She noticed a thin line of light beneath Samuel’s door. Apparently she was not the only one unable to sleep. Considering the events of the evening, she was unsurprised.
Knocking gently so she did not wake anyone else, she waited, glancing up and down the corridor surreptitiously.
After a few moments, Charlotte turned the latch and entered the chamber. It was empty. He was not in the room.
She rotated slowly and glanced around as though she could find him hiding in some dark corner of the room. Silly. Of course he was not. His bed was mussed, the counterpane tossed back as though he had left hastily. His boots were sprawled haphazardly near the foot of the bed. He had not left the house then. He was somewhere under this roof.
She left his room and began a search of the house, checking first the library and then the drawing room. Nothing. No one.
She moved on to the kitchens next and there she found him, sitting at the large rough-hewn worktable dominating the center of the large space.
He did not notice her arrival. His attention was fixed on the drink and plate of food before him.
“Mr. Kingston?” She stepped closer, clearing her throat. “Samuel?”
He lifted his head, resting a bleary-eyed gaze on her. He looked inebriated, but she knew that was not the case. Alcohol had not done this to him. The ravages of the evening, of his father, had done this to him.
He had scarcely touched his drink or food at dinner, which could explain the assortment of bread, cheese and dried fruit before him now. Evidently, he’d come down here at this late hour to find something to eat.
“Are you . . . unwell?” She moistened her lips, her words echoing lamely in her own ears.
Of course he was not well. Who could be well after tonight? After that dinner with his wretched father and stepmother? The ugliness of that scene was imprinted on her mind. Her heart had ached for him then and it still did.
She wanted to comfort him just as much as she wanted to go after his father with a crop and give him a good thrashing. The man did not deserve a son like Samuel. Indeed not. He deserved a beating.
Her violent thoughts unsettled her. It was not in her nature.
She had been raised among siblings. Of course, there had been times when she had been pushed to the brink of madness. Nora especially had pushed her. Indeed, her youngest sister could vex her as no one else could. But even amidst all their squabbles, she had never been prompted to violence. She had never felt the urge to strike anyone before.
Until tonight.
When she had stared at the earl’s face. When his foul words had vibrated on the air. She’d longed to deliver a good slap to that man. A novel experience that, and all because of Samuel Kingston. Because of these deep feelings she harbored for him.
Confronted with the wretchedness of his father, learning the dreadful truth of his mother, she had not felt like her calm, quiet self. She did not feel like herself even now, staring at Samuel looking so broken at the kitchen table.
“Shall I fetch my sister? Nora can mix you a tincture to calm your nerves. She’s quite useful to have around. At least most of the time.”
He snorted. “This being the same sister who you claim drugged you with an aphrodisiac? No. No, thank you. My nerves are fine.”
“That was a rare case,” she protested, perfectly aware that he still thought her sister’s aphrodisiac to be rubbish.
“Forgive me if I remain skeptical.”
She rubbed her palms together and glanced around the kitchen, moving toward the kettle. “I can make you some tea.”
“No,” he barked, startling her.
“I don’t need tea and I don’t need you.” He glared at her. “Why are you even here? Should you not be abed? Dreaming of your upcoming wedding?”
She paused, her face warming. His animosity was new. In all their encounters, he had never been like this toward her. Never caustic or biting. Never one to make her feel unwanted. Indeed. It had been quite the opposite. He had pursued her with warmth in his voice and fire in his eyes.
“When is it?” he added roughly.
She shook her head. “When is what . . .”
“Your wedding? When is the grand occasion? Is it not soon?”
“Oh.” He was asking about the wedding she had called off, the grand occasion that would never be.
She released a shuddery breath, but did not answer. Now did not feel like the time to explain there would be no wedding. This moment was not about her. It was about the wreck of a man before her.
Yes. It would have been soon. It would have been the eighteenth of July. All the more reason to break the news to her family that it was not happening so that they could begin coping with the many consequences most assuredly to come.
His expression turned faintly mocking. “How thrilled you must be.”
It was on the tip of her tongue to tell Samuel that she would not be going through with it, but she stopped herself with a bracing breath. Not now.
There would be no talking about herself right now.
This was about him.
She wanted to be a friend to him, absurd as that was, perhaps. After tonight’s debacle, she suspected he could use one of those. A friend to listen and talk to. Someone who cared.
Something told her he had not had many friends in his life. Not beyond those who caroused with him on raucous nights of revelry. Not true friends.
She had always been fortunate enough to have people in her life who cared about her. Papa. Her sisters and brother. Samuel likely did not even realize what he was missing. How could he if he had never had those things?
“I . . . uh. I am so very sorry about your mother.”
He groaned. “Are we really going to do this?”
“Do what?”
“Talk about tonight,” he supplied. “Talk about my tragedy of a family.”
She lifted one shoulder. “Talking about it might make you feel better.”
“Might it?” His features twisted in skepticism. “Talking of my wastrel father who abandoned my mother and left her to barter her body for a roof over her head, leaving her disease ridden, dying in agony and madness? Should talking about that make me feel better?”
She flinched. “I . . .” She suddenly felt very foolish. What did she know of his particular experiences? His misery was out of her realm of knowledge.
“Can you understand that perhaps I do not want to talk about that? That I don’t want to talk at all?” He stood as he uttered this question, the wood stool clattering to the floor behind him.
She jerked a little at the sound of the stool hitting the floor and the suddenness of his movement, but she didn’t move. He didn’t scare her. She wasn’t alarmed.
A tremor of excitement chased down her spine, and that was when she realized the truth.
This was as much about her as it was about him.
She wasn’t being fully truthful with herself. She didn’t want to tell him she had ended the betrothal because he would want to know why and that would be getting into dangerous territory.
She would have to give him a reason—and so much of that reason was wrapped up in him. In how she felt about Samuel, in all her tender and desperate longing for him and her inability to keep her distance from him—something she would have had to do if she remained with William.
No. She could confess none of that to Samuel.
She watched him, her eyes unblinking as he rounded the table, moving with the ease and grace of a predator, a slowly advancing jungle cat.
He stopped in front of her, all tightly coiled energy. She felt the same tension echoed inside her.
Still sitting, she craned her neck to look up at him. “I . . . Yes. I can understand that.”
“Sometimes the opposite of talking is what one needs.” His hands reached out to close around her arms. The heat of his palms singed her skin as he pulled her to her feet.
She went willingly. Gladly.
His hands moved from her arms to her waist.<
br />
Everything faded into a dizzying blur.
He pulled her in closer, lifting her up in the air with a warm huff of breath, plopping her down on the table before him, bringing them satisfyingly eye level.
For long moments their heaving breaths collided, mingling as they gazed at each other. Fire burned in his eyes.
“What are you doing?” she whispered.
“You need an explanation?” he growled.
She waited a beat before replying, “No.”
She knew what he was doing. She knew what they were doing. Perhaps the moment she had come to him, she knew. She wanted this to happen.
Never looking away from her, he shoved her dressing gown and nightgown up around her thighs so that he could wedge himself between her splayed knees.
The callused rasp of his palms squeezed her tender flesh. Firmly. As though testing himself of her solidity, her durability.
She could think of nothing more thrilling than his big strong hands on her bare limbs, squeezing, kneading her, branding her with his desire.
A heady exhale slipped from her lips and she covered his hands with her own, prompting them to squeeze harder.
“I won’t break,” she encouraged.
His eyes dilated.
She was out of control. There was no considering propriety. The world failed to exist. It was only the two of them right now, in this moment, in this kitchen.
Irritation flashed across his face. “You’re not his,” he growled. “Not tonight. Tonight you’re mine.”
His head dipped. He claimed her mouth swiftly, with surety and finesse. She sank into the kiss, drowning in it. In the pure pleasure of it.
She moaned as his lips devoured hers, reaching for him with greedy hands, skimming her palms over his hard shoulders, making their way down the flat plane of his chest, despising the barrier of clothing between them.
He broke away with a gasping breath.
“Samuel?” Her fingers curled, tightening on him, digging into the fine lawn of his shirt, desperate to touch, to feel, to seize him and bring him back to her.
He gave a single hard shake of his head. “Not here. Not like this.”
His arms came around her, enveloping her and sweeping her off her feet.
Then they were moving.
Chapter 23
It crossed Charlotte’s mind that she was being carried in Samuel’s arms through a house full of people. Staff and family alike. Certainly, all were presumably abed, but in the house nonetheless. Under this very roof. There were plenty of people within these walls who could discover them like this.
She should care. She should.
And yet she did not.
She, Charlotte Langley, astonishingly, could not summon forth the will to care about propriety.
Tonight was not like any other night. Truthfully, it had started this morning, with the end of her betrothal to William.
Earlier today she had been attached, bound, shackled. Her future had been mapped out for her like the lines etched on the palms of her hands. Her fate had felt so defined, so very decided. Now that future was gone—washed away.
She was a free woman. No longer bound in betrothal. She was free and she would allow herself this.
She was caught in a dream. Living the moments of a life that didn’t even feel like her own. She was someone else now. Someone new. Not that girl from a fortnight ago. Not even the girl from last night or upon waking this morning.
She was someone else. Someone unknown. Someone who could do this. Someone who could be carried through a house in a lover’s arms with no fear.
They advanced up the stairs. He walked them directly into his room.
Soon she was descending onto the bed, the delicious weight of him coming over her. He kissed her. She met the slick glide of his tongue with her own.
He shrugged her dressing gown off her shoulders and down her arms, never breaking the kiss. His hands found the hem of her nightgown and tugged it up. His mouth broke from hers, tugging it over her head and sending it flying like a dove through the air, landing somewhere beyond her vision. It mattered not.
Her gaze was riveted to his starkly handsome face. To the way his hot gaze dragged over her body, leaving fire in its wake as he surveyed her nakedness, missing nothing in his heated examination.
Naked under him, not a moment of embarrassment seized her.
A growl of approval rumbled from his throat, and the sound emboldened her.
Her hands set to work on ridding him of his shirt, pushing it up until he helped her and pulled the garment over his head.
She came up on her elbows so that her hands and mouth could explore the expanse of his chest.
His hands were buried in the thickness of her hair, her scalp tingling as his fingertips speared through the strands, curling around the shape of her skull, holding her to him. She kissed and licked and scraped her teeth over his firm warm skin. She found the small dusky circles of his nipples and licked them, scoring them with her teeth.
He cursed, thrusting his hips against her bared sex, grinding into her.
“I can feel you, Charlie . . . so wet.”
She whimpered, nodding desperately, falling back on the bed.
He watched her, eyes burning, scalding her as she parted her thighs wider and thrust that most vulnerable part of her into the hardness of his member, barred to her through the barrier of her breeches.
He swallowed visibly, throat muscles working. “You’re wanton.”
“I am what you’ve made me.”
“Charlie,” he said hoarsely.
She wiggled, her body twisting on the bed. “Touch me, Samuel.”
His hot gaze fixed on her body. He lifted his hand.
She almost imagined that it trembled ever so slightly as he lowered it to her rib cage. Or perhaps it was she who was shaking.
Air hissed out between her teeth as his hand landed beneath her breast. Her breasts were not big, but they felt heavy and aching right now.
One of his hands closed over her breast and she gasped, overcome with a want so sharp and achingly deep that she couldn’t stop the keening cry from tearing loose of her throat.
Her cries grew louder and he smothered her mouth with a kiss, muffling the sound. They kissed as he continued to massage her breast until she was arching into him.
She was lost. A slave to her passion. His for the taking, and she wanted him to take her.
He left her mouth, his head lowering, claiming her breast. His lips sucked on her, pulling her deep into the wet cavern of his mouth. His tongue swirled around her nipple and hot sensation ripped through her. His hand shot to her mouth, muting her scream of pleasure.
The hard press of his hand over her mouth thrilled her even more. Her sex clenched, desperate for pressure, to be filled with his thickness.
His head lifted from her breast, eyes burning. “You’re going to be a screamer, aren’t you?”
She might be new at this, but she understood his meaning.
He lifted his hand from her lips and she felt a small pang at the loss. “That could present a problem.”
“Take me . . . and keep your hand over my mouth.” His eyes widened at her invitation. “I can’t wait anymore.”
His member grew harder, swelling between her thighs. She rubbed against him.
“You are certain?” There was hesitation in his eyes, and she knew it was because he was thinking of her . . . thinking that she was planning to marry another man.
Of course, she wasn’t, but he did not know that.
She didn’t want to think about that right now. That was a conversation for later. Tomorrow they would talk. Tomorrow she would tell him everything.
Right now she simply wanted to feel.
Her hands moved down between their bodies. She was an accomplished seamstress. She knew her way around men’s trousers. She had him freed and in her hands in no time.
She familiarized herself with the shape of him. He was big, and as much
as that alarmed her, it thrilled her, too. More. Her sex tightened, squeezing.
As she continued to explore him, a bead of moisture rose up to kiss her thumb, rolling over the head of him. Want twisted deep inside of her.
With a curse, his hand delved between them, finding her sex, and his fingers did a hurried exploration of his own that had her writhing and gasping. He parted her folds, his finger dipping inside her channel, testing her, stretching her.
“Samuel,” she pleaded.
“God, you’re ready, Charlie.”
She knew that . . .
Tested beyond all endurance, she closed her fingers around the pulsing length of him and guided him toward her, placing the head of him at her entrance, trusting he would take over at some point. The man was skilled. He clearly knew what he was about. He had gotten her to this point, after all. No aphrodisiac pulsed through her blood, just stark primeval need. Hot and thick as syrup in her veins.
Groaning, he collapsed over her, his elbows coming on either side of her head as he drove inside her, lodging himself deep.
His hand shot to her mouth, smothering her cry. Gratification mingled with pain and pleasure.
She held herself motionless, stunned at the strangeness of it all. He was inside her body . . . Samuel. They were connected, merged, linked by his member, pulsing in rhythm to her own heartbeat.
She was not the only one motionless. He was not moving either. As the pain ebbed, he continued to hold himself still.
“Sorry,” he gasped near her ear. “It’s been so long . . . and you’re so sweet . . . so perfect.”
Enough.
She murmured against his palm, encouraging him to move, to continue. She widened her legs in welcome. Without a voice, it was the most obvious thing she could do to suggest he continue . . . that he give her more.
She tilted her hips and took him in as deeply as she could, whimpering into his palm as she stretched, molding around him.
Her hands came up to claw at his back. Her palms swept down, latching on to the tight swells of his buttocks, urging him on.
She needed this. Him. His body working over her own.
The Virgin and the Rogue Page 19