Royal Bastard

by Avery Flynn

  Lady Lemons blinked in surprise.

  “Did he now?” Nick would take the victory. The old man had folded like a cardboard box. He didn’t bother to hide his smile as he held out an elbow to Brooke. “Well, we can’t disappoint Earl Cold Soup now, can we?”

  Chapter Thirteen

  Brooke lay awake staring at the canopy above her bed and counting the petals on the pink flowers by the light of the full moon streaming in from her window. Dinner had been awkward, but not nearly as much as walking up the stairs with Nick to their connecting rooms.

  That thing between them had started off as a quiet hum in the back of her mind but had steadily grown into a thrum between her legs. She clenched her thighs together and fisted her hands in her sheets. Damn it. That wasn’t allowed. She would not get herself off to the earl’s heir, and that’s how she’d think of him. As. The. Earl’s. Heir. Not as the man with an eight-pack and a slow smile that made her mouth go dry. Her traitorous brain immediately began to wonder just what he could do with that mouth. A lot more than her last few boyfriends, not that any of them had been recent enough to be memorable. The last time she’d orgasmed from something other than her fingers had been a year ago when she’d still been in Manchester, failing spectacularly to make it in the city.

  For not the first time since she’d moved back home, she wished getting laid in Bowhaven without having the entire village know was a little easier—or possible at all.

  “Ow! Shit.” Nick’s startled cry from the other side of the closed connecting door boomed in their quiet wing of Dallinger Park. A hard bang and a thunk followed it. “Fuck me.” Then nothing.

  Bloody hell. Silence had never sounded so dangerous.

  Brooke was out of her bed and through the connecting door before she had a chance to second-guess herself, which usually happened as soon as she’d had the first thought, so that was saying something.

  “Motherfucker!” The loud curse came from inside the still-dark en suite bathroom.

  She beelined it to the door and pressed the light on. Water streamed from the sink’s hot faucet, a cloud of steam rising up from the basin. Nick sat on the edge of the clawfoot tub across from the sink in only his pants with the heel of his hand pressed against his forehead, his face a pissed-off grimace. Yeah, she shouldn’t have gotten caught up in what he was—or really wasn’t—wearing, but it was hard not to follow the honey-brown happy trail down his lower abs until it disappeared behind the waistband of his boxer briefs.

  “Are you okay?” she asked, her heart speeding. “What happened?”

  “What is wrong with this country? Why do you people not have a single water faucet like the rest of the world instead of separate taps for hot and cold water?” he all but growled, flexing his left hand that had a soft flush to it.

  Snapped back from the edge of the imagined discovery of what lay beneath his boxer briefs, Brooke hustled forward and shut off the tap. “Did you burn yourself?”

  He looked up and winced, then pointed at the part of the wall that jutted out near the sink to form a high shelf that just happened to be forehead-level for someone who was six feet, three inches tall. “Not really, but I clocked my head on the wall when my half-awake self forgot there was one tap for hot and another for cold.”

  Hands on her hips, she started toward him. “Let me see.”

  He didn’t move, not even a twitch. “It’s just a scratch. “

  Ignoring his pronouncement, she stepped between his legs and peeled his hand away from his forehead. There was an angry red circle with a white line in the middle bisected by a small cut. There wasn’t much blood, but…

  “You should probably go to hospital to make sure you don’t have a concussion or need stitches.”

  “I’m not going to the hospital. I don’t need stitches—I’ve been told on good authority that chicks dig scars—and I don’t have a concussion. Been there, know the symptoms. Not worried.”

  Well, now she had proof that bullshit macho stubbornness crossed easily over international waters. “Don’t be as thick as mince; you need to get it looked at.”

  He craned his head around her, taking a peek at his reflection in the mirror above the sink. “A Band-Aid and I’ll be fine.”

  “You can’t be this stubborn,” she said, shaking her head.

  He grinned up at her. “Can and am. So unless you’re planning on hefting me over your shoulder and toting my ass to the hospital, then it looks like I win.”

  She hated that he was right, but he was, because there was no way she could force him. “You’re insufferable.”

  He shrugged his broad, bare shoulders. “So I’ve been told.”

  Okay, that was too distracting. Keeping her gaze locked on his when every instinct in her was screaming for her to take in every hard plane and muscled curve so she could commit it to memory to enjoy for later tonight when she was alone in bed. Ugh. What are you doing, you git? He is injured. He is the earl’s heir. He is hot as a fireplace poker…and wouldn’t it be nice to see his poker? Why did her brain go there and why did her body only encourage her lusty thoughts by going soft and tight and wet and achy all at once? It wasn’t fair.

  “Fine,” she said as she backpedaled toward the door before she gave in to the call of his pheromones and her out-of-control hormones. “I’ll be right back, then.”

  Heart fluttering and stomach filled with champagne bubbles, she practically sprinted out of there and back into her room. Her emergency kit was in the bottom of her suitcase, under her panties where she always kept it. It had become habit when she was in Manchester and she’d thought those late-night calls from Reggie were spontaneous and romantic instead of what they really were—lazy and entitled. Somehow she’d thought her little kit with its safety pins, bandages, stain stick, condoms, and other you-never-know-what-could-happen things made her more cosmopolitan, changing her from being the village girl far from home who hadn’t realized until it was too late what it felt like to be taken in and chewed up by a city that couldn’t care less about her.

  Now wasn’t the time to get lost in that regret, though, so she yanked the canary-yellow toiletry bag from her suitcase and marched back through the connecting door toward Nick’s bathroom. She made it only two steps inside the door before slamming to a stop.

  Nick sat on the bed, the full moon’s light coming in through the window the only illumination, but it was enough to give her an indecently good view of him—his hands on his muscular thighs and his feet flat on the floor—watching her. A quick glance confirmed that his head wound wasn’t bleeding anymore and the bump around it had already begun to grow—not enough to make her insist on going to hospital but more than enough to let her know it had to hurt.

  Against her better judgment, she let her attention wander from the small bump on his head to the dark stubble on his square jaw to the pale tan of his flat nipples to the defined lines of his stomach. She could look at this man all night long—if only he’d been a different man, and then she’d do a lot more than look. As it was, though, she had a job to do, and tonight that meant patching him up.

  “You just happen to carry a first aid kit around with you?” he asked.

  “Of course.” She unzipped the bag as she took a step closer, the move bringing her once again between his legs.

  “You’d be an excellent Boy Scout.”

  “I was an excellent Girl Guide.” She bit back a sympathetic smile at his confused expression, and the wince he made after the move irritated his injury. “It’s the Girl Scouts in America.”

  Placing his palms on his knees, he angled his face up at her and closed his eyes. “Okay, do your worst.”

  Looking down at him so totally at ease in his own skin sent a thrill through her that went straight to her core. Okay, this was it. She was going to have to find someone to shag on the quiet before she spontaneously combusted from being around this man. />
  “You okay there, Lady Lemons?” he asked, his eyes still closed so that his long brown eyelashes rested on his cheekbones.

  “Of course.” More than a little frazzled, she reached into her kit, grabbed the one-time-use antibiotic, ripped the top of the foil packet, and froze, realizing her mistake the moment the cherry scent hit her nose.

  Nick sniffed, leaning forward as his eyes snapped open. “What is that?”

  “Nothing.” Horrified at her mistake, she tried to shove the packet down to the very bottom of her emergency kit, but he snatched it away before she got a chance.

  He held up the packet so the moonlight hit it. Her focus zeroed in on the artwork on the packet depicting a pair of cherries covered in lipstick kisses. Kill her now. Please just let the earth’s gravitational pull cease to exist for as long as it took to suck her up into space and the nearest black hole.

  For his part, Nick managed not to smirk as he read the product name out loud with precise enunciation. “Wild cherry edible lubrication gel.” He shrugged. “I’m more of a strawberry man myself, but to each his—or her—own.”

  She held out her hand, palm up, glad to see that it didn’t shake—or at least not much. “May I have it back, please?”

  Now he did smirk, a slow, sexy, I-like-the-way-you-think curl of one side of his mouth that made her breath catch. “What else do you have in that kit?”

  Band-Aids. Burn cream. A three-pack of condoms. The usual. “None of your business.”

  “Have it your way, Lady Lemons.” He laid the foil rectangle in the center of the palm of her hand, setting off a riot of sensations that pulled her whole body tight.

  Determined to brazen through this awkward moment, she folded the top of the packet over and dropped the lube into the bag—she’d dispose of it later—then she yanked out a one-time-use rectangle of foil, read the label three times to be sure she had the antibiotic this time, and tore it open. “Tilt your head back and I’ll put this on your cut. It might sting.”

  “I don’t mind a little of that as long as it’s all better after.”

  She just bet he did. “Are you going to cooperate, or do I have to insist on taking you to hospital?”

  “I’ll be good, right up until you don’t want me to be anymore.”

  Ignoring that last bit and her body’s yes-please reaction to it, she dabbed the milky gel onto his cut. His jaw squared, but he didn’t make a sound. Next, she got out the bandage, adjusted her stance to get a better look so she could line up the cushion so none of the sticky bits ended up on his cut, and centered it over his wound. He let out a short, low groan that brushed against her chest, reminding her of their positions right now—him on the bed in only his boxer briefs and her in the same soft cotton tank top and shorts sleep set that had been thinned from going through the wash more times than she could count. Desire, warm and smooth, curled in her stomach.

  “Almost all fixed up.” Damn, her voice sounded breathy as she pressed the bandage to his forehead.

  When he didn’t say anything, she dropped her gaze lower. He wasn’t looking at her, though—well, not at her face. Her hard nipples pressing against the thin material of her tank top were directly at eye level. She could blame it on the cold because her body was hot, overheated even—and it had nothing to do with the temperature.

  A sigh sounded in her ears, soft and needy. It took her a second to realize the sound had come from her. His hands fisted on his knees—knuckles white, he glanced up at her, his eyes dark with a possessive lust that made her core clench.

  “Please tell me you don’t want me to be good anymore,” he said, his low rumble as good as a touch against her aching breasts.

  “We shouldn’t.” And if she kept reminding herself of that, then she’d remember it.

  “But do you want to?” he asked.

  Yes! “I can’t afford to ask myself that question.”

  He glided the back of his thumb up the outside of her thigh to the lacy trim of her sleep shorts, leaving a trail of fire in its wake. “Why not?”

  “We both already know what the answer is.”

  She wanted to straddle him as he sat on the bed and give him a grinding, hot lap dance that ensured his cock rubbed up against every sensitive spot at the apex of her legs. She wanted to take him inside her, press her palms against the hard ridges of his abs and ride him slow and sure. She wanted to be under him on the bed, pressed up against him with the wall at her back, and on her hands and knees as he pounded into her like she craved each time her fingers slid between her slick folds.

  “Brooke…” He made her name sound like a naughty promise and a desperate plea.

  One that she only wanted to answer in the affirmative. This was not right. Unthinkable. Tempting. So damn tempting. Her fingertips were tracing the line of his jaw, the coarse hair scraping her tender flesh before she even realized what she was doing. He didn’t touch her in return. He waited—patient, enticing, confident—letting her take the lead, as if he already knew what she’d say next. It wasn’t triumph in his hazel eyes but pure focused need—all of it directed at her. It was incendiary to be at the center of it, and she was going up in flames.

  She traced the line of his throat and across his corded shoulders, the whole time feeling like a woman who’d made this decision a million years ago and was only now admitting it. “No one could know.”

  “There’s no one here I’d ever tell.”

  The springy hairs dusting his pecs tickled her fingers as she continued her explorations of the man she’d been secretly fantasizing about since the first photos came in from the earl’s private investigator. “It can’t be anything more than sex and only this one time.”

  Okay, that was more for herself than Nick. It wasn’t like someone like him had ever had problems separating orgasms from something more.

  “I’m not staying full-time anyway.” He flexed his fingers and then squeezed them into a fist again, never letting them move away from his knees. “In a few months, I’ll be back in Virginia.”

  “I’m not giving up on making you the earl Bowhaven needs.” She couldn’t. There was too much at stake.

  “Never asked you to,” he said, his eyes fluttering shut for a second as she traced her way downward, following his narrow happy trail. “This has nothing to do with that.”

  She hesitated at the waistband of his boxer briefs, her nipples so hard, they hurt. “Nick…”

  “God, I love the way you say my name.”

  Just the rumble of his words was enough to make her clit quiver with anticipation, but he still didn’t make a single move toward her. She knew why. He wanted her to make the first move, to have control, to show him just how much she wanted him. The moment was as empowering as it was sexually frustrating.

  “Nick.” She lifted both hands to his shoulders and pushed, forcing him back onto the bed. Then she did what she’d been fantasizing about since she read the first report on one Nick Vane—she crawled onto the bed and straddled his hips. “Will you stop being good?”

  “Lady Lemons,” he said, grabbing her around the waist and flipping their positions so she was on her back. “I thought you’d never ask.”

  He dipped his head lower, his mouth centimeters from hers, hovering there above her, so close she could feel him even without actually touching him. Another opportunity to back out? To run? It didn’t matter, because she wasn’t going anywhere right now. It took only the slightest move to press her lips to his in a kiss while at the same time she reached her hips and pressed his hard length against her core, just where she wanted him.

  Chapter Fourteen

  If Nick’s head still ached like it had been used as a gong by a guy wielding a two-by-four, he couldn’t fucking feel it. All he could feel was the softness of Brooke’s lips on his, the sweet curve of her waist where it flared out. Even with the barrier of his underwear and her min
uscule shorts between them, the slick heat of her pressed against his dick. How their clothing didn’t go up in flames the moment he sank between her thighs and ground against her, he had no clue. Especially not when she moaned into his mouth, her teeth grazing his bottom lip. Oh, somebody liked that. He did it again, this time changing the angle just enough that if he was lucky, he’d stroke the head of his cock against her clit. She arched against him, letting her head fall back into the pillow, and let out a lusty groan that made his balls tingle. Oh yeah, that was the kind of sound he loved hearing come from his usually tightly wound Lady Lemons.

  “I could probably come just from hearing you moan like that,” he said, kissing his way down the column of her throat to the sensitive spot at the base.

  She rotated her hips, rubbing herself against him. “I need a little more than that.”

  He chuckled. “Don’t worry. You’ll be getting it.”

  He tugged the thin strap of her tank top down her arm until the triangle of material covering her tits slipped down far enough to reveal the hard point of her nipple. He cupped her breast and dragged his thumb across the stiff peak. Brooke groaned, and he repeated the move again and again until her skin was flush with desire. Then he leaned down and sucked her nipple into his mouth, drawing on it. Her hands were in his hair, digging into his scalp at the back of his head and holding him in place as he teased and tugged on her sensitive flesh.

  “Nick, please,” she pleaded.

  “More or less?” he asked, praying that it wasn’t less because he already knew he wouldn’t be able to get enough of her tonight.

  “All of it,” she said, her heady voice strained with desire. “Right now.”

  “Not yet, Lemons. I want to get my fill of you, tasting every inch of your skin, sinking my tongue between your thighs, and making you come all over my lips before I even sink my dick inside your tight pussy.” All of that. That’s what he wanted. “How about I just switch sides for right now.”