“Yes. Lead the way,” she replied.
He took her by the hand, and she followed him without question up a narrow staircase lit only by a gaslight sconce at the top. They climbed two flights and emerged into a wide, more brightly lit hallway. Reaching into his breast pocket for a key, Mr. Torrington unlocked a door at the far end of the building, and in the very next instant, Charlotte was inside the room, kissing him again in the darkness.
“I want you so much,” she said on a breathless sigh. “But I’ve never done anything like this before.”
“We’ll take our time.” He swept her into his arms and carried her to the bed, set her down upon it, and stood over her while shrugging out of his jacket. The light from the city streets outside filtered in through the window and illuminated his broad, muscular chest as he tossed the jacket aside and began to unbutton his waistcoat.
Charlotte leaned up on her elbows to watch the marvelous spectacle of his undressing before her. All of this felt like an impossible fantasy—something she was dreaming about in the late, lonely hours of the night. But it was not a fantasy. This was real.
“Can I get you anything?” he asked. “A glass of wine?”
If she said ‘yes,’ would he postpone the pleasure?
“No, I don’t need anything,” she replied with breathless desire and a heart pounding with excitement.
He removed his waistcoat, tossed that to the floor as well, and proceeded to pull his shirt off over his head. “Would you like to talk first? Some women like to talk.”
Curious as to how many women he had entertained this way, Charlotte shook her head and sucked in a breath at the awesome sight of his upper body, stripped bare. He was a fighter, a sportsman, and she was utterly spellbound by the splendor of his masculine form.
“Before we begin, is there anything at all that you require?” he asked, climbing onto the bed on all fours, like a black panther in the dark.
“I have everything I could possibly desire,” she replied.
Reaching out, she cupped his face in her hands, and he came down for another soul-reaching kiss. Charlotte wrapped her legs around his hips and kissed him deeply, moving her body freely, without inhibitions, for this was a fantasy she intended to live out to the fullest. He was so deliciously enticing and so very male in every way as he ran his hands up and down and over her body.
After a while, he tugged her skirts upwards, inch by inch, and she writhed with yearning while he stroked, kissed, and whispered soft words in her ear. The pleasure of his touch was so intense, all the muscles in her body softened into little pools of perfect enchantment. She let out a small moan and then a gasp.
“You can tell, can’t you…?” she asked.
“Tell what?”
“That I am not a virgin.” She wanted to admit it. She wanted him to know he need not be overly gentle.
“Yes.”
Her eyes fluttered closed at the flood of sensation. “It’s been a long time,” she explained, “since I’ve been with a man.” He kissed her again and she melted. “But that’s enough talk.”
“First, tell me what you want,” he whispered hotly in her ear.
That titillating, husky voice swept over her like velvet. “I just want you.”
It was far too romantic a response, when clearly this was intended to be a casual sexual encounter. He drew back slightly and looked down at her in the candlelight.
“Was that not specific enough?” she asked and was strangely relieved when the corner of his mouth curled up in a small grin.
He rolled onto her and moved with bewitching grace. “Perhaps I should have been more specific when posing the question,” he added.
She ran her fingertips up and down the smooth corded muscles of his back. “Ask another, then.”
“All right.” Still braced above her, he said, “Fast or slow?”
“Both.”
“Foreplay? Or straight to the main event?”
“Foreplay, please.”
He grinned again. “Naked or partially clothed?”
“Naked.”
He paused for a moment. “How long can you stay?”
“’Til dawn,” she replied. “Not a moment longer.”
“Then we have all night.” She felt his body relax, and every ounce of her being ached to hold him as close as possible.
“Let’s take this off,” he suggested, running a hand over her bodice, then rolling off her to watch her unfasten the buttons at the front.
She sat up and shrugged out of it, then unhooked the front fastenings on her whalebone corset. Tossing it carelessly to the floor, she pulled her light cotton chemise over her head, and with breasts bared, leaned back on her elbows to stare up at him.
His gaze roamed from one breast to the other. “Now the skirts?” he proposed.
Charlotte’s body shivered with yearning, for the note of desire in his voice was a powerful aphrodisiac all on its own.
Lying back on the pillow, she slowly unfastened the buttons at the side, then untied the ribbon of her petticoat.
“Will you pull it off for me?” she asked, lifting her hips off the bed.
Those big hands slid up her legs and gripped the waistband. Soon her skirts were sliding over her knees and joining the other garments on the floor. The stockings and shoes came off next, and Charlotte marveled at the fact that she felt no modesty but delighted in the sensation of her nudity beneath the heat of his gaze in the warm glow of the candlelight.
“Now it’s your turn,” she said, eyeing him with hungry fascination.
He worked the fastenings of his trousers and slipped out of them as he moved to lie beside her. Fully naked at last, they rolled to face each other. He gathered her into his arms, pulled her close, and kissed her passionately for what seemed a perfect, blissful eternity. Then he used his hands and mouth tirelessly for more touching, stroking, caressing…
Eventually, he rolled on top of her, but never broke the kiss. She wrapped her legs around him, while their tongues tangled and danced. Charlotte sighed breathlessly when he began to move.
“Are you growing impatient?” he asked with a teasing smile that promised something very wicked.
“Intolerably so,” she replied. “Although it is a frustration I would not choose to forgo.”
“You did ask for foreplay,” he reminded her.
And he was torturing her with it in the most exquisite way.
“Yes.”
With a devilish glint in his eyes, he lowered his head and returned to his task of pleasuring her senseless until at last, he slid into her with a smooth mastery of movement. Intensely aroused, Charlotte heaved a sigh of contentment. Soon, his slow stokes began to quicken, and he crushed her mouth with a plunging kiss that stirred her senses into a firestorm of response.
Perhaps it was the sheer thrill of this wicked encounter, or perhaps it was the way he moved. Each stroke was electric, coursing through her senses and awakening the longings that had been lying dormant within her for so many years.
Oh, how she had needed this—this human, physical connection. She had been living such a solitary existence, surrounded only by her books and her family, when what she really needed was a man—a rugged, virile, experienced lover who knew exactly how to pleasure a woman.
Her body shuddered and convulsed, and when she arched her back, he rose up on one elbow to watch her in the candlelight.
Everything she thought she knew about lovemaking was shattered in the explosion of her desires. It was far more visceral than any experience from her romantic, youthful past.
When the ecstasy reached its peak, then began to recede, she opened her eyes and looked up at Mr. Torrington. Her lover.
He gazed down at her with hooded eyes that were full of desire while he continued to move. Then he shut his eyes, touched his forehead to hers, shu
ddered with rapture, and withdrew at the last second to prevent the conception of a child.
Charlotte was wildly aroused by the sight of his pleasure. It thrilled her to the depths of her soul. Had all this truly happened? she wondered as he rolled to the side and collapsed beside her. Or had she been dreaming? For it was everything she had fantasized about in the secret hours of so many lonely nights.
After a moment or two, he turned his head on the pillow and looked at her, and while she was struck by how attractive he was—not classically handsome, but extremely charismatic—she had no idea what to say or do next, for this was out of her realm of experience.
Chapter 7
Drake turned his head on the pillow to look at the woman he had just made love to and wanted to know everything there was to know about her, for she had done something to him just now.
He had come to the hotel with the expectation of bedding an eager lover and enjoying it to the fullest—which he had. It was certainly not the first time he had been invited for a night of love play with a beautiful woman. Invitations came often from ladies at all levels of Society. Sometimes they wanted it rough. Other times they wanted to be anonymous. But always, they wanted the sort of experience they fantasized about and could not enjoy with their husbands, for one reason or another.
Drake didn’t know what category Lady Charlotte fell into. She was not a virgin and from what he understood, she was not married. Was she a widow, then? Or simply a modern woman who had chosen to enjoy her freedom?
“Why are you looking at me like that?” she asked with a shy smile that charmed him.
He leaned up on an elbow and studied her face in the dim light. Her golden hair, splayed out on the pillow all around her, gleamed like spun silk, and her full lips were moist and swollen from kissing him. There had been a lot of kissing.
“I can’t help it,” he said. “You fascinate me.” Not just because she was beautiful. He had made love to beautiful women before, but Lady Charlotte was different.
“Why?”
He shook his head, for he was bewildered by it himself. “I am curious about you.”
The flame on the candle flickered in a draft, and she shivered. Drake reached for the covers and drew them up over her, and covered himself as well.
“That’s better,” she said, snuggling closer. “Now tell me what you’re curious about, sir. I assure you I have no secrets. Not since I told you about my alter ego…as a man.”
He chuckled and cradled her close in his arms, while stroking her hair away from her forehead. “Why are you not married, Charlotte?”
She was a lovely, charming, intelligent woman and the daughter of a duke. She could have almost any man she wanted. What was wrong with the men of England? Were they dense?
“I was engaged once,” she said, “many years ago, but he died.”
Ah. There it was—the explanation for everything. “I am sorry to hear that.”
“So was I. He was the great love of my young life, and I was devastated by the loss of him. It took me a long time to recover from it, and in some ways, I suppose I still haven’t. And it’s not that I made a conscious decision never to marry. At the time, I thought I would eventually find someone else, but it never happened. I am not bitter, though. It happened this way because I haven’t invited anything different. I am fulfilled by my writing, which keeps my imagination occupied, and I am blessed to be a Sinclair. My family is tightly knit. I have children in my life—nieces and nephews who keep me entertained. I am never lonely or bored. There is no shortage of activity, or love in my life.”
“But the love of a family is not the same as this kind of love.” He ran his thumb across the soft flesh of her bare shoulder.
“You’re quite right about that,” she said with a smile. “Which brings me to ask the same question of you, Mr. Torrington. Why are you not married? You are a desirable man and quite gifted…with your hands.”
He was amused by her coquettish tone.
“First of all, you must call me Drake. And I was married once,” he told her, surprised that he had not tried to dodge the question. “Like you, it was a long time ago.”
“What happened?”
It was not something he ever talked about with women, or anyone else for that matter. At times it seemed like an event that had occurred in someone else’s life, not his own.
“She died while carrying our first child,” he explained. “She was only a few months into the pregnancy. The doctors said the baby was lodged in the wrong place, not in her womb where it should be. They only discovered that afterward when I insisted upon an autopsy. She was in a great deal of pain in her final hours.”
Charlotte laid her hand on his cheek. “I am so sorry. That must have been horrific.”
He nodded.
In the years since, he had done his best to forget. It was part of the reason why he left England for America—though not the whole reason. There was so much more he simply could not say.
“When did you learn to box?” she asked, changing the subject, and for that, he was grateful.
“In school. I couldn’t have been more than twelve when I threw my first punch in a ring. It was a necessary skill back in those days when we younger boys were bullied by the older ones. I quickly learned to defend myself and the bullying stopped soon after that.”
“I can well imagine, if you hit then like you do now. Did your parents know you were getting into fights?”
“Yes.”
“Even your mother? Didn’t she try to stop it?”
He scoffed bitterly. “No.”
Charlotte’s eyes narrowed with curiosity. “Are you and your mother not close? I only ask because of how you shrugged in the boat this morning when I mentioned her.”
Drake inhaled so deeply, his ribcage expanded, which caused Charlotte to lean back. “We are not close,” he said.
“Why?”
For a long while he toyed with Charlotte’s long, silky hair, wrapping it around his fingers, then he told her everything she wanted to know. “My father was a drunk,” Drake said, “and he beat me on a regular basis until I was big enough to fight back. My mother did nothing to stop that either and I suppose I have always resented her for it.”
“Did you not have any brothers to stand up for you?”
“No, just two younger sisters, but they died of diphtheria, both on the same day, if you can imagine that.”
Charlotte regarded him with shock, then spoke with compassion. “I am so sorry.”
He shook his head. “It was a long time ago. I was barely twenty. Though I remember their faces very clearly.”
He took another deep breath and held Charlotte close. These questions made him feel weary. Thankfully she asked no more after that—though after a while, it appeared she had something else in mind.
Drake let his eyes fall closed when she began to lay soft kisses on his chest. He was glad for the distraction. Soon his body warmed with renewed desire. Her lips were soft and moist, her breasts lush and full as they brushed against his torso.
He was, quite frankly, surprised that he was ready to make love again so quickly after the first time, but those lips of hers…those soft breasts that filled his palms so perfectly… He couldn’t resist the desire. His need for her, this very instant, was irrepressible. It took his breath away. There was no explanation for the intensity of it. They had only just met. Why should she be so different from other women he had taken to bed?
Perhaps because he had revealed so much of himself in a very short time. It was odd, how she seemed to understand everything—his boxing, his grief over losing his wife, his need for privacy from the public. In a way it felt as if she were his mirror image in female form.
But he couldn’t think about those things anymore. All he wanted to do was make love to her, so he rolled over and pressed his lips to hers.
&nb
sp; Drake returned home at dawn, exhausted, for he and Lady Charlotte had stayed up all night. They were like two starving creatures in the darkness, desperate to make every moment last. With Charlotte, his desires had been insatiable, his endurance relentless. Afterward, he had come home to collapse on his bed and had slept for many hours.
It unnerved him that he wanted her again the instant he opened his eyes. She was the first thing he thought about, and he wondered what he should do about that. Arrange to see her again? Or try to resist the urge until the desire tapered off—for he felt in danger of becoming completely infatuated to point of obsession. He had only felt like that once before in his life. Many years ago, with Jennie. The frenzy of his passion had driven him to propose in a matter of weeks, because he simply had to have her and possess her in every way. Ten months later, she was dead, and he fell into a hellish vortex of grief that lasted many years. The only place where he could dowse his agony was in the boxing ring. And so…The Iron Fist was born.
But he had buried that part of himself when he left for America, and the last thing he wanted to do was return to a dangerous passion, which he feared had been awakened last night—in that jewel of a hotel room with Lady Charlotte of Pembroke Palace.
“My word, you slept late today,” Adelaide said when Charlotte finally emerged from her bedchamber and walked into the drawing room, where her mother was having tea. “Are you feeling unwell? I was getting worried.”
Charlotte sat down on the sofa and picked up a biscuit, for she was famished. “I am fine, Mother. I couldn’t sleep last night. That is all. I stayed up reading next to the lamp, which was probably a mistake. My poor eyes.”
“You enjoyed it then?” Adelaide asked.
“Oh, yes,” Charlotte replied. “Once I started, I couldn’t stop.” Inside she smiled when she said it.
It was no lie in terms of her immeasurable passions the night before. She still could hardly believe it really happened. This morning, it felt as if Mr. Torrington had carried her up to a cloud beneath the moon, and gave her pleasure until she couldn’t think, speak, or breathe. Her brain had turned to mush, while her body was thoroughly satisfied. It all felt like a dream, though she knew it was real, for her chin was chafed from the rough stubble on his magnificent chiseled jawline. It would no doubt take her a while to recover.
Seduced at Sunset (Love at Pembroke Palace Book 6) Page 6
