Ann Lethbridge - A Regency Courtesan's Pride - More Than a Mistress / The Rake's Inherited Courtesan

The urge to drive into her, to bury himself deep and simply let go, jolted through him.

He fought for command. Battled for the will to lead her from one little death to the next without taking his own. He was known for it. Anything else was unacceptable.

He slowed his breathing.

Clung to control by a thread with each warm slide into her depths, each slow lingering withdrawal.

He breathed deep and slow, the body and the mind in perfect harmony. Energy building to peaks, then rippling away in muscle and bone.

‘Charlie?’ She ran her fingers over his chest, tweaked his nipples, raised herself to suckle.

His breathing faltered, distracted by the sight of her glorious black tresses against the whiteness of her shoulders and the generous exploration of his body.

Her touch felt wonderful. Not giving or taking, but delightfully shared.

She lifted her legs high and took him deeper.

The pleasure hit him hard and fast. A breath caught in his throat. Breathe, damn it. He twisted his hips, grinding himself hard against the yielding heated flesh.

‘Oh, Charlie.’

The sound of his name on her lips, the feel of her luscious body around him, her legs tight at his waist, sent him over the edge. He succumbed to the urges beating in his blood.

He pounded into her. Mindless. Feral.

The climax built. Hit him hard. ‘I can’t Merry you have to’ He pumped his hips and caressed with his thumb.

Her eyes widened. Her body trembled. Her inner muscles tightened around him. Gripped him, as her fingers gripped his shoulders. He gazed into her face, saw the strain and the reach. Her eyes opened wide. She let out a cry as she fell apart.

Undone by the glory of the utter bliss on her face, unable to contain his own race to the finish, he pulled clear and spilled against the covers.

Oh, what did she do to him? He felt like an inexperienced lad. Vulnerable. Without control instead of bringing her to greater heights, keeping her in a state of ever-increasing arousal, until he decided to let her go.

Dear God, he’d almost spilled inside her body.

Aware of her laboured breathing, he turned on to his side and gazed into a face dreamy with satiation. Eyes closed, she lay utterly relaxed, her face still flushed; the scent of their lovemaking perfumed the air.

Her eyes drifted open. ‘Mmmm,’ she murmured, her chest still rising and falling. ‘That was good.’

Bloody hell. He was leaving in the morning and one night with Merry was not nearly enough.

‘You are glorious,’ he said and pulled her into the cradle of his arm, let her head rest on his shoulder. His pounding heart slowly quieted, her breath tickled his chest and his own breathing slowed to match hers.

Cosy and warm and deliciously replete, Merry woke to light filtering through her eyelids. It must be morning.

Time to get up. She opened her eyes.

The room was ablaze with candles. They burned on the tables each side of the bed. And on the mantel. Beside her the sound of another’s deep breathing. The gentle inhale and exhale from Charlie. She glanced over at the window. Still dark outside.

The last thing she remembered was him saying he wanted to watch her sleep when she suggested they snuff the lights. Carefully, she eased on to her side and gazed at the man sprawled beside her on top of the covers. He lay on his stomach, his flanks and broad back gilded by candlelight. She reached out to run a hand over the beautiful skin, then whipped it back, touching her lips with a fingertip. He looked so relaxed, it seemed a shame to disturb him. Even if the little flutters low in her abdomen suggested he might very well like it.

She glanced at his face, at the full lips, relaxed in sleep, the dark crescent of eyelashes, the slash of brow, the rugged features.

Delicious. A gorgeous man.

She raised up on her elbow. He looked younger in sleep. Less world weary. Less drawn. Less severe. Closer to her own age than she’d thought.

The clock on the mantel struck the quarter hour. She glanced over and saw it was past five o’clock. Very soon Brian would come to make up the fire and find her here. She’d asked him to take over the task from Beth and Jane. She didn’t want Tonbridge propositioned again. Not by them, anyway. She quelled a small smile.

Nor did she want to start any gossip.

The ripple of concern over the bourgeois Miss Draycott and her brief girlish love affair in those long-ago schooldays would be nothing to the scandal of being caught in a marquis’s bed.

Her first indiscretion had been with a boy. Charlie was a man. A beautiful, wonderful man who knew how to please a woman.

She stretched. She really should return to her own room.

Their mutual passion had been nectar from the gods to her, but might have seemed passing ordinary to him. A sow’s ear, rather than the silk purse in her mind. Hopefully, Tonbridge wouldn’t betray her indiscretion. He was much too much the gentleman.

What did it matter? After today, she would never see him again. A pang beneath her ribs halted her breath.

Sadness, when she should be feeling nothing but sated. A longing for what could never be. How futile. How unlike her since she’d grown up.

She retrieved her robe from the floor beside the bed.

Charlie sighed, but didn’t waken. Just as well. He only had to look at her with those dark eyes and sweep away any semblance of reason.

She slipped on her nightgown, thrust her arms into the sleeves of her robe and knotted the tie. She glanced around the room. It was dangerous to leave candles burning unattended. The thought of a fire made her skin crawl. The house in Skepton had taken but minutes to burn. The girls had been lucky to escape with their lives. She took the snuffer from the mantel and tiptoed around the room, quickly extinguishing them all.

Unfortunately, Charlie didn’t seem to notice her departure. With a rueful smile at her continuing feeling of regret, she opened the door and peeped out into the corridor. All quiet. And dark. With no sound from her bare feet on the runner, she ran lightly back to her own room at the end of the hall.

She jumped between the cold sheets and shivered.

It would have been nice to stay next to Charlie. For them to wake up together. Like husband and wife.

The faint memory of sitting on her parents’ bed in the early mornings, drinking chocolate like a real grown-up lady slid into her thoughts. They’d been so happy. Before the fever had struck.

Afterwards, everything had changed. Poor Grandfather had been so sad, so worried about what to do with her.

She snuggled deeper beneath the sheets and closed her eyes. If only things could have been different. If only she could have been a lady like her mother, as Grandfather had hoped, Charlie might have gone along with her proposal. Betrothed to a marquis. Merry Draycott. What a thing. She couldn’t help but chuckle beneath her breath. She hugged her arms around her body. Imagine meeting such a gorgeous man on the road across the moors.

The vision of her phaeton, shafts upright in the ditch, brought her upright. Deliberately damaged.

Her stomach roiled. Her heart raced, rising in her throat to shorten her breathing. Fear.

Saints above, she’d never sleep now. She couldn’t go back to Charlie, admit her terror. He’d use the knowledge to impose his will.

Shivering, she got up and lit a candle to keep the dark thoughts at bay. She stared at the flickering flame. Was that why Charlie kept his candles alight when he slept? To keep away evil?

It would have to be something terrible to trouble such a powerful man.

Numbers were her escape. She picked up the accounts ledger she’d put aside earlier in the evening. It would either put her to sleep, or she would get her morning’s work done before first light. She must find a way to increase production, or she would have to let employees go.