, his control slipped considerably.

That was fine with Mina. That was better than fine. She thrust up against Stephen, listening to his voice come broken and ragged in her ear: good girl and just like that and so hot, so tight, and felt the urgency driving him. She met it with her own, surprised to find herself back on the edge but not inclined to ask questions. At the end, she bit his shoulder to stifle her scream.

Stephen reared his head back and looked into her eyes. “Mina,” he said, in a voice that came from very deep in his chest. “God, Mina.”

Then he threw his head back and arched forward, pouring himself into her. For a moment, there was nothing in the world but them and the darkness—and the darkness was fine, even welcome, because they were both in it.

Thirty-eight

Given his own way, Stephen would have lain a long time with Mina in his arms, listening to her breathing and drifting in the languid and pleasant dizziness that followed climax, particularly this time. Out of almost two centuries’ experience, he could recall no interlude as intense as this one had been, nor as satisfying. He would have greatly preferred to stay where he was.