She slapped at his hands. “Wait. We need to talk.”
He cocked his head and his eyes turned wary. “Why does that phrase fill me with dread? About what? If this is about me tying you up—”
“No. Although you deserve a tongue-lashing.” The flare of her ire faded into hesitancy. Her breathing turned shallow, a sense of panic churning her stomach. While she was no longer in danger of losing her life, would that life be worth living without love? Could she let him go if he chose his job over her? Because she loved him, she would never force him to stay with her if his heart led him back to the fighting.
“This is about something Father said. He said you’d have to quit your job. You’d be a worthless agent now because of me. You love what you do. I can’t…I would never ask you to give it up. You would come to hate me.”
Gray hummed and pushed her gown over her hips to the floor. “Would you rather we have a marriage like your parents? I’ll go off for months at a time. You’ll never know if I’m alive or dead until I show up on our doorstep for a few weeks before leaving you again.”
Sadness formed a solid, aching pit around her heart. “No. I couldn’t live like that either.” Intense vulnerability had her dropping her face, her hair acting as a shield. “We should break our betrothal.”
“I have a better idea.” He tilted her face up with a fingertip. “How about you join me?”
“On the Continent?” she asked in disbelief.
“No. Nothing quite as dangerous as that. But Lord Abbott has identified a possible smuggling ring on the coast. I could use a plausible cover to investigate.”
“A cover?” Excitement sparked.
“A married man on his honeymoon, perhaps?” A corner of his mouth turned up.
“Will I be allowed to help?”
“Would I be able to stop you?” he returned dryly.
He tossed her dirty, ruined chemise aside and urged her in the bath. She dunked her head back in the water to wet her hair, and he lathered the tangled mass, massaging her scalp.
“Hawkins and I have been in discussion about my—our—new roles. If you’re interested, that is.”
Relief, hot and sweet, banished the sadness and uncertainty. Their marriage would be unconventional and exciting and a true partnership. While she processed the unexpected, his hands worked magic on her body, soothing the aches and firing desire.
“I’m most certainly interested,” she said, her voice decidedly breathless. She arched out of the water, and he lingered to pay special attention to her sweetly offered breasts.
“In what exactly?” He slipped a hand between her legs.
“In whatever you have to offer—tonight and for the rest of our lives.”
“The rest of our lives… I like the sound of that.” He finished washing the grime from her feet, lifted her from the tub and wrapped a length of linen around her torso. “Dry yourself and wait in bed.”
His promise was clear. She perched on the edge of the bed, absently patting herself dry. He stripped, and she enjoyed every inch of bare skin he revealed. Really, should he have all the fun? Dropping the cloth to the floor, she swayed her hips on her walk back to the tub. His nostrils flared, and his gaze roamed somewhere below her face.
“There’s a favor I need to return, isn’t there?”
A jerky nod was his only answer. First, she cleaned and bound the shallow cut in his arm. Next, she bathed him. The bruises along his back and sides had her biting her lip in reflected pain. His arch from the water revealed a swollen, hard cock. Her breath hitched, and she rushed through the rest of his bath. He rose from the tub, water sluicing down his body.
“Get in bed, Lily.” His voice dripped with desire, need.
She stayed planted, hypnotized by the motion of his big hands as they dried the defined planes of his torso. He dropped the cloth and stalked her. Intensity cut his face into sharp angles and made his green eyes shine. She shuffled backwards until the mattress bumped the back of her thighs.
He wove his hands in her damp hair and brought their bodies into full contact. His mouth dropped to hers. It was a kiss at once tender and aggressive. She curled one of her hands up around his shoulder while she grabbed frantically at his taut buttocks with the other.
“Do you want me?” he growled against her mouth.
“Yes.”
“Do you need me?”
“Always.”
“Do you promise to love me forever?”
“Now that’s a promise I can keep.” She grinned. Lightness invaded like the sunrise after a long, dark night.
Spinning her, he pushed her over the mattress and curled his body over hers. Kicking her feet apart, he canted her hips. His cock slipped through her wet folds, teasing her to the crumbling edge of a precipice. On tiptoes, she wiggled her hips, begging him without words to end the torture. In a sudden plunge, he entered her. The exquisite fullness forced a breathy moan from her lungs.
“Christ, I’ve wanted to do this ever since I saw you bent over that blasted davenport practicing your locks.”
His piston-like hips obliterated her ability to speak. He snaked his fingertips between her thighs and stroked. She fell off the cliff, the sensations cascading outward from between her legs to every nerve. His guttural moan signaled his pleasure, and his weight settled over her. Even after he pulled himself off, she laid sprawled half off the bed, her legs spread open, unable to move.
Lassitude and exhaustion overwhelmed her. Sleep stalked close. Faraway, she heard his laughter. Soft, cool sheets slipped over her as a warm body settled next to her. She burrowed toward the comfort and settled her face in the curve of his neck. As dawning light turned black to grey, she slept.
Epilogue
Lily lay on her back on the narrow bed, her heaving chest barely covered by a thin sheet. Her husband of three days collapsed on his stomach next to her, his broad shoulders crowding her into the wall. She propped herself up on an elbow and draped a bare thigh over both his legs, his coarse hair tickling her.
His muffled voice emanated from a feather pillow. “You nearly killed me that time. Where did you learn to do that?”
“Not that I studied the other couples in length, mind you…but Fieldstones was rather educating.” She trailed fingers over his broad back, fascinated by the muscled ridges. Would she ever tire of having all the time in the world to explore him?
Their wedding had been lovely with laughter and tears all around. Minerva had made the long trip and stood in support, no matter the frosty reception from her brother. Rafe accompanied her to the front of the chapel, the earl still too weak. Her old tutor, Vicar Appleby, had presided over the ceremony, the sermon veering into a lecture of pagan marital rights. In keeping with the theme, the kiss that sealed their union was overly long and embarrassingly passionate.
They only had a few days before they were scheduled to report to Sir Hawkins in London. Commandeering Rafe’s hunting lodge for the week had been a brilliant idea. It was small, one large room in reality, but it contained a bed. Although, she had learned chairs and tables were fun too. She spent afternoons reacquainting herself with her recovering father, and Gray and Rafe rode the estate scouting for a suitable location for their eventual home.
The lodge was an oasis of calm and pleasure after the subterfuge and danger. They spent hours talking about their years apart as well as planning their future together.
“If the earl is well enough, he plans to accompany my father on his trip to the wilds of Wales and Scotland. Did he tell you?” Gray turned to his side so they were nearly nose-to-nose.
“He did. It’s foolish. He should spend more time here with his feet up, helping Rafe.”
“Rafe doesn’t want his help, and the earl knows it. Plus, the man has never been idle. Travelling will be good for him. It’s not like my father is going to be getting them into any mischief,” he said with smile.<
br />
“We’ll be gone, my father, your father…there’s even talk Aunt Edie plans to accompany the gentlemen. I worry about Rafe alone.” Her eyes drifted closed when his hands coasted down her bare back to tease her buttocks.
“He’s better. We’ll come back through as often as we can.” He applied himself to nibbling her ear. Goose bumps rose on her arms.
“What he needs is a good woman. Do you think we can get him to London next spring for the Season?” she asked.
He dissolved into laughter. “You’re jesting.”
“I’m not. I met several young ladies this spring that would make fine matches for my brother—if they haven’t already been snapped up.” Her annoyance stifled his laughter and brought an expression of caution to his face.
“Now, sweetheart, your brother doesn’t need you to play matchmaker. He needs to find his own destiny as we did. Promise me you’ll stay out of his love life.”
Was the man right? She hated to admit he might be. “Fine, I promise,” she said even though her record of keeping her promises was only slightly above abysmal.
“Enough about family. There something else we need to discuss.” His tone made her suspect their discussion wouldn’t involve speech. Or perhaps it was the hand maneuvering between her legs that gave her that impression. Either way, it was a long time before they spoke again.
About the Author
Laura Trentham was born and raised in a small town in Northwest Tennessee. Although she loved English and reading in high school, she was convinced an English degree equated to starvation, so chose the next most logical major—Chemical Engineering—and worked in a hard hat and steel-toed boots for several years. Now she lives in South Carolina with her husband and two children. In between school and homework and soccer practices, she loves to get lost in another world, whether it’s Regency England or small-town Alabama. She was a 2014 Golden Heart® Finalist for both An Indecent Invitation and A Brazen Bargain.
She loves to hear from readers! Find her at www.LauraTrentham.com, on Twitter at @LauraTrentham, or on Facebook at AuthorLauraTrentham.
Look for these titles by Laura Trentham
Coming Soon from Samhain Publishing:
Spies and Lovers
A Brazen Bargain
Now Available from St. Martin’s Press:
Falcon Football
Slow and Steady Rush
Caught Up in the Touch
If you loved this book, then you’re sure to love these Samhain favorites as well!
Fate will have her way…
Eliza Terribury is determined to be the first of her sisters to evade her mother’s attempts to shoo her down the aisle. Her novel-writing dreams will wither under the demands placed on a gentleman’s wife.
Saddled with his title at a young age, Michael Gerard, the elusive Marquess of Rutherford, has always done his duty, but he will not be pressured into choosing a wife. He just never expected the rush of attraction every time the impertinent young Eliza crosses his path.
When a completely innocent incident leaves Rutherford’s hands in a compromising position on Eliza’s bare skin, they have no choice but to announce an engagement. Privately, they agree seek a way out of the unwanted nuptials.
Yet Eliza’s free spirit and understated sensuality stirs Michael’s desire. And Eliza discovers there is more to the arrogant lord than meets the eye, especially when she wonders if it is purely her writer’s imagination that puts his face behind a mysterious highwayman’s mask.
Warning: Contains one haughty lord with the body of a medieval warrior, a seventh daughter with attitude to spare, and one tricky spider with eight legs guided by Fate.
A Highland lass fights for freedom…only to realize her heart belongs to her captor.
Rogue, Book 4
One moment Fiona MacLeod is attending a London ball, and the next she’s kidnapped and placed in the Dublin Lunatic Asylum by Wesley Alton, a madman who wants revenge on her family.
Her one bit of good fortune is that with the women’s ward at the asylum overflowing, she’s assigned a room in a nearby castle. But the more she tries to deny Alton’s cleverly concocted facts, the crazier she sounds to her keeper, the handsome Earl Kier O’Reilly.
With his family fortune dwindling, Kier pays his taxes by hosting non-violent asylum inmates in his ancestral castle. He’s immediately attracted to Fiona’s grey-eyed ethereal beauty, but he sternly reminds himself she’s his ward.
No matter what his heart whispers and his body screams, he cannot take advantage of a woman who is clinging to the last of her wits.
Meanwhile, the MacLeod brothers are hunting for their sister, and woe betide whoever stands in their way.
Warning: A beautiful Scottish lass trapped in a nightmare, an Irish earl with a revolutionary secret whose resistance is weakening, an allegedly haunted castle tower, and three braw Highland brothers who refuse to give up hope.
eBooks are not transferable.
They cannot be sold, shared or given away as it is an infringement on the copyright of this work.
This book is a work of fiction. The names, characters, places, and incidents are products of the writer’s imagination or have been used fictitiously and are not to be construed as real. Any resemblance to persons, living or dead, actual events, locale or organizations is entirely coincidental.
Samhain Publishing, Ltd.
11821 Mason Montgomery Road Suite 4B
Cincinnati OH 45249
An Indecent Invitation
Copyright © 2015 by Laura Trentham
ISBN: 978-1-61922-538-1
Edited by Heidi Moore
Cover by Angela Waters
All Rights Are Reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner whatsoever without written permission, except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews.
First Samhain Publishing, Ltd. electronic publication: August 2015
www.samhainpublishing.com
An Indecent Invitation: Spies and Lovers, Book 1 Page 30