Cursing, Caleb caught her lightly by the arm and drew her back.
“Release me this instant,” she demanded.
Like hell he would. The lady would find herself in even more trouble than she already did.
“How dare I? How dare I?” the driver demanded. “You delayed our travel by four hours, keeping me from delivering my mail on time.”
The lady gave a flounce of her curls. “An injured deer was blocking the path. You’d have just continued on?”
“That’s precisely what I would have done,” he shouted. “I would have moved it and been on our way, but noooo, you insisted on parking yourself in the middle of the damned English road. Tossing down your bags to keep us from traveling.”
As the other man continued his tirade of offenses against Claire, Caleb found himself reluctantly impressed by the efforts she’d gone to. Oh, he’d sooner confine himself to a British prison ship again than admit as much to the hellcat.
“Do you know anything about fixing an injured deer?” Curiosity pulled the question from him.
The quarreling pair immediately swung their attention his way.
Claire opened her mouth, but the driver beat her to it.
“Of course she doesn’t. Put a damned bonnet on his head to dress him up.”
“To blot out your caterwauling,” she gritted. “He was scared enough as it was.”
The man’s eyes bulged. “My caterwauling? Mine? This from a woman screaming like a banshee in the night, when all my passengers were sleeping on their bench.”
This time, there was a marked shift from her bold combativeness. Claire went silent, and she studiously attended the man’s wrinkled shirt.
Caleb moved his gaze over the sad lines of her face, the brittle set of her lips. This was a… new side of her. One, at least, that he’d never seen. She was usually spirited, with a spark in her eyes, challenging him and any man at any turn, but there was no hint of that willfulness now.
The driver wasn’t done with her. The man turned to Caleb. “Scared my horses witless, she did.”
Claire immediately found her voice. “You’d think if you can respect a horse, then you can find it in your heart to respect a deer.”
The lady’s opponent snorted. “I don’t eat my horse, and my horse gets my mail delivered.”
At that moment, the people around them fell quiet.
“So any kindness and loyalty from you is transactional,” she shot back, that insult filtering through the taproom.
Tamping down a groan, Caleb swiped a hand over his brow.
A tension descended over the room.
Sputtering, the young man went florid in the cheeks. “Are you calling me disloyal?”
Taking a step toward him, Claire dropped her hands to her surprisingly ample hips. “If the saddle fits…”
The man’s jaw slackened as murmurs went up around them. “H-how dare you?” he demanded.
“Very easily,” Claire said with an affected boredom only a person of British high society could manage.
Caleb anticipated the driver’s intentions and put himself as a barrier between the harebrained hellcat and her less-worthwhile opponent. “That’s all, folks.”
The young man abruptly stopped. Caleb pinned a look on him filled with both a warning and a threat, which Mr. Winters saw and wisely heeded.
Spinning on his heel, the fellow stomped off, and then the revelry resumed.
Claire angled a look around Caleb’s shoulder. “You let him get away,” she said, dropping her hands to her hips again and narrowly missing bumping into another passing patron.
“Yes, well, it seemed the safest course for the fellow.”
Her brows returned to their normal place and then dropped a fraction lower. “You’re making light of me.”
“I’m having fun at your expense, yes,” he said flatly.
Claire let out a sound of disgust. He waited for her to storm off.
Instead, she drew her bag protectively close to her chest and stared over it… at Caleb. Oh, hell. He shook his head. “No.”
“I didn’t ask anything… yet.” She added that last part to herself, but he heard that confirmation, and his dread grew. “I’m in need of a room.”
And there it was. “So you want mine?”
“Given that you aren’t in the habit of selling your paintings, this is a way to put some coins in your pocket. Therefore, it is a win-win for both of us.” She beamed brighter than the Carolina sun.
But then, he should have known better where this hellcat was concerned.
He’d opened his mouth to say just what he thought of her proposal when another drunken patron stumbled into them.
This time, Caleb took Claire by the arm and steered her away from the fray. “Let’s go,” he muttered, as he grabbed up his things from the table.
“Where are we going?” she chattered. “It’s the innkeeper, isn’t it?” She didn’t wait for an answer, but finished with one herself. “You think you can convince him to give me a room.”
She’d always been a talker. It was what he’d liked least about her. From the time he’d been imprisoned in the belly of a ship, he’d become accustomed to silence and annoyed with people who didn’t honor that same sentiment.
“Or do you think we should rescue my things first?” she asked.
Her…?
They stopped several paces from a trunk that blocked a good portion of the taproom entrance.
“I couldn’t get the trunk and the valise in,” she explained. She wrinkled her nose. “Not that I could have managed the trunk by itself.”
With a sigh, Caleb hefted the trunk into his arms and started up the stairs.
From the corner of his eye, he caught her attempting to balance her valise and stopped.
Shooting a hand out, Caleb plucked the burden from her fingers, tossed it atop the trunk, and resumed his march.
“You really needn’t do all of that. Not that I’m not appreciative. I am. Are you allowing me to have your rooms? Is that what you’re doing?”
He reached the main landing and glowered at her. “Do you ever shut up?” he snapped.
“Are you ever not rude?” she retorted, that response answering the very question he’d put to her.
No, she was incapable of biting her damned tongue.
Lugging her things along, Caleb led her the remainder of the way to his room. Caleb set her belongings down and grabbed the key from inside his jacket. Unlocking the heavy oak panel, he shoved it open. The hinges squealed their age.
He stood there, waiting for the lady to enter. Claire, however, continued to linger, arching her neck in and eyeing the room, but making no attempt to walk her delectably rounded buttocks through the door.
“I am ever so grateful for your generosity,” she began. Removing her gloves, she dusted the fine leather articles together. “All these years, I have taken you as uncouth and uncivilized and rude.” She looked back, her eyes meeting his. “However, I have unfairly judged you,” she finished softly.
Caleb snorted. “Now, if that isn’t the manner of an ass-backward compliment only you are capable of.”
“I thought it was a very pretty apology.”
“You would. It wasn’t. Either way, I’m not giving up my rooms.”
The lady stomped her foot. “Because I didn’t compliment you enough?”
He leaned down, sticking his nose close to hers. “Because I never intended to give up my rooms,” he said flatly.
“Well, then.” She darted her tongue out, the pink flesh trailing a path over the seam of her mouth, drawing his eyes to the unlikeliest source of his interest—Claire Poplar’s lips.
A wave of desire jolted through him, and he recalled the last time he’d had his mouth on hers. The heat. The passion. From both of them. All of it as unexpected as this hungering for her now.
What in the hell insanity was this?
“Do you need a room, or don’t you?” he barked.
Claire jumpe
d, but quickly steadied herself.
“Because if you didn’t, you could have avoided a fight with about three of the patrons you managed to tussle with downstairs,” he infused the droll edge that never failed to infuriate the minx.
Giving a toss of her limp dark curls, she swept forward, her shoulders as proud as the long, graceful column of her neck. “I didn’t tussle with anyone,” she retorted, loosening the clasp at her throat and shrugging out of the green cloak.
“You came damned close.”
“Yes,” she allowed, hanging up the garment. “That is true. But I was not in the wrong.”
With the heel of his boot, he pushed the door shut behind them and set down her things. The floorboards moaned as she rushed over to collect her valise and gather it close.
“I would wager you haven’t been right about anything a day in your life, Claire,” he said sardonically, turning to lock the door. “In fact, Your Majesty, I’d—” His words trailed off the moment he turned.
Claire set her bag near the crude oak armoire in the corner of the room. Right beside…
“What is this?” she murmured. Much the way she’d done when visiting the Royal Museum, she beat the fine leather articles together in a distracted one-two-three beat as she contemplated his work.
His mediocre work.
His neck went hot as he rushed across the room to where the easel and canvas rested. Yanking his work off the frame, he set the unfinished painting against the wall, facing in so she could no longer appraise it.
“I’m there.” He indicated the floor as he directed her toward where they’d be sleeping. “And you’re here.” He pointed to the bed.
“There?” she puzzled aloud, thankfully distracted from the canvas she’d been intently studying.
“Yeah, there.”
“As in, the floor…?”
Caleb closed his eyes and counted and prayed, and when neither proved helpful, he opened them. Claire stared up at him with a frown.
“What now?” he growled.
“Well, it is just that I’m not going to displace you from your bed.”
Her words took him briefly aback. He’d taken her as privileged. Pampered. And certainly not one to ever give up that luxury. This was a new, unexpected side of her that didn’t fit with the image he’d painted in his mind, and he didn’t like that realization, because it was easier when she was a prim English lady.
“You’re already sharing your room,” she was saying.
Caleb grunted. “It’s no bother.” And it really wasn’t. He’d not slept in a bed in years. First, by forced imprisonment. Then, by choice.
She patted his arm, and the muscles of his forearm jumped reflexively under her touch. “I assure you I’m made of quite stern stuff.”
She was…? Caleb couldn’t help it. For the first time in more years than he could recall, he laughed.
Chapter 7
The tortured sound spilling from Caleb’s throat could have been confused for tears by anyone else. But she knew a man such as him wasn’t capable of them.
Claire narrowed her eyes.
With his broad shoulders shaking and slightly bent over as he was, there could be no doubting.
Even so, it bore asking.
“Are you laughing at me?” she demanded.
“S-s-s…” He tried several times and failed to get out the rest of whatever he attempted to say. “Stern—” And then he dissolved all the more.
Oh, the great lummox. Refusing to give him the satisfaction, she kept her features even, and sticking out a foot, she drummed it on the floor. “Are you quite done?”
His laughter redoubled.
Except, the more he laughed, the more her annoyance spiraled. “You presume much, Mr. Gray,” she said quietly, and something must have penetrated, for he stopped. “You think I’m not made of stern stuff?” she asked, but didn’t wait for an answer. “Why? Because I’m a woman?”
“Because you’re a lady who’s never worked in your life. You’re a woman whose family has had everything handed to them on the backs of others,” he said with his usual cool, his calm restored.
She wanted to call him out as wrong, and yet… he wasn’t. Not completely. Her life had been a privileged one. She’d not known struggle… until she had. And that hardship had been minor when compared to the struggles her father and mother had inflicted upon another. But how dare he think she knew nothing about hardship?
Claire swept over, her skirts snapping about her ankles. She stopped with a pace between them so that she could better meet his gaze. “You know nothing about me,” she spat. Fury and outrage caused her chest to rise and fall fast and hard. “You cast judgment upon me without truly knowing anything about me. You are b-boorish.” Her voice faltered as he drifted closer.
“What else am I, sweetheart?” he whispered, lowering his mouth close to her ear.
Her breath hitched. Do not. He’s trying to unsettle you. Even knowing that, she was still powerless to quell the breathless tremble in her words. “Disagreeable?”
His hard lips quirked at the corners. “Is that a question?”
“A statement of fact.” She managed to keep her voice steady… until he brought his lips a hairbreadth from hers.
Oh, God.
“Anything else?” he murmured, his mouth so close his lips nearly brushed hers in an accidental meeting.
If he leaned down any closer, his lips would be on hers in some manner of lesson he sought to deliver. Determined to take it for herself, without any strings attached, Claire closed her eyes and kissed him.
His mouth proved hard, immobile against hers.
Caleb stiffened, and for the span of a heartbeat, she braced for his rejection. She’d not survive it, not because of any shame, but because of the hungering she carried. For whatever had motivated him in the art museum that not-so-long-ago day in London, her body hadn’t cared. The memory of his embrace had lingered, robbing her of sleep and causing a dull ache between her legs. Looping her arms about his neck, Claire brought herself up on tiptoe so she could better avail herself to him.
And then, he came alive. Caleb growled, a raw, primal sound that brought his lips apart, and she slipped her tongue inside to taste of him.
His hands were immediately all over her, working a path over her body. Catching her about the waist, Caleb drew her close, and she felt the hard ridge of his shaft against her belly. Moaning, Claire pressed herself against him, luxuriating in the feel of him; the powerful wall of his chest, all contoured muscles, hard where she was soft, unyielding where she was pliant.
They dueled with their tongues, their kiss as combative as Claire and Caleb always were, his flesh a lash against hers that, with every stroke, sent heat spiraling through her.
Claire dimly registered him guiding them until her back met the wall. Taking her wrists in one of his enormous hands, he drew them up and anchored them above her head.
Then he yanked his mouth from hers. She keened, twisting her head back and forth, pleading with him to continue.
But he was shifting his attentions elsewhere, dropping kisses along the curve of her jaw and lower, until he reached her neck.
Caleb suckled lightly, nipping and teasing at the flesh.
A low moan climbed from her chest, and Claire moved her hips, seeking more of him. And then, for the first time in as long as they’d battled, he didn’t fight her.
He parted her knees with one of his. Claire’s satin dress rustled hedonistically as he moved a leg between hers, pressing that oak-hard slab against the part of her that ached most.
She sank onto him.
Biting her lower lip, Claire buried her head against his shoulder and rocked herself upon that perch he’d offered, undulating in a way that should have shamed her, and surely would later, but for now, she was reduced to that sharp burning between her legs. With each thrust of her hips, he nipped at her neck, a primitive, animalistic bite that sent an even greater wave of heat rolling through her.
&n
bsp; She was on her way to marry another man.
A man she’d yet to meet.
This was wrong.
Caleb palmed her breasts, and she gasped.
Or was it?
Through the fabric of her dress, Caleb stroked his thumbs over the pebbled peaks of her breasts, and Claire bit down hard on her lip.
She was still not m—
Caleb rotated his knee in smooth, slow circles that stole all vestiges of guilt and honor.
She pushed herself harder against him. Little grunts escaped her lips as she thrust harder and harder. Faster. So close. Near something she’d never before tasted, but she knew it hung there, hers for the taking. And this man, his touch, was the key to bringing her there.
He kissed her neck, suckling the flesh. The scruff of his chiseled cheeks scraped against her neck, sure to mark her, and she couldn’t bring herself to care. “Does this make me any less boorish?” His whisper came ragged.
“N-no. Q-quite the opposite.”
A laugh rumbled in his chest that, layered to each other as they were, she felt shake her to the core.
“It does, however, make you w-wicked, t-too.”
“Ain’t that the truth, sweetheart.” He grinned, a lazy, lopsided, passion-filled smile devoid of his usual mockery and coldness, and the sight of it briefly froze her.
Before she again closed her eyes and focused on his knee as he drove it against her sodden center. Her thrusts grew more frantic, jerky, as she pushed herself closer to assuaging that ache.
Caleb sank his fingers into her hips. “Come for me,” he ordered harshly, possessive in that command, which only fueled her.
“I don’t know what that m…” And then, she reached that unfamiliar-until-now pinnacle and understood that graveled command. Every muscle in Claire’s body seized as she hurtled over some magnificent precipice.
She screamed, bucking against his knee, shoving herself into him over and over, awash in wave after wave of pleasure. All the while, he urged her on with naughty, forbidden words whispered against her ear.
Claire sagged, her body replete as she struggled to suck in a proper breath. She remained there, her chest rising and falling sharply.
And as she climbed down from that glorious place where mindless sensation had ruled, reality intruded. She winced. Oh, God. What had she done? Nay, why had she done it?
A Groom of Her Own (Scandalous Affairs Book 1) Page 7