“That’s exactly what I said,” Damien interrupted as he pushed away from the fireplace and began to pace around the room. “I told him he ought to break this ridiculous celibacy and come round with me to Arabella Nichols’s place at Wills Cross. It’s all the rage and a friend of mine has membership and will take us in. But he refused me. Again.”
Charlotte swallowed. She could only imagine what kind of place a woman named Arabella would run. She was about to remind her brother that this was an utterly inappropriate conversation to be having with her when his words really sank in.
She stared as Damien went on and on, but she didn’t hear anything else he was saying. Finally, she raised a hand to silence him.
“Did you say something about Colin’s celibacy?”
He stopped, midsentence, and his cheeks brightened with color. “Blast, I did. I’m sorry, Char, this isn’t right for me to talk about with you. You’re a lady and my sister and I—”
Charlotte jumped to her feet and hurried toward him. “No, please! That isn’t why I asked. I’m not offended. I just want to know what you mean. Even the ladies speak about Colin’s reputation.”
Her brother sneered. “Well, it was once true, but not for over a year. Right around the time your bastard of a husband tucked up his toes, Colin stopped bothering with women entirely. He said something about being ‘ready.’ Being ‘worthy,’ whatever the hell that means. He’s been positively no fun ever since. No woman can tempt him! And trust me, many have tried.”
Charlotte tried to catch her breath, but her lungs felt tight and restricted. She had rejected Colin because she presumed he would not be able to remain faithful. And yet, without any reason to do so, he had apparently been faithful to her—to the idea of her—for well over a year.
“What is wrong, Charlotte?” her brother asked, catching her elbows for support. “You are very pale. Here, sit back down.”
He took her to the nearest chair and helped her take her place. She continued to pant for breath, overwhelmed by the facts that Damien had laid at her feet.
“The travel in this weather was too much for you,” her brother said, motioning for the servant who had just arrived at the door with tea. “You never should have gone to the country estate.”
After the girl had gone, he poured Charlotte a cup, added cream and a bit of sugar, and handed it over.
“Here, drink this slowly.”
Instead, Charlotte held the cup in trembling hands, staring at the steaming liquid with unseeing eyes. She cast a sidelong glance at her brother, who had settled into a chair near hers, his expression deeply worried.
“D-Damien,” she choked, setting her tea aside. “Did you know that Colin loved me?”
Her brother straightened up with a sharp intake of breath that gave her the answer she sought even before he nodded slowly.
“I did. He confessed it to me one night when he was very drunk not long after you married. It seems he had many regrets.”
She let out a low sob. “Why didn’t you tell me?”
Her brother took her hand. “You were married. What was I to do? Offer you what you always wanted and now could not have? You were already miserable enough with that ass Griffin Kendrick. I didn’t want to make it worse.”
One solitary tear made its way down Charlotte’s cheek as she smiled weakly at her brother. He could be utterly selfish, but in the end, she knew full well that he loved her.
“But Colin is just like Griffin,” she choked, clinging to the biggest argument she had against surrendering to Colin’s claim of love.
Her brother was on his feet so fast that Charlotte jumped at the sudden movement.
Damien scowled at her. “I may not be much, but I am loyal. And you ought not to malign my friend that way. Colin has loved you, despite knowing it was desperate and foolish to do so, for a long time. Never put him in the same category as Kendrick, who was selfish and stupid and even cruel if it meant getting what he desired. You have known Colin for nearly twenty years. Have you ever known him to be any of those things?”
Charlotte dipped her chin in embarrassment and shame. Damien was right. In more ways than he knew. Colin’s love had been true, even when it was hidden, yet she had thrown it back in his face.
She staggered to her feet. “I have to find him, Damien. I must go to him.”
“Now?” he asked in shock.
Her heart pounded. “This moment! Please, do you know where he is?”
Her bother hesitated for a fraction of a moment, but then he nodded.
“You will find him at his home here in London.” Damien stepped back and motioned to the door. “Go change and ready yourself, I will make the arrangements for you to be taken there.”
Charlotte wrapped her arms around her brother and hugged him close. As they broke apart, she was surprised when he whispered, “You deserve to be happy, Char. Be happy.”
And then he was gone, departing the parlor in a few long strides. Her heart throbbed as she raced up the stairs, calling for her maid with every step. Tonight, on Valentine’s Eve, she would take the biggest risk of her life.
And she hoped by Valentine’s Day that she would have everything she had ever hoped for and more.
Colin sat alone in his shadowy parlor, watching as the firelight played along the walls. He swirled the sherry in his glass as he recalled the last time he had watched firelight. It had been in Charlotte’s bedroom as it played over her satiny skin.
Only it was highly likely he would never have that chance again. She was too afraid. She blamed him for another man’s sins. Colin could fight almost anything, but there was no weapon against that.
So for the second time in less than a decade, he had lost her. Probably she would marry Lawrence Darnell because he was safe and that would be the end of it.
Only Colin couldn’t make the love he felt for her end. It had been made all the more sharp and painful by the two days they had spent together in the country. He wished he could regret that time, but he couldn’t.
The door to the parlor opened and Colin’s grip on his glass tightened. “I think I told you I didn’t want to be disturbed,” he said without looking over his shoulder to the door.
The door shut again and he let out a sigh. Damn the servants for trying to coax him from this rare mood. He wanted to revel in it. Bask in it. He had bloody well earned darkness after being refused.
A shuffle of feet behind him made him lunge from the chair and turn to face whoever had disturbed him.
“I said—” he began, but then he stopped, for it was not a servant who stood in his parlor, but Charlotte.
She was wearing a red cloak that covered her body from head to toe. As he stared at her, she pushed the hood back to reveal her pale face in the firelight.
“I heard you, my lord,” she murmured. “But I’m afraid I have no time to indulge your desire to be alone.”
He opened his mouth, but no words would come. He was too overwhelmed by surprise and wonderment. And deep down inside something far more insidious and dangerous.
Hope.
For why would she come here after practically kicking him out of her life forever?
“You see, you owe me, Lord Atleigh. And I want to collect my debt.” She moved forward, the red velvet swinging around her without opening.
“What debt?” he managed to growl out, fighting to remain still. He had made a cake of himself once already this week, he had no intention of repeating that until he was certain of her intentions.
She reached up and untied the slender velvet tie that held her cloak to her throat. With a shrug, it fell away and the glass in Colin’s hand hit the floor less than a second later.
Charlotte was naked. Utterly, delectably, beautifully naked.
“We never fulfilled any of my fantasies,” she whispered as she moved forward with a sinful twitch of her bare hips.
Colin arched a brow. “I suppose we didn’t. I’m afraid I no longer have those slips of paper we wrote our Valenti
ne wishes upon, Charlotte. You will have to say your fantasy out loud.”
She nodded. “I’m perfectly willing to do so. You see, Colin, you are my fantasy. You always have been, and even though I tried to deny it, you always will be.”
Colin shut his eyes as relief and joy washed over him. She was here because she loved him. That truth shone in her eyes, though she had not yet voiced it to him. She loved him and she had chosen him, after all.
“But you said I had not given you the fantasy,” he said as he let his eyes open and drank her in. “I recall giving myself to you quite freely while we were at your estate.”
She nodded as she finally stopped a hairsbreadth away from him. Her hands came up to flatten on his chest, and he felt as if she had lit him on fire. She gently shoved, and he let himself fall back on the settee as she straddled his lap.
“You did,” she said softly and stopped moving, stopped teasing. She looked down at him with tears in her eyes. “But I didn’t. You were right when you called me a coward. I was too afraid to give myself completely. I came here tonight to finally do that.”
Before he could answer, she reached between them and cupped his cock. It was already fully erect, and had been since even before she revealed her naked form to him.
She smiled at the discovery before she snaked away from his lap to her knees before him. Colin settled back against the pillows as he watched her unfasten his trousers and free his cock. He sucked in a harsh breath of pleasure as she stroked him from base to tip in one firm motion.
She dipped her head, little tendrils of hair tickling his balls before she drew him between her lips. His hips arched up off the couch. Her hot mouth ignited an already out-of-control fire in his loins that slowly spread throughout his entire being. Never before had he felt so alive. Never had a woman’s touch moved him in every way.
Her head bobbed, her tongue rolled around him and he found himself moving toward release with rapid and terrifying speed. But he didn’t want that release this way. Not when she had come to him and laid out her heart.
He caught her arms and lifted her away, settling her back onto his lap as he caught her mouth for a hot, wet kiss. She straightened up, holding his cheeks as their tongues met and tangled wildly. He felt her positioning over him and he cried out as her wet sheath enveloped the first few inches of his cock. She eased down slowly, holding her breath, shivering and shaking as she took him farther and farther into her willing body.
When he was finally fully seated, she rested her forehead against his with a sigh of utter contentment. The moment stretched out, washing over him, making him complete. And then she began to roll her hips.
Almost instantly, the coupling became out of control. He dug his fingers into her hips, she mewled and cried as she thrust over him with a wild abandon that spoke of her high emotion and the passion it had caused. The hot swirl and thrust, clench and release of her tight body was almost immediately gratifying. He felt her clench and shiver with release first, her keening cries lost against his lips as she clung to him and begged him to join her.
Knowing she had experienced her pleasure, Colin didn’t hold back. He thrust upward a few final times and then a white, blinding explosion of pleasure overtook him and he let loose, filling her body with his seed for the first time.
Charlotte clutched at him, holding him close as she whispered, “I have wanted you to lose control with me like that from the very beginning. I felt like I was missing something when you spent away from me.”
He kissed her sweaty neck, reveling in how warm and soft her body was, still draped around him. How right it was to hold her, to be with her.
“You said you were afraid before,” he said when their breathing had returned to normal.
She glanced down at him and gave a little nod.
“Are you still?” he whispered, reaching up to trace the angle of her cheekbone with a fingertip.
She thought about that before she nodded a second time. “I am. But I am more afraid about living my life without you. Of wondering what would have happened if I wasn’t the coward you accused me of being. I love you, Colin. Parting myself from you will not make that better, it will only make it worse. I know. I lived it the last seven years of my life.”
“I love you,” he said, drawing her mouth down to his. “I will always love you. Marry me and I will grant your fantasies every day for the rest of my life.”
Tears filled her eyes as Charlotte held him even tighter. “Yes, Colin. Yes!”
Jess Michaels
Although JESS MICHAELS came to romance novels later in life than most, she always knew what she liked: ultra-sexy, emotional reads. Now she writes them from her purple office in central Illinois. She lives with her high school sweetheart husband and two supportive cats. Readers can contact her at http://www.jessmichaels.com.
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Credits
Cover design by Mumtaz Mustafa
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Copyright
A RED HOT VALENTINE’S DAY. Copyright © 2009 by HarperCollins Publishers. “Torn Desires” Copyright © 2009 by Lacy Danes. “Get There” Copyright © 2009 by Megan Hart. “Hell Is Where the Heart Is” Copyright © 2009 by Jacqueline H. Kessler. “By Valentine’s Day” Copyright © 2009 by Jesse Petersen. All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the non-exclusive, non-transferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on-screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, down-loaded, decompiled, reverse engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of HarperCollins e-books.
EPub © Edition DECEMBER 2008 ISBN: 9780061984778
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