“I do,” she groaned. “More.”

He laughed, the sound like sin in the dark. Like the devil himself. “As you demand, my lady.” And he set his mouth to her again.

She soon became a master at telling him what she liked, even as she discovered it herself, using words she’d never thought she’d say—words that would ruin her in polite company forever.

But she did not care about polite company. She cared about his company, this glorious man who showed her more in the darkness than she had ever known in the light.

And as he did her bidding, his touch accompanied by a low, rumbling growl, she came closer and closer to the edge he had promised. Her sighs grew louder, and she cried out his name.

He stopped.

She sprang forward, sitting up straight in protest. “No!”

He pressed her back against the seat and whispered, “What did I say about you being quiet?” He lowered his head and kissed her gently, openmouthed, teasing. “You must be quiet, Sophie. We mustn’t be heard.”

The words had a wicked impact, sending desire flooding through her. He was asking the impossible. “Should we stop?” she asked, hating the question.

“Dear God. No. We shouldn’t stop.”

Sophie gave a little sigh of relief that became a gasp when he kissed her again. “I quite desperately want you to scream, Sophie,” he said between idle, unbearable licks. “I want to stop this carriage, lay you down beneath the stars, and make you scream again, and again, and again.”

She stifled a cry at the words and his touch, stiffening. Clenching her fingers in his hair. “Please, King.”

“Shhhh.” He spoke directly to the core of her, the rush of air making her wild. “Be careful.” And then his fingers moved again, joining in her torture, sliding deep, stroking and curling again and again. “He might hear us.”

The words did nothing but excite her further, and it grew worse as he teased and tempted with his fingers, reminding her to be quiet in that wicked voice, all enjoyment, as though he knew he was slowly destroying her, making her want him more than she’d ever wanted anything in her twenty-one years.

“He might hear us,” he repeated to the core of her, his warm breath making her ache as his fingers worked against her. “He might hear you, your little cries, the way you call my name, like sin and sex in the darkness.”

She wasn’t sin and sex, though. He was.

But when he set his mouth to her, she widened her thighs and lifted herself to him, proving him right. Biting back the cries that came again and again as he pressed more firmly, rubbed more deliberately, giving her everything she desired.

“Don’t stop,” she whispered. “Please, King. Don’t stop.”

He didn’t, not even as the tension built with no purchase, with no release, when she fell into the darkness, victim to his tongue and lips and touch, taking everything he offered without hesitation.

She rocked against him as the carriage rocked beneath them. And then the tension released, in glorious, wicked sensation, and she forgot everything but him, his dark growls and his strong grip and his wonderful mouth.

When the pleasure crested, breaking over her, breaking her, it was King who held her together, letting her explore all the corners of pleasure without hesitation. Without embarrassment. Without shame.

Perhaps it was the darkness that kept the shame away. Because she should have been ashamed, shouldn’t she? Ladies did not behave in such a manner. But somehow, she did not feel ashamed, even as he lifted his mouth from her, lifted his touch from her. Restored her skirts and resumed his place on the seat beside her.

Somehow, it was easy to be without shame with him.

She yawned as he wrapped her in his arms and whispered, “Did you like them?”

The bits and pieces.

She curled into his heat, ignoring the little twinge in her shoulder—she hadn’t thought of her wound in hours—and told the truth. “Very, very much.”

They changed horses in the dead of night at the next posting inn, and King left Sophie sleeping as he left the carriage to fetch wine, food, and hot water for her tea.

He could not deny the guilt that coursed through him as he crossed the courtyard of the inn; he was keenly aware that he pushed them both, and that forcing her to travel so far and without quarter—her shoulder only just having begun to heal—was ungentlemanly at best and irresponsible at worst.

There were three ways to travel to Cumbria, and he was willing to bet her father’s men were taking the straightest path rather than this one, which was the fastest. At this point, he and Sophie were far enough from Sprotbrough that they could have stopped for the night. She could have slept a few hours on a proper bed. Had a proper bath.

But he did not wish to think of her in a bath. The vision was too clear and far too tempting.

And as for a proper bed, after how easily he’d taken advantage her in the furthest possible thing from a proper bed, he should not think of her against crisp sheets, hair spread across white pillows, skirts raised, bodice lowered, his hands on her skin.

Bollocks.

If they moved quickly, they could be at Lyne Castle by morning. Because, of course, he wasn’t leaving her in Mossband, baker and silly dreams or no. He was taking her to Lyne, where he would keep her safe until her father came to get her.

But not a moment longer.

He was not a monster, after all, but he was also not in the market for Sophie Talbot. He reminded himself of that as he returned with his spoils, heading for the carriage where she lay asleep, her bodice open and her skirts wrinkled, beckoning him for a repeat of the events immediately prior.