Page 78 of Valour

“Yes. He looked like he’d eaten a wasp’s nest, though.”

“Did he indeed?”

Heavy footsteps thudded along the corridor outside. Hester raised a brow, her heart skipping a beat. She had wondered when he’d come. Her lips curved upwards.

Septimus’s muscular bulk stood in the shadow of the doorway, and he pointed a finger at her. “You took my sleeping bag. Give it back.”

Hester feigned a look of innocence. “You have no proof of your claim, my lord. Why, it could have been anyone.”

“But it wasn’t anyone, was it? It was you.” He stalked forwards, and Hester leapt up off the settee and scurried around the back of it.

Oh, yes. He was going to chase her. It was exactly what she needed to take her mind off everything. Just a little more poking should do it. “What would I want with your mangey, rotten, stinky old sleeping bag?”

“God in Heaven only knows.” He darted to the settee, reaching for her, and Hester sprang back and then rushed to the door.

“I might have seen it, but you’ll have to catch me first,” she said, winking and then bolting down the corridor, heavy footsteps behind her. That delicious spark coursed through her veins, coiling in her core, a much-needed distraction from her worries about the ship, about Fliss.

“Hester Orn! Get back here.”

Hester cackled, racing down the steps to the Ritz and hiding behind a stack of crates with her hand clapped over her mouth, panting through her nose. Septimus’s footsteps thudded on the stairs, and she squealed through her fingers, fully aware that she was giving away her hiding spot. Reeling him in.

“You want me to catch you,” he said, his voice getting closer. “Don’t you? And what do you want then?”

Hester pressed her back into the wall, imagining exactly what she wanted him to do. Namely, pin her against this very wall and⁠—

“There you are, little witch.” He stood before her, face shadowed.

Her breathing hitched. “Hello, my lord,” she purred, tilting her head back, eyes half closed.

Achingly slowly, he took her wrists and pinioned her to the wall, all of his body pressed against all of hers. She stifled a groan, and he sighed in her ear. Shivers ran down her spine.

“As hard as I try to stay away, it never seems to work.” He shifted against her.

Hester closed her eyes, barely able to contain her desire. She wanted his mouth on hers, and she wanted that long, hard length she could feel through his breeches, wanted that deep inside her.

The ship creaked all around them, and still he held her in place, toying with her, and she burned and burned.

He hovered his mouth a hair’s breadth from her neck. “And what to do with you now? There are so many options.”

She could not move, or speak, the moment dangling on a knife edge.

He dropped his voice lower. “You deserve a severe punishment for stealing.” He shifted her wrists into one hand and dragged a finger down her neck, between her breasts, down her stomach.

She shivered in anticipation. Yes, yes, yes. This was exactly how she’d dreamt it. Slow. Torturous. Delicious.

And then there was a thunk.

Septimus sank to his knees.

Then to the floor.

Behind him stood Charlotte, a length of timber in her hands, her eyes wide.

Hester squealed, “Charlotte!”

“Are you alright?!” Charlotte dropped the timber and staggered back from the prone figure of Septimus. “Did he hurt you? Tell me he didn’t, the great beast.”

Hester’s jaw dropped. “What did you do?!”