Caught in the Cogs Volume One Read Online Free PDF Page A

she knew the truth. She would wait all night if she must, just to be sure. But he came in just over five.
    “What are you doing here?” he asked as he climbed into the hansom and sat opposite her, sounding rather cross.
    “I had to see you, Joshua.” She swallowed hard, knowing this entire business was too bold. Knowing she had crossed a line with this stunt, but part of her did not care. Seeing him again, this close, was worth it all.
    His face twisted, as if his inner struggle matched her own.
    She held her breath, waiting for the words that would save her or destroy her.
    “Oh, Lilah. Curse you! I had been trying to put you out of my mind for the sake of my sanity and my marriage, but I could not.”
    Lilah caught her breath. A rush of joy and fear and excitement swept through her very core. She felt nauseous and wondrous at the same time. Then her stomach felt suddenly light, because all the weight that had been filling her with dread, actually all the weight of her body, had settled most determinately between her hips. She felt herself swell for him, moisten for him.
    “I have been consumed by you.” Lilah’s breath started coming fast and shallow, constrained by her corset. Her eyes fixed on his lips. Those lips. She had memorized every curve. She had imagined tasting them a thousand times, running her tongue along the fullness of his bottom lip. Now she was so close.
    “Driver, Hyde Park,” Joshua called out of the window.
    The carriage started to move.
    “What about your wife?”
    “She is asleep.”
    “That is not what I meant.” The words sounded more like whispers, gasping whispers as her breath came faster and faster. Her eyes fixed on his lips, watching them form the words.
    Joshua slid into the seat next to her.
    “I know. What about your husband?” He did not speak the words, but rather breathed them.
    His closeness robbed her of the ability to answer the question or to speak at all. The world fell away, and the only thing she saw in that darkened carriage was the passing gaslights reflect against the moistness of his lips.
    The carriage swayed back and forth, back and forth as it clattered over the cobblestones. The rocking of the carriage further served to heighten her desire for him.
    She must kiss him or die.
    Joshua quickly closed the distance between them, but it was not fast enough for Lilah.
    She met him halfway.
    Their mouths came together and she tasted him at last. He tasted of honey and wildflowers, of desire incarnate. She drank him in and sucked on his lower lip, taking it between her teeth for but a moment before devouring him again. It was never soft or tender or caressing. It was ravenous from the start.
    His hand moved to cradle her jaw.
    A flood of desire washed over them both. His lips tasted of it.
    His hand burned her face.
    She took a desperate breath and kissed him even more deeply. Their eager tongues twisted together, eager for more, more, more. She had not been kissed like this in so long, so it felt completely new. His desire for her filled her nagging emptiness, but then the void just got bigger, needing more, more, more.
    The heat of his mouth did nothing to satiate her need. It heightened it. All her blood rushed southward, making her pelvis feel heavier and her head light. Her hips responded by tilting, causing an arch in her back. This small movement sent Joshua into a fever, for he threw his arms around her and pressed pressed his body tightly against hers.
    Weeks of building hunger would be satiated, finally. Tonight.
    She tugged at his ascot, gasping for breath and cursing the need to breath. She could not bear even one moment apart from his earnest lips.
    After assisting her with the removal of his ascot, Joshua put one hand on her side while the other, placed firmly in the small of her back, held her pressed tightly to him. She felt as if they would devour each other body and soul, and she did not care. For they could not be close enough without becoming one.