Do You Want to Start a Scandal

Charlotte lifted her head, cupping his face in her hands so she could search out his gaze. “What is it?”

“I can’t—”

She shifted her hips a fraction, and he groaned as he slid deeper still.

“I don’t . . . I don’t think I can . . .”

She wasn’t sure how he meant to complete that sentence, but her answer would have been the same, regardless.

“Then don’t,” she told him.

His jaw tensed beneath her palm.

Then, with a firm flex of his arms, he shifted her weight. He bent his head, bracing his sweating brow against her shoulder and tugging her hips away from the wall. His thrusts doubled in speed and intensity, and his breath came in short, ragged gasps.

There was no finesse now, nothing remotely like tenderness. He wasn’t patient or gentle any longer, just wanting. Taking. Using her body as roughly and crudely as he needed, relentless in pursuit of his own pleasure.

And she loved it.

She’d been desperate to see this side of him, raw and unrefined. The tendons of his neck and shoulders were rigid and taut. His thighs slapped against her bottom. He pulled at the sleeve of her chemise, ripping the neckline wide, and his teeth scraped against her bared shoulder.

His rhythm stuttered, then accelerated once again. He thrust faster, harder.

She would be sore tomorrow, perhaps even bruised. She couldn’t have been more thrilled by the idea.

With a wrenching growl, he pulled free of her body. His seed spilled on her belly, gluing her body to his as they kissed and breathed and kissed again.

“That,” he said, some moments later, “was tupping.”

She hugged his neck and laughed a little, rocking him from side to side. He had promised her a demonstration, and he was a man of his word.

She slid down until her toes met the floor, then reached for his hand. “Come along, then. If we hurry, the bath will still be warm.”

Chapter Seventeen

The tub was a tight fit, for two. They were forced to sit very close.

Piers had no complaint.

Charlotte nestled behind him, her slick breasts pressed against his back as she worked scented lather through his hair.

It felt glorious.

“It’s just occurred to me that I completely forgot your note. You wanted to speak with me.”

“Yes. I need to ask you a favor.” Her fingertips massaged his scalp and temples, lulling him into a languid state of bliss. “It’s rather a big favor, I’m afraid.”

Anything. Everything. Just never stop touching me.

“Would you mind a long engagement?”

Anything but that.

“Yes, I’m afraid I would mind.”

In part, because he’d had one long engagement, and it wasn’t an experience he cared to repeat. Then there was the matter of starting on an heir. But mostly, he wanted to be with Charlotte. Have her all to himself, in his own home, as soon as possible and for a good many weeks thereafter. It wasn’t a matter of tender emotion, just a straightforward calculation of benefits. Would he prefer a winter’s worth of long, lonely nights spent at his desk? Or months of good, hard tups against the wall followed by sensual baths?

He would take the tupping and baths, please.

“I wouldn’t ask if it was only for myself,” she said. “I made a promise to Delia. We want to take a Grand Tour together next year. That’s why I came for a visit. We were supposed to convince her parents to agree to the scheme.”

He dashed the water from his face. “The two of you, traveling alone on the Continent? Her parents would never allow it. I wouldn’t permit it, either.”

“We’d hire a chaperone, of course.”

“A doddering, useless one with cataracts, knowing you.”

“Piers, you know I’m not stupid. I wouldn’t take risks. Delia needs this. She’s depending on me, and it would devastate us both if I let her down.” She swabbed a sponge across his back. “She has a remarkable gift, and she deserves the chance to explore it. And as for me . . . I don’t have a natural talent for art. Or music, or poetry, or mathematics, or anything, really. Certainly not housekeeping.”

He smiled to himself.

“I thought mystery solving might be my chance to finally claim a true accomplishment. But that didn’t work out, either. I need a chance to experience a bit more of the world before settling down. Expand my mind and see new horizons. I don’t want to become a vapid, featherbrained woman like my mother.”

He sighed. What she asked of him was impossible. Even if he’d wished to, he could not have agreed. Sir Vernon could be appointed to Australia by the end of the year. He wouldn’t leave his daughter half a world behind.

“I can’t deny there’s another reason,” she said. “It would dampen at least some of the gossip.”

“You will be a marchioness. Why should you care what petty people say or think?”

“Perhaps I’m weak, I don’t know. The past year of whispers has battered my pride. I’d like the gossips to know you didn’t have to marry me.” She was quiet for a moment. “I’d like to know that for myself, as well.”

Good God. This was the woman who’d divined secrets Piers had never willingly divulged to anyone. She could read his left eyebrow as clear as a broadsheet. How could she still be questioning this?

She slid her arms around his waist, resting her chin on his shoulder. “You could plan the journey so we’d be safe. I know you could. You can arrange to be in a Nottinghamshire coaching inn on the exact day and hour in which your brother will pass through, just to check on him.”

There it was. Another case in point. She was too perceptive by half.

“I don’t know what you mean,” he said.

“Yes, you do. I wouldn’t be surprised if you arranged your entire holiday here for that luncheon. Rafe suspected it, as well.” She dropped a kiss on his shoulder. “I only have sisters. Why men can’t come out and say such things, I will never understand. But I hope you know that your brother understands how very much you love him.”

His throat tightened.

He caressed her wrist, letting the touch speak where he could not.

He wouldn’t know how to admit it, but her words came as a profound relief. He had always loved his brother, even when they hadn’t been friends. And even though Rafe was a champion prizefighter—and the man who’d stolen his intended bride—Piers was fiercely protective of him.