Chapter Three
Charlotte took a deep breath and a bracing sip of wine. She and Ewan were more than halfway through supper and it had been an exercise in control every moment of the meal. She was fighting so hard to be light, to joke with him. To pretend that the heated, powerful moment between them in the parlor hadn’t happened so that he would be comfortable and not consider running away from her.
But despite all her efforts, the pulse of that moment remained between them, and it had created a tension she’d never felt before. A heat and a desire that made her feelings so much more taut and undeniable.
It gave her hope. But not bravery.
As she set down her fork, footmen swept in to take away their supper plates. They were just as swiftly replaced by dessert. She smiled, for it was a chocolate torte with a sweet raspberry glaze along the top. Her favorite.
But of course it was her favorite. Because Ewan always gave her the things she loved. Her favorite room, her favorite flowers, her favorite food…her favorite man. Oh, but that he withheld, didn’t he? Let her see him, but never get as close as she wanted to. Even when he looked at her like he wanted to sweep the table clean and have his way with her right then and there.
She jolted as he stared at her, for that was exactly the expression in his dark eyes. And that expression made her find the bravery that had seemed so elusive.
“May we talk about what happened earlier?” she asked, her voice thick and shaky.
He turned his face like she’d struck him, and it took him what felt like an eternity to slowly sign, “What happened earlier?”
She pushed aside the dessert and scooted her chair a bit closer. He stiffened in response and a curtain drew down over his face, a distance he normally reserved for strangers.
Having it put there between them made her heart hurt. This was what she was risking by pushing him. That he would set her aside forever, that their relationship would be irreparably destroyed.
It terrified her. But then, so did walking away from what she wanted and what she felt. She’d done that once and had been miserable. If she didn’t risk this now, when all the world had seemed to align to make it happen, she feared the remainder of her life would be a series of regrets over what she hadn’t done or said.
“Ewan,” she whispered.
His hands shook as he signed, “Please don’t.”
“Why?” she asked, reaching out to grip his hands so he couldn’t say more. “Are you going to deny that you…that you…” Heat rushed to her cheeks, but she ignored it. “That you…want me?”
He jerked his gaze back to her, and in that moment she saw everything. Everything she hadn’t understood when she was nineteen, but perhaps it had always been there. She saw his deep pain, his deeper need. She saw his passion, stirring below the surface he fought to maintain. But now it was rising. Boiling. Almost out of control. Just a tiny shove was all he needed.
She was trembling as she tossed her napkin aside and pushed to her feet. He watched her, his gaze never leaving her face. Slowly she edged forward. His chair was angled back from the table a fraction, and she leaned a hand on either arm, pushing it. He obliged her silent order and scooted back even more.
She touched his face as she sank down into his lap. His breath exited his lips in a long, ragged sigh and then his arms folded around her, accepting her. Accepting this.
Her heart was pounding as she cupped both his cheeks. She lowered her lips, reveling in the warmth of his breath against her mouth just before she kissed him.
Ewan could hardly move or think or breathe as Charlotte pressed her lips to his. This was everything he’d ever wanted or dreamed about, and it was here, in his arms. And Charlotte was driven. She shimmied in his lap, grinding her backside down against him in a way that made his cock react. The control he’d mastered over the years was now nonexistent and he was hard as steel. She opened her mouth, tracing his lips with her tongue, and his mind went blank of all arguments or refusals.
He tightened his embrace, tugging her flush against him, and met her tongue with his. He drove into her, tasting every inch, stroking her tongue, memorizing her unique flavor. He could feel his fingers squeezing and releasing her hips, rocking her against him out of some ancient knowledge.
And if she disliked any of it, she made no indication. If anything, his ardor seemed to stir her own. She mewled in pleasure against his lips, arching against him, dueling with her tongue, grinding that supple backside harder and harder until he felt like he would explode with it.
What he wanted pounded inside of him, a driving drumbeat that echoed, “Take, claim, make mine. Mine. Mine. Forever.”
He jerked at that last thought, and with a sharp breath, he pushed to his feet, setting her aside to stagger for balance as he walked away.
“Ewan!” she gasped, her voice rough with the same want he felt in his chest.
He pivoted to face her and shook his head hard.
“You want me,” she snapped, pressing forward, with emotion snapping in those captivating green eyes. “Damn it! Why can’t you just…allow this?”
His hands shook as he jerked out the letters that spelled out his pain, “Because once I do, everything changes.”
For a moment, she paled and he could see she feared that, too. But she shook her head, denying both their hesitations. “Why does it have to? Why do we have to tangle our lifelong friendship with our…desires? Certainly you’ve had sex with women before when it has meant nothing.”
His cheeks flamed and he turned away once more without answering. He stood there, back to her, praying she would let it go. Praying she wouldn’t push this sensitive issue.
But she was Charlotte. Pushing was in her nature. Pushing was what she did. He felt her move behind him, her hand curled around his bicep, and she turned him to face her.
“Haven’t you?” she whispered, her gaze seeking his.
He pursed his lips. Shame and embarrassment had always followed him. His father’s voice, telling him he was worthless, had been joined with whispers of the crowd as he grew older, looks from men and women alike as he strode through their halls. It was why he avoided Society gatherings at all costs.
“Ewan, have you…been with a woman?” she pressed.
He shook his head slowly.
She gasped at the words, releasing his arm as she took a long step away from him. She looked shocked. She looked confused, though he had no idea why.
“How is that possible?” she whispered.
He cocked his head, for he wasn’t certain she was asking the question of him or just to herself. Either way, he signed, “I am damaged.”
She lunged forward, her eyes snapping again, this time in anger. “Stop that. Stop it. You are not damaged.”
He lifted both eyebrows, which was the best argument he could make when his hands and body were shaking so hard. She read the expression and threw her hands up at it.
“You aren’t!” she insisted, her voice elevating to a level he’d never heard from her before. Charlotte was always gentle. Soft. “You must have felt the stares of women before.”
He flinched. “I’ve felt the stares of everyone,” he signed swiftly, not meeting her eyes.
“And what do you think those stares have meant?” she asked.
“They wonder if I’m stupid, as my father told them. They wonder how damaged I am. They wonder why I wasn’t put in an asylum years ago, where I wouldn’t darken their halls with my brokenness.”
Her lips parted and tears flooded her eyes. She blinked, somehow keeping them at bay. When she had regained her composure, she moved forward, slower this time. Her voice was soft again as she said, “I’ve stood with women when they looked at you, Ewan. I promise you, that isn’t what they were saying. It isn’t what they were asking me.”
He swallowed and somehow forced himself to keep his stare on her. It was almost impossible when she was delving so deeply into the well of his insecurity. His fear. His pain.
She continued, “They knew we were friends, so they would ask me about you. They would coo over you. They would wax poetic about how handsome you were. They would wonder out loud what you were capable of doing with those…” She shifted. “Those lips of yours. They would whisper about your body and your hands and your…just you and how beautiful you are.”
He tried to turn, but she caught his arm again, holding him in place.
“And I hated them for it,” she continued as she slid her hand up his arm, to his shoulder. Her other hand came to rest on his stomach, and his knees began to shake with the power of how much he wanted her. “I hated them for talking about you in the ways I couldn’t. I hated them for wanting you like I wanted you. Ewan, you have been desired by a great many women. But none more than me.”
His breath came short and fast now, the only sound in the quiet room for a beat, two, three, until the silence stretched out between them. Then she lifted on her tiptoes as she slid her hand around his neck and drew him down.
He didn’t resist. He couldn’t. Not with her. Their mouths met, and this time she was gentler, slower as she kissed him. He couldn’t pull away. He didn’t want to pull away. She was breaking down the distance he had always chosen to keep between them and he was too weak not to admit to himself that he was not going to deny her.
He could never deny her.
He opened and their tongues met again, swirling and circling each other until he felt dizzy and hot and heavy with need. Only then did she pull back a fraction, only then did she part from him long enough to sign to him, “Come upstairs with me, Ewan. Now.”
She didn’t wait for him to sign something back, or to nod or shake his head. She merely slipped her hand through his and, without breaking eye contact, led him from the dining room.
He followed her up the stairs, shivering every time she stroked her thumb along the webbing between his thumb and finger. He followed her down the hall to the chamber where he had placed her for her time at his home. A chamber he’d chosen not just because it was beautiful, but because it was so far from his own on the other side of the house.
It turned out that was no protection. Not when she closed the door, put her back to it and smiled up at him, her pupils dilated with want, her hand warm in his, so beautiful that he almost couldn’t breathe when he looked at her. Silently, she reached behind and opened the door, drawing him back into the chamber.
“Stoke the fire, will you?” she asked.
He blinked, for until she said those words it was like he’d been under a spell. Now he looked around. The chamber was dark since her servant hadn’t come to prepare it, but not so dark that he couldn’t see the bed. Her bed. Where she intended to…
He should leave. He knew that in his throbbing heart. But he didn’t. He simply walked forward and began to stir the embers and add logs to the flames. He heard her close the door behind him as he did so, heard her turn the key in the lock to ensure that no one would interrupt them.
As the light lifted in the room, he turned and found her still at the door, watching him through a hooded gaze. But he knew her, and he could see that despite all the confidence she was portraying in this moment, she was nervous. Her hands shook just a little. Her gaze darted over him like she wasn’t certain where to look.
And that somehow gave him some strength. He moved toward her, giving in to what was going to happen. He pushed her back against the door gently and ducked his head to kiss her once more. She lifted against him immediately, his name passing from her lips as she opened to him. He drove his tongue into her mouth, this time letting the heat wash over him. This time really accepting that this was happening.
He’d pictured this moment so many times. He’d dreamed about it. But it was so much better as a reality than a fantasy. His body was on fire as he drove his fingers into her hair, forcing the pins that held her style to clatter on the floor around them. He’d never touched her hair before and it was soft as silk. When it fell around them, that scent of lemon and vanilla filled his nostrils and made him even harder with desire than he had been a moment before.
He pushed into her out of instinct, rocking his hips to hers, and she tilted her head back with a gasp of pleasure.
“My God,” she grunted as he glided his mouth to her throat. “I can already feel how big you are.”
He smiled against her skin. He might not know much, but he recognized that was a compliment. Right now he couldn’t think of anything except fitting himself inside of her. Of doing what he’d fantasized about for years as he lay in his bed alone. How many times had he come thinking about this woman beneath him? Around him? He wasn’t sure he’d last a minute once fantasy became reality.
She placed her hands on his chest and pushed, backing him away. “Take off your clothes,” she breathed. “I want to see you.”
He hesitated a moment, then nodded. He shoved out of his jacket and tossed it aside, then began to work on the buttons of his waistcoat as she just stood there, watching, her eyes intently focused. His fingers felt too thick, too clumsy as he tried to free himself.
At last she chuckled. “Perhaps undressing you is better after all,” she whispered, and stepped back into his space.
She looked up at him even as she pushed his hands away and began to unfasten his waistcoat. Her fingers pressed against him through the fabric as she glided it away and then went to work unknotting and uncoiling his cravat. Slowly, she peeled away all the layers of clothes, all the protection he kept between himself and exposure.
Rather a metaphor for their relationship. She was the only one who’d ever truly seen him for who he was. Even the rest of his friends, the duke club that had accepted him like a brother, didn’t know as much as she did. Now she stripped his shirt open and pushed it aside to leave him naked from the waist up.
He expected her to go to work on his trousers, but as she dropped his shirt to the floor, she merely stared at what she had revealed. Her mouth was slightly open and her eyes were wide as she reverently reached out and touched his chest.
“My God,” she hissed as her fingers touched his hot skin. “How do you keep so…muscular?”
He looked down, watching her fingers trace the hard slopes and valleys along his chest and stomach. He knew he looked different from other men of his rank. Most of them didn’t avoid Society or work their own land.
He did when it was required. He liked it, truth be told. It felt real. It didn’t require words.
“Work,” he signed simply.
She stared up into his face, and then a slow smile curled her lips. “Of course,” she murmured. “You are so very unique, my love.”
He might have responded, for her words hit him right in the stomach, but she didn’t allow it. She leaned forward to brush her lips against his chest and all thoughts emptied from his mind as hard, heavy, wild sensation rushed through him. She was licking him. His chest, swirling her tongue around a nipple while her hands dragged lower, down his stomach, and then along the front of his trousers to trace the length of his swollen cock.
She made a sound in her throat, one of pleasure and approval, and he swore he grew hard enough to drive a nail. She continued to stroke as she licked lower, lower, and then her mouth met her fingers as she dropped to her knees in front of him. She looked up to meet his gaze as she unfastened his trousers and they fell around his feet.
She was eye to eye with his cock and heat flooded his cheeks. Embarrassment at being so physically exposed, excitement at having her hands on him, her mouth on him, it all washed over him in waves. His mind was spinning, thoughts attacking him from all angles.
And then she lifted up on her knees a fraction and drew him between her lips. He almost buckled as sensation shot up his cock and flowed through his entire shaking body. He’d taken himself in hand before, of course. Almost always it was to forbidden fantasies of the very woman who now stroked her mouth over him.
But that had never been like this. She worked him slowly, her gaze holding his as she took him into her throat and back out again, as she gripped the root of his staff and gently worked her hand in time.
His hand came down. He meant to push her away to make the powerful sensation less, but somehow his fingers tangled in her hair instead and he held there, feeling her head bob back and forth against his palm as she took him and took him and took him.
He felt his seed moving, the telltale ache that grew and blossomed and told him he was going to come. But he didn’t want to do it like this.
Somehow he found the strength to thrust her away, to yank her to her feet and kiss her again, this time rough as he backed her toward her bed. She was still fully clothed, and his fingers fumbled along the back of her dress, tugging at buttons, popping a few to scatter across the floor until he tugged the gown forward and left her standing in only her chemise.
He drew in a few long breaths as he stepped away from her. He wanted to look at her. He needed to look at her. After all, this was likely the only time he would see her like this. He wanted to savor every moment so he’d never forget a one.
She didn’t move to force his hand. She simply stood before him, her white silk chemise clinging to full breasts, to a slender waist, to the swell of her hips. It was short, so he got a full glimpse of long, lean legs swathed in rather sheer stockings.
He shuddered, filled with as much need and pleasure as he had been when she sucked him. Looking at her was that good. And he wanted more.
He flicked his hand at her and she smiled, a rather wicked smile at that. “Is the Duke of Donburrow requesting that I remove my chemise?” she teased.
He nodded his head ferociously and her smile turned into a throaty laugh.
“You want this?” she asked as she slid one strap of the chemise down her shoulder off her arm. “And this?” she pressed as she repeated the action on the other strap. She kept a hand at the neckline of the chemise, though—she wasn’t really revealed.
He pursed his lips and glared at her. The look didn’t deter her. If anything, his frustration and his drive only emboldened her.
“Perhaps this?” She tugged and the gown slipped a few inches, revealing her cleavage, almost enough but not quite.
“More,” he signed in desperation.
She cocked her head, examining his face in the glow of the firelight. Then she slowly, silently, dragged her chemise down to the waist and lowered her hands.
His legs nearly went out from under him. She was perfect. Charlotte was tall, so her full breasts fit her long, lean body. Her nipples were the color of dusky roses and they were hard. She was sliding the chemise lower, over her hips, down and down until it pooled at her feet and she kicked it away.
She stood naked before him, clad only in those sheer stockings, and all he could do was stare in shock, in awe, in rapture.
“You can do more than look,” she whispered, as if reading his mind. “I was made to be touched, Ewan. I was made to be yours.”
He wasn’t certain that was true. At least the part about her being made to be his. But made to be touched, oh yes, he could believe that. He stepped forward, clearing his mind of all the reasons why he shouldn’t be doing this, how he didn’t deserve this.
And he touched her. He cupped her breasts and heard a low, deep sound of pleasure come from somewhere in his chest. She tilted her head back with a gasp and it spurred him on. He began to circle her nipples with his thumbs, around and around as she reached up to grip his forearms.
“You certainly don’t let a lack of experience stop you,” she gasped.
He smiled and bent his head. He wanted to lick her, to taste her, and he did, tracing the shape of her nipple with the tip of his tongue. She cried out when he did so and he lifted his head to analyze if that was a sound of pleasure or dislike.
Pleasure, it seemed, for her eyes were squeezed shut and her body was quaking.
He returned his mouth to her, swirling his tongue around her over and over, and finally sucking the nub with just the slightest of force. Her fingers flew into his hair and she held him at her breast, mewling as he switched to the opposite nipple where he repeated the torment.
She was writhing now, her hips arching toward him, her sounds desperate and heated and he stared, mesmerized by her pleasure. He wanted to take his own, of course, but more than that, he wanted to give it to her. He wanted her to scream and wail and shake.
“Please,” she growled, catching his arms and tugging him closer. “Please.”
She pulled him and they fell onto her bed together. He covered her warm, soft body with his own and shivered despite the warmth of the room and the heat she inspired in him. She felt so perfect beneath him. Perfect and right, even if his mind kept trying to remind him that this was anything but right.
It didn’t matter anymore. This was a tidal wave. He couldn’t stop it. What would happen now was a force of nature. She pushed and he rolled onto his back, dragging her across him, lifting his mouth to hers. She drove her own kiss hard and he tasted her passion on her lips. Passion that mounted as she straddled his prone body, positioning her slick entrance over him until he felt the heat of her at the tip of his cock.
He pulled back, eyes wide, and watched as she lowered herself over him. Her soft folds parted to allow him entry and he gritted his teeth at the pure, animal pleasure of the act. She was wet and tight, gripping his sensitive cock like a glove that had been made to fit him. She let out a soft cry as she took him farther and farther, deeper into her ready channel until he was seated to the hilt, her body quivering around him.
He couldn’t find the words to sign as he stared up at her, and she smiled. “I know,” she whispered. “I know, Ewan. Just let it be, just let it happen.”
He nodded slowly and reached out to cup her hips. As his fingers pressed into her flesh, she began to ride him. She was slow at first, rolling her hips over him with control and purpose. She ground down on him, rubbing their pelvises together with every down stroke and ratcheting up the blinding pleasure that rushed through his blood and settled into every nerve ending of his being.
But the longer she went on, the more erratic her thrusts became. Her face twisted with pleasure, her legs shook against his sides as she gripped him, slammed over him, reaching and reaching. At last she let out a wild cry and her back arched as she shuddered over him.
And she had never been so beautiful as she was in that moment of pure, unadulterated pleasure. He stared at her face as she shivered against him, memorizing the way her lips parted, how her eyes were screwed shut, how her hands gripped in fists against his chest. He memorized how her sheath squeezed him, milking him toward his own pleasure that he felt building with more intensity than he’d ever felt it coming before.
As if she sensed the same thing, her eyes came open and she began to move faster over him. Harder. She kissed him as she took him, riding him toward an end he couldn’t control. One he wanted to take as she writhed over him.
And then it was there. He gripped her hips harder and flipped her over onto her back. He covered her, grinding down over her with thrust after thrust as she lifted to him with a keening cry that could have brought the house down but somehow didn’t.
It took everything in him not to spend deep within her. He pulled free just as the first spurts of his release began and pumped hot and hard into his hand. Finally, he collapsed down next to her and dragged her against him to hold her as close and as tight as he could.