She huffed in frustration and shook her head. “The staff in this store are woefully inattentive,” she said, hoping Joseph would think incompetence was the problem, not money.
He made his own frustrated sound as they reached the narrow hallway and said, “This is precisely why I wish to purchase new clothing for myself. I need suits that will make me appear more authoritative, stronger.”
Something about the way he said that melted Ellen’s heart a little. “But you are authoritative and strong.”
“No, I’m not,” Joseph said, pausing in front of a door that was slightly ajar. “I am young and green, and according to Mr. Danny Long, I need to look and behave as I wish to be treated in order to gain the respect I want.”
Ellen smiled suddenly. “I know Mr. Long. His wife is friends with my sister.”
Joseph gaped at her. “You know Mr. Long?”
“He’s a fantastic man,” she said. “And if he thinks you should dress to be respected, then I quite agree. You should. Now, show me this other suit you wish to purchase. Money is not a consideration. I have oodles of it, and I’ll buy whatever you want for you.”
Joseph gaped at her with a look of horror. “Ellen, I cannot allow you to do that.”
Ellen caught her breath. He’d called her by her given name. For the first time.
That was it. Joseph was hers, and nothing and no one was going to stop her from giving him everything he wanted and needed to be the man he wanted to be.
“Go!” She pointed into the changing room, and when that was not enough, she pushed the door open. “Put on the other suit.”
Joseph stepped instantly into the small room. He then seemed to realize both that she’d given him an order and he’d followed it, and that she was still there.
“You cannot be in here,” he said with sudden alarm. “God only knows what will happen if you’re discovered in the men’s changing room.”
“Yes, yes,” Ellen said with a playful sigh. “I’ll be shunned out of London society and labeled a loose woman and a pariah. Go on, put this other suit on.”
She grasped his shoulders and turned him so that she could push him into the room.
A fancy took her, and she did more than that. Barely suppressing a giggle, she stepped with him into the tiny room and started to pull the unbuttoned suit coat he’d tried on off his shoulders.
“Ellen, what the devil are you doing?” he hissed, squirming. “They will call the police if you are found in here. They will take you to Bedlam.”
“I’m only trying to assist you in changing suits,” Ellen laughed. She knew full well she was being scandalous and that a heap of trouble would rain down on her if she and Joseph were caught, but at the moment, she couldn’t bring herself to care. “Let’s just get these things off.”
“Stop it,” Joseph grumbled, even as he twisted and turned and let her remove the suit coat. “This is highly irregular. This would cause a massive scandal in a second flat. This is—”
He stopped his complaining as their twisting and movement brought them face to face in the tight quarters. Ellen forgot about the suit coat moments after she let it drop to the ground. The way Joseph looked at her, the heat radiating from him, and the way he sucked in a breath and leaned toward her was too much. Without letting herself think about the consequences, she threw herself into his arms, slanting her mouth over his and stealing a searing kiss.
Chapter Nine
He must have completely taken leave of his senses.
That was the last thought that passed through Joseph’s mind as he swept Ellen into his arms and slanted his mouth over hers. Only a madman would kiss a woman in the men’s changing room of John Lewis’s department store. But he couldn’t help himself. The moment was just so completely mad, Ellen looked and smelled like springtime and loveliness, and the way she’d pushed at him, running her hands all over him in her efforts to help him undress, was intoxicating.
He adored the sensation of her mouth against his, her petal-soft lips opening for him so that he could explore her more fully. He still worried that he didn’t know the first thing about kissing properly, but that hardly seemed to matter with Ellen pushing him up against the wall of the tiny room and splaying her hands across his chest. He wore only a cotton shirt and felt her touch as though it were against his skin.
And then she unceremoniously tugged his shirt up from his trousers and spread her hands across his actual skin, sending shivers of lust through him.
We must stop. Somewhere in the back of his mind, those words tried to make themselves heard. Joseph ignored them completely, pulling Ellen even closer to him and yanking at her blouse in the same way she’d tugged his shirt. His mouth never left hers for more than a moment as their tongues dances and their lips molded together. Mind? Did he have one of those anymore? If he did, he had lost it completely.
Somehow, he managed to free Ellen’s blouse from her skirt, only to encounter a damnable corset underneath. Blast corsets straight to hell, he wanted skin. And he was determined to get it in some way, which led to him speeding through the buttons on the front of her blouse until he’d parted the silly garment enough to smooth his hands over the swell of her breasts as they strained up from her corset.
He broke away from her lips long enough to lick a trail down her neck—which had her groaning far too vocally for their current situation—to her breasts. He kissed each one of them several times before sliding his tongue between the close cavity between them.
“Yes, Joseph, darling,” Ellen panted, threading her fingers through his hair and encouraging him. “Yes.”
He wanted more. His whole body screamed for it, but he had no idea what he was doing. That didn’t stop Ellen from twisting around him in such a way that enabled her to hike up her skirt, then hook one of her shapely legs over his thigh. Everything seemed to fit into place in his mind from there. As he continued to devour her mouth, he slid a hand from her calf to her thigh, then followed the straps holding her stockings up all the way to her hip and the round swell of her—