Silent Surrender by Abigail Barnette

more quiet. Doesn’t mean we can’t still enjoy ourselves.”
    She nodded, but the flush didn’t fade, and she looked absolutely mortified. Her chin dipped and the brim of her black bonnet obscured her face.
    That wouldn’t do. Not from the woman who was willing to approach him on a dock and ask him to spend some days fucking her. Her boldness was something he was quickly becoming fond of and he didn’t think he would enjoy the remainder of their agreement nearly so much if it disappeared.
    “Don’t.” He reached beneath her chin and lifted her face. She didn’t meet his eyes. Whatever he had to say, she clearly did not wish to see it. “Don’t do that. You don’t have to be embarrassed with me.”
    Something in him ached at the realization that she truly didn’t have to be embarrassed, of anything. There was no reason for her to want his approval. He’d never had to make a woman like him before. He’d never really had a use for a woman besides what all men used them for. He wanted to make her like him. Maybe it was his pride. Maybe he needed to think there was a friendship between them, to ease the sting of taking her money for something so base.
    Slowly he drew the ribbon of her bonnet open and pulled the silly thing from her head. Women like her shouldn’t be afraid of the sun. He tossed the hat to the ground and swept her into his arms, pressing a finger to her lips. That got her attention, enough of it anyway to bring her eyes to his face. He took his finger away and touched it to his mouth in turn, saying, “We’ll practice.”
    “Practice?”
    “We’ll practice being quiet.” He spun her in his arms, bringing her back tight against his chest. Just like they’d stood the day before when she’d been so afraid, standing there in her soaking wet nightgown. She trembled now as she had then, but this time he didn’t worry he would frighten her. She seemed to like being frightened, anyway.
    He eased his hand beneath the little cape she wore over her shoulders in spite of the warmth of the day. He trailed his fingers over her collarbones and across the bare skin above the neck of her dress. He was hard, pressing against the front of his trousers, and he eased her hips back with one hand splayed over her mound. She gasped, a perfectly respectable sound to make behind a tall hedge, so he continued. When he slipped his hand into the top of her dress, to stroke her straining, confined breasts where they swelled above her corset, she whimpered, a soft, mewling noise that broke into a full-throated moan the moment his fingers freed one nipple.
    Immediately, he pulled his hands away, and she swayed on her feet, turning her head to ask him, “Why are you stopping?”
    He turned her again, and he couldn’t help the masculine pride he felt when she melted helplessly against him. “Because someone will hear. You keep quiet, and I’ll keep going.”
    “That sounds evil.” She stuck her tongue out at him and the sight proved too tempting. He kissed her gruffly, gave her slap on the behind he doubted she could feel through all her petticoats and whirled her in his arms again, burying his head in her neck until she squealed. The moment she did, he drew back, and she stamped her foot. When he returned to her neck, her breath hitched but she made no sound and his hand ventured lower, over the curve of her breast to her waist, feeling the rigid boning of her corset beneath her dress. His fingers fumbled against the black cotton lawn and the scores of petticoats beneath, bunching them to lift her skirt higher and higher until he could slip his hand beneath and feel the muslin drawers and the slit in them that mimicked her own. Her bottom ground against his erection as his fingertips encountered the crisp curls and hot, damp flesh between her legs.
    If anyone happened upon them now, there would be no denying their impropriety. The constables would be involved. The only thing disguising their tryst was the hedge, and