Rake Most Likely to Sin

by Bronwyn Scott

  Brennan nodded slowly. ‘I want you, I want anyone I meet, to judge me on my merits. I want my successes, my shortcomings, to be mine alone.’ This was the demon that had chased him across a continent. He’d never given it words before, it had always been a niggling suspicion, an unnamed, amorphous thing that lurked in the dark places of his mind, something he held at bay with women and wine and one party after another. He’d come to Europe to find himself and up until now, all he’d really managed to do was run from that self. It was a rather sobering realisation.

  ‘You’ve been gone two years, do you miss them?’ Patra asked.

  Did he? ‘Perhaps a little.’ Brennan leaned forward. ‘It’s not that I don’t like my family. My mother laughs and sings all day. She likes to arrange flowers so the house is full of fresh-cut bouquets. At any given moment, one faces the risk of running into my father stealing a kiss and sometimes more from her in any given room of the house. They married young and they’re still fabulously infatuated with one another, some might say to the point of silliness.’ He gave a wry grin and caught Patra smiling.

  ‘What’s so wrong with that?’

  Brennan wrinkled his brow and blew out a breath. ‘They didn’t save much of that fabulous infatuation for their children, that’s what’s wrong with that. My brother and I sort of grew up on our own. There wasn’t much discipline in our house. We went through tutors like that.’ Brennan snapped his fingers. ‘We’d skip out on lessons to go swimming and when the tutor complained to our father, our father would merely laugh and say, “Boys will be boys.”’

  Patra gave him a sly look. ‘I would think a great many boys would love a father like that.’

  ‘I suppose, in the short run. But boys need discipline and structure, too, they need a father to be stern when warranted. My father just wanted to be a friend. When I left on my trip, there was no farewell party. It was almost as though the family had forgotten I was leaving that day. At the last minute, my father called me into his office, only I wasn’t alone because my friend, Nolan, was with me.’ Brennan gave a self-deprecating laugh. ‘This is rather embarrassing, I shouldn’t be telling you. You know what, I’m not going to tell you, forget I brought it up.’

  Patra raised her dark brows in encouragement. ‘Oh, no, you don’t, you cannot start a story like that and then back out. You have to tell me.’ She held up the wine bottle to assess how much was left. ‘You can have the rest if you tell me,’ she bribed.

  Brennan smiled and hung his head. It was hard to refuse her when she looked at him like that. ‘All right, you drive a hard bargain, but remember you’ve been warned. My father called me in and I was thinking, At last he’ll say he loves me, he’ll tell me how much he’ll miss me, how he can hardly wait until I come back. But, no. Instead, he passed me a package of French letters and said, “Don’t get syphilis.”’

  ‘French letters?’ Patra enquired.

  ‘Condoms,’ Brennan explained, watching heated recognition dawn on Patra’s cheeks. He started talking a little faster to ease the moment, to ease his guilt. He should have gone with his gut instinct and not told the story. ‘It’s sort of humorous, but in England we call them French letters, as if the French were the ones wicked enough to make such things. But in France, they call them les capotes anglaises, English caps, because only the English would be so debauched.’ Brennan laughed an apology. ‘I’m sorry, I should not have told you. It’s not an appropriate story.’

  Patra reached out a hand and covered his where it lay on the table. ‘But it is, in its own way,’ she said softly, eyes shining. ‘I want to know about you.’

  It was about the most potent thing she could have said to him. She wanted to know him and it was nearly his undoing. When had anyone wanted to know about Brennan Carr, youngest son of a youngest son of an earl? Brennan looked at their hands joined together. Usually, it was he who initiated any contact. Having that role reversed was...validating. It made him suddenly shy. He searched his mind for something funny, clever to say to take the edge off the moment. ‘Well, now you know what happens to boys who are left to grow up wild. They end up in fishing villages on the Peloponnesian Peninsula.’

  ‘Is that good or bad? Are we too simple for your tastes?’ Patra asked laughingly with a smile, but he sensed his answer mattered to her, that something important hinged on his response. Still, he would make his answer honest.

  ‘Yes, it’s a very good thing.’ Brennan held her gaze, bringing his hand up to lace his fingers with hers. ‘I’m closer to life here, the way I want to be.’ He tried to explain, tried to give words to thoughts he’d formed over the last six months. ‘Here, our tables are filled with food that is grown, raised or caught by our own hands and then prepared by those hands. The clothes we wear are sewn by those hands. Every day is filled with purpose.’ Brennan shook his head. ‘I’ve been here six months. I thought I would have been ready to move on by now, but I’m not. This is where I want to be.’ A shadow passed over Patra’s face and he shrugged his shoulders with a laugh. ‘You think I’m crazy, don’t you? Am I making any sense?’

  ‘I don’t think you’re crazy at all. Chores are not just chores, they’re gifts we give to one another. There is purpose and honour in that. It removes the drudgery of it,’ Patra answered, saying much more eloquently what he’d tried to express.

  Brennan smiled, watching the candlelight play across her features, letting the night and the wine work its magic. Perhaps he had imagined the shadow. ‘You do understand. I knew you would.’ The words came out husky, as he was overcome with sudden emotion. In that moment he knew one truth: he wanted her. Not just as an extension of this Greek fantasy he’d called to life with his words, but for herself. Patra Tspiras understood more than the ideas he’d shared. She understood him in a fundamental way no one else ever had.

  Chapter Thirteen

  She understood all too well and that was the peril of it. He was making too much sense, raising too much guilt. In a week this affaire would be over and his dream would be gone, another man’s life ruined because of her. He would trade his world of relative privilege for this if he could.

  The very thought conjured dangerous ideas, stirred flickers of hope where there shouldn’t be any. What if she’d met this man under different circumstances? What if there wasn’t a threat to his life? What if there was no ruse? What if they were truly free to pursue this relationship to its natural outcome? Patra rose and began gathering the plates on to a tray, trying to dislodge the growing fantasy. The what if game was far too hazardous to play. She picked up the now-empty wine bottle. ‘Shall I get another when I go in?’

  Brennan rose and joined her, his hands taking the tray from her, his voice full of quiet, husky authority, pushing them gently towards the evening’s outcome. ‘Let’s go in together.’

  It was a good thing she wasn’t holding the tray without help. She might have dropped it—and yet this was what the entire evening, the entire day had been moving towards. It was what she’d decided she’d wanted. But her body still reacted with an unprecedented amount of excitement. She took a deep breath, trying to get herself under control. She wasn’t a school girl with her first beau. She could do better than this.

  She made him wait in a bid to get herself under control. It was legitimate at first. The food needed to be stored and the dishes needed to be soaked at the very least. But Brennan managed to make even the most mundane chores into foreplay with nothing more than his eyes. His gaze followed her, watching her hands rinse the dishes, watching her stretch up to put the dishes in a high cupboard, watching her bend to toss out the dishwater, his gaze letting her know he appreciated each curve, each turn of her body. Dishes had never been so sensual. She reached for a kettle and his hands closed around hers, setting the kettle aside. She was conscious of his body warm behind her, his voice at her ear.

  ‘Enough. We won’t need anything else tonight. Yo
u are stalling, Patra. Shall I go?’ He was making her ask for it, as she’d known he would. He had made the parameters of their association clear from the start: nothing would happen she didn’t choose. He’d enforced those parameters at the beach and now he was enforcing them again. His hands tightened over hers, the only sign of his apprehension that perhaps she might deny them both at the last.

  He was right, of course, she was stalling, but not for the reason he thought. The exact opposite, in fact. She summoned the courage to say the words out loud. She turned in his embrace, her arms going about his neck. ‘It’s just that I want you more than I realised and I fear it has quite overwhelmed me.’ I don’t want to disappoint you. I haven’t done this in a long time and never with a man not my husband. Would he hear the rest of it in the unspoken words?

  His hands framed her face, his mouth taking hers in a slow kiss that reminded her of all that had moved them towards this consummation. This was not a randomly made decision. The kiss was meant to prove the rightness of her choice. They would not disappoint each other, they couldn’t. They already knew pleasure was possible between them, but his words were meant to absolve any lingering insecurities. ‘It’s a first time for me, too, Patra.’ He kissed her again, his tongue lingering on her lips, tasting of dinner’s wine. He knew how hard this was for her—this decision to move beyond what her life had become. His next words, murmured against the column of her throat, seemed to understand that.

  ‘Come to bed, Patra, I want to make love to you.’

  It was a potent invitation, full of reverence, full of promise, and it swept away her remaining thoughts of inadequacy or latent remorse. ‘And I want to make love to you.’ Patra slipped her hand beneath his foustanella, sliding it up his thigh until it cupped the warm, rising length of him. She heard his sharp intake of breath as her hand came around him, felt him swell as she whispered. Brennan kissed her hard then, drawing her against him, letting her body feel the efforts of her words, the fire in his blood, of his desire being permitted free rein at last.

  She gave a laughing gasp as her feet left the floor. Brennan swept her into his arms, laughing with her as he navigated the short distance to the bedroom. He set her down on the bed, but when she reached for him, wanting to pull him down beside her, he stepped beyond her reach with a whispered admonition. ‘Not yet.’

  He lit the lamp beside the bed and stepped into its glow, his hands already pulling his shirt over his head. ‘First, watch me, look at me.’

  How could she not? His presence permeated all her senses—the sight of him, bare-chested in the lamp light; the smell of him, all soap and man lingering on her clothes; the taste of his tongue in her mouth; the husky drawl of his voice as he gave his command: look at me.

  He was gorgeous, something she already technically knew. It wasn’t the first time she’d seen him bare-chested, it wasn’t even the first time she’d seen him naked. She understood his choice of words better now. She was to look at him, really look. There was no running towards the waves, no bright afternoon sun or list of chores, there was nothing to interfere with her gaze, nothing to limit her to furtively stolen glances. She was to look her fill, to engage the intimacy of gazing to its fullest.

  He stripped off the belt of his foustanella and set it aside, his voice drawling a private history lesson. ‘Hindu worship involves the darshan, the two-way vision in which you and the god behold one another... Hindus believe the eyes are the gateways to one’s soul. To honour that, men and women avoid direct eye contact in public, even husbands and wives reserve such intimacy for private times.’

  Patra’s hands clenched in the bedsheets as she fought a wave of desire. Just the sound of his voice, that low private drawl, the feel of his eyes on her, watching her watching him, was nearly enough on its own to bring her to climax. Brennan’s hands rested on the waist of his foustanella for a long moment. He let it drop in one swift motion and then he was naked before her, unabashedly, thoroughly, gloriously naked, and it was spectacular not only in its completeness, but in its stillness.

  Patra let her eyes start at the full curve of shoulder, bulked with muscle, let her eyes drift to the planes and ridges of his chest and follow them down to where they tapered to the flat of his stomach—the square bone structure of the male pelvis subtly drawing the eye lower to the auburn thatch of hair that housed his phallus, proud and rigid under her stare. It was matched by the power of the thighs that framed it, legs muscled from walking, hiking, riding, running. This was the body of an outdoorsman, a man who spent his days in pursuit not only of sport but of labour, a man who knew how to harness the power of his body, and had.

  Patra swallowed hard, desire rising. He’d used his body for her in labour, tonight he would use that body for her pleasure. She rose from the bed, moving towards him, her fingertips trailing down his chest, wanting to touch the marble smoothness of it, the rough contours of his muscles. He was the work of the ancient masters brought to life. She held his eyes, letting him see her pleasure, letting him know how much he pleased her, letting him know, too, that she understood the other message: now, it was her turn.

  She gave him a gentle shove, pushing him into the room’s single chair, and stepped back. She let the light fall over her, through her, let it create shadows and hollows with her linen. Sometimes the most provocative things were the things that were frustratingly obscured. Brennan crossed one leg over a knee, his gaze dark and glittering as it met hers. His desire made her brave, obliterated any modesty that might have remained. She wanted to please him as he had pleased her.

  Patra slipped the drawstring of her blouse loose and lifted it over her head, her breasts pressing against the thin linen of her chemise. She felt Brennan’s eyes on her, felt her nipples tighten in response to that gaze until the linen they brushed against became a source of rough arousal. Her skirt followed, joining Brennan’s foustanella on the floor, and she was bare to him, the dark triangle between her thighs visible beneath the hem of her chemise. Brennan was silent.

  Patra planted a foot on his knee and arched her leg prettily. She reached for the pins in her hair, pulling down the braid and letting it fall over one shoulder. Brennan took a sharp breath. She licked her lips and flashed him a coy smile. ‘Perhaps you prefer your London ladies with more? Stripping is not an elaborate affair. Here, we don’t have silk stockings to roll down, or petticoats to take off.’

  ‘No, ah, this is fine. Quite fine.’ Brennan managed a hoarse, stammered response.

  ‘Perhaps, if I took this off, too...’ Patra raised her arms and slid off the chemise, tossing it to the floor. ‘Does that help?’

  ‘You are a vixen,’ Brennan growled, but he claimed retaliation, placing a strategic kiss up high on her inner thigh, reminding her that they were both naked now, exposed not only in the physical sense, but the emotional, too. His hand ran up the leg she’d perched on his knee, his eyes gleaming dark cobalt. He made her feel beautiful, perfect, when he looked at her that way. His thumb grazed the seam of her furrow. She sucked in her breath.

  ‘I am the only woman in the world when you touch me like that.’

  ‘You are. You are the only one that matters because you’re mine.’ Brennan drew her down to his lap, taking her astride him. She could feel his phallus pressing between them. It would be nothing to take him inside right here on the chair, but he had other ideas. He wanted to look, wanted to touch and she hadn’t the will to argue; not when his hand slid up past her ribs to cup the soft underside of her breast; not when his head bent and his mouth closed over her nipple; not when her body felt so very alive with each new touch. This was a sweet heaven, a tantalising but bearable pleasure, feeding the slow fire within her. His hands were at her back and she arched against them, her breasts thrusting forward, begging for his mouth, her desire rising—it would not be bearable much longer.

  ‘Put your legs around me.’ Brennan lifted her, his hands cupping h
er buttocks as he carried her, at last, to the bed and followed her down, his arms bracketing her head, taking his weight as his body fitted itself to hers, to the welcoming space between her thighs.

  Patra wrapped her arms around his neck, pulling him to her. She was not fragile, he needn’t be afraid of breaking her. Their kisses were hungry, heated, rougher than the earlier ones. Want was driving them both hard now that their bodies sensed the wait was nearly over. She could feel him ready himself, his body making a slight adjustment, his phallus at the edge of her entrance. He would find her ready.

  Brennan thrust, her body stretched and accommodated. He thrust again and she took him in full, revelling in the slide of him in the tight, moist walls of her channel. This was what she was made for, what life was made for. A gasping moan escaped her as he sheathed himself in her again. She’d forgotten, but that was where any comparison ended. Her body arched as she picked up the rhythm of Brennan’s lovemaking, her body and mind recognising this desire, this fever, was not merely a replacement for what she’d shared so many times with Dimitri. This new rush was entirely unique to the heat between her and Brennan, and it went straight to the core of her, a hot, white bolt every time he moved inside her until that bolt became a hot sheet of heat from which there was no momentary relief, nor did she want one.

  She wanted the heat, wanted the pleasure of its torture to overcome her until she could do nothing but...scream... Was that sound her? It came again in raspy, sobbing gasps of overwhelming release and another cry mingled with it, this one male; husky, panting groans in shaky intervals as Brennan’s arms trembled about her, taking her in his embrace. She clung to him, her legs wrapped tight around him, holding him tight with every muscle her body possessed as he emptied himself.

  It took an age for the shattering heat to ebb and Patra was in no hurry for it to subside. She would have lingered longer in its warm, residual tide if she could, the feeling of peace, of completion, indescribable. Here, nothing mattered. In this space, they were free. Brennan’s head rested on her breast, his breathing falling into a steady, sleepy pattern. Patra ran her hand through his unruly hair, marvelling at his ability to fall asleep so automatically. He wouldn’t sleep for long. She knew from their afternoon spent in the hammock that he’d wake up shortly and be fully charged. If only it were that easy. If only there was nothing that mattered but this room and what they could do in this bed. If only she could hold the dawn at bay. Then she wouldn’t have to face any of the realities that waited for her.