“A good thing the Simms lass cooperated,” Ranulf drawled, not moving from the door. “I might have had to set her loose in the wilds and hope she couldnae find her way back.”
“Like a dog?” Charlotte turned around to look at him. She’d actually expected he would begin mauling her the moment they crossed the threshold. But there he stood, one shoulder against the door frame and his arms folded across his chest.
“It might’ve worked. It might still, if need be.”
As he spoke she moved to the front window, standing out of sight of the street as she pulled the curtains closed. The other window looked out over the empty space where the stable had been, so she left it alone. This felt clandestine enough without extinguishing all the light in the room.
“Are you just going to stand there?” she finally asked, eyeing him as he watched her wander about the room.
“Ye told me not to rush ye. I’m here where I want to be with ye, so I figured ye can come over here and kiss me in yer own time.”
Taking a deep breath, trying to quell the flutter in her chest, she walked up to him. “I want to be clear about one thing,” she said, putting a gloved forefinger against his chest.
“Ye have my attention.”
“This is because we have a mutual … desire,” she said slowly, curling her finger into his cravat. “I’m not some weak-kneed miss, and you are not a heartless cad. It’s simply a matter of attraction.” There. For her own … pride she needed it made clear that she understood the circumstances, and that she didn’t want what he wasn’t offering.
“A simple matter,” he repeated, reaching up to twirl the blond curl hanging from her temple about his finger. “I think ye should kiss me now, Charlotte.”
Chapter Ten
She fluttered, inches from giving him the moment about which he’d been dreaming for the past week. It would have been such a simple matter, to lean a little forward and touch her sweet mouth with his own.
But Ranulf held himself precisely where he was, every muscle aching with tension. This had been his suggestion, in his house, and according to his timing. He was accustomed to leading, to ordering that something be done and then seeing it accomplished. Allowing Charlotte to decide the next moments was both maddening and supremely arousing.
Gloved fingers toyed with his cravat, the gentle tug and pull quite possibly the most erotic sensation he’d ever experienced. His breath came slow and deep, his heart keeping time as he waited.
Finally she slid her palms up his chest, lifted on her toes, and featherlight pressed her lips against his. Thank God.
Allowing himself to move again, Ranulf cupped her face in his hands, kissing her back until her lips softened and she opened a little to his seeking teeth and tongue. When she moaned the pressure in his groin tripled, and he shifted to grip her hips, pulling her closer against him.
She called it a mutual attraction. He called it an obsession with a stubborn, maddening woman who with a few words had made him reconsider decades of resentment and prejudice. His eyes felt opened. If she had decided she didn’t enjoy his company, or that his views made him unacceptable even as a temporary lover, he remained uncertain what he would have done.
Still kissing her, he shed his English-tailored coat. Next he unbuttoned his waistcoat and dropped it to the floor, as well. “Yer turn, lass,” he murmured, turning his attention to the trio of buttons that held her pretty, dark green pelisse on over her green and yellow sprigged muslin gown.
His hands brushed her breasts as he worked, and she jumped a little. “I feel very wicked,” she breathed unsteadily, breaking from his mouth to watch his hands travel down her front.
He opened the pelisse and pushed it down her shoulders. Ripping every stitch of clothing off her would have been more satisfying, but he’d promised a measure of discretion, and she already thought him a violent devil. Returning her home with all her buttons and seams torn away would be neither discreet nor wise.
Lowering his gaze from her face, he cupped her breasts through the thin muslin. Just the size to fit in his hands, they were, as if she’d been made with him in mind. He firmed his grip and she gasped, pressing against his palms. “Ye’re wearing too many damned clothes,” he noted, trying not to jump as her hip brushed against his cock.
“I think I’d like to sit down,” she commented faintly, leaning up for his mouth again.
“I’ll do ye one better.” Bending, he scooped her up into his arms and carried her over to his big, soft bed.
As he set her down in the center of the plump mattress she tangled her fingers into his hair, pulling him down over her. Ranulf sank down onto his hip beside her, keeping her lithe body wrapped in his arms. He fought the sensation that he wasn’t close enough to her, that he had to be inside her immediately, to satisfy his own need, to claim her for his own. He would. He would, but for both their sakes he would go slow. The last thing he wanted was to frighten or hurt her.
But then she grinned up at him and tugged at his cravat. “Who in the world tied this?” she asked with a chuckle, pushing his chin sideways as she worked the knots loose with her gloved fingers.
Both actions served to remind him that she wasn’t as delicate as he’d previously thought. “Poor Ginger,” he returned. “My valet. He said he nearly lost both his arms because of yer stubbornness.”
“My stubbornness?” she repeated, finally pulling the cravat free and tossing it off the bed.
“Aye. He said he would have let go of that bucket crank after twenty minutes last night, but he couldnae let ye best him.”
She chuckled. “Poor man.”
Taking advantage of the momentary conversation, he rolled onto his backside and sat up to yank off his English boots and drop them to the floor. “I know what my valet was thinking, then, but what about ye, leannan? And give me yer feet.”
“I don’t remember thinking much of anything,” she mused, lifting one foot to put her ankle into his waiting hand.
He pulled off her low-heeled walking shoe and set it beside his boots. “I doubt ye’ve ever thought nothing. Were ye worried aboot me, lass?”
She handed over her other foot. “I hadn’t seen you in a week. I thought that after you went to all the trouble of acquiring a house and hosting a dinner and being so…”
“Gentlemanly?” he suggested, though he didn’t feel at all gentlemanly at the moment.
“I was going to say open-minded,” she countered, sitting up to help him pull his shirttail from his trousers. “It was wrong that someone else’s poor behavior might convince you to leave London. I didn’t want you to go.”
“That’s very nice to hear,” he murmured, and captured her gloved fingers in his. “I want to feel yer hands on me, Charlotte.”
She nodded. “So do I.”
“Yer blisters?”
“I’ll manage.”
That made him grin. “I certainly hope so.” Bending over her hand, he opened the wee pearl buttons and carefully pulled off the glove. “Good?” he asked, lifting his gaze to find her studying his face.
“Good. The other one, now.”
He helped her remove it. The moment he did so, she pushed up the front of his shirt and brushed her palms lightly across his chest. The tickling featheriness of it made him shudder. When she ran curious fingers across his nipples, he drew in a hard breath, took the ends of his shirt, and pulled the thing off over his head.
“You look like a Greek carving,” she mused, her fingers warm and unsteady against his skin.
“Nae. A Scottish one.”
Charlotte laughed, the arousing sound nearly causing him to burst the seam of his trousers. Sweet Saint Andrew. Twisting to face her again, he drew her muslin sleeve down her arm. Slowly Ranulf leaned in to kiss her bared shoulder.
She tasted faintly of lemons. Did she have freckles she was trying to fade? He hoped she wouldn’t do such a thing; in fact, he would enjoy finding and kissing every freckle on her fair skin. As she curved her neck to him, he
ran his lips across her ear and the pulse at the base of her jaw, then down her shoulder again, pulling down the front of her gown as he went. The top of her breast, the soft, perfect curve, the stiff pebble of her nipple.
“Ranulf,” she gasped, wrapping her hands around his forearms.
Still toying with her breast, he looked up at her. “Do ye wish me to stop?”
“No. Definitely not. But you don’t look terribly comfortable down … there.”
“Oh, I’m nae. Strangled, more like.”
“Then let’s do something about that,” she suggested unevenly, sliding her hands down his ribs to his waist.
Ranulf grinned, kissing her exposed breast. “I’d be a fool to argue with that. But dunnae hurt yer hands. I’ll do it.”
Sliding off the bed, he stood and swiftly unfastened the buttons of his trousers. Then, figuring now was good as later, he shirked the buckskins down his hips and kicked out of them. He watched her face, waiting for a maidenly exclamation, or … something. Though if she’d seen Greek statues she would have some idea of male anatomy.
Her lowered gaze lingered. Finally, hazel eyes lifted to meet his. “So that’s what you have under your kilt, Ranulf MacLawry.”
He laughed. “Now who’s being wicked?” he taunted, and returned to the bed. “Kneel, and lift up a bit.”
When she did so, he took the bottom of her gown and pulled it up, past her knees, up her thighs, above the tangle of soft golden curls, and lifted it up over her head and off.
“Well?” she prompted after a moment, sinking onto her backside again. She didn’t try to cover herself, or lower her eyes shyly.
Remarkable lass. “More lovely than sunrise, ye are,” he said aloud, still smiling. “I think I’ll come to ye, this time.” He moved over her, tugging at her legs until she lay flat on her back beneath him.
This time her kiss was as hot and openmouthed as his own. He kissed her until they were both out of breath and panting, then slowly moved down the slender length of her, teasing at first one breast and then the other, tracing her breastbone with his lips and meandering down to her belly button and then lower until with a dart of his tongue he tasted her.
“Good heavens!” she squeaked, nearly clobbering him with a knee. “Oh, I’m so sorry.”
By way of response Ranulf slid a finger inside her, and she groaned. Mm. She was hot and wet—for him. “Sweet Christ,” he murmured, moving in with his tongue again.
This time she shuddered and pulsed, coming with a sweet rush that made her cry out and his cock jump convulsively. “That … Oh, my,” she managed, laughing breathlessly.
“My turn now, I think,” he rumbled, kissing his way up her body again. He’d been more patient than a saint, for the devil’s sake, and he badly wanted to bury himself in her tight depths.
At the last moment he remembered the French condom he’d dropped into his coat pocket on the chance that his plans for the day had proceeded as he wanted. With a curse he rolled off the bed, found his coat by the door, and dug the thing out.
“What’s that for?” she asked, lifting up on her elbows and already looking deliciously disheveled.
“To keep ye from getting with child,” he answered, slipping it on and tying off the ribbon.
“So that’s how it’s done. It’s very pretty.”
“Nae,” he said, returning to the bed. “A man’s cock is ‘grand,’ or ‘handsome,’ or ‘proud.’ It is nae pretty.”
Moving over her once more, Ranulf nudged her knees apart and settled between her thighs to kiss her sweet mouth again, teasing at her breasts with his fingers. When he had her moaning in pleasure once more he canted his hips forward, entering her slowly and with as much care as he could manage. The urge to simply take her, immediately and repeatedly, pushed at him again, but he held himself back.
“Ready?” he drawled.
She nodded silently, her eyes wide and her fingers kneading into his shoulders. He told her to take a deep breath and hold it. When she did so, he pushed forward, past the thin edge of resistance, and entered her fully.
Charlotte squeezed her eyes shut, took a second shuddering breath, and looked up at him again. For a long moment he stayed where he was, kissing her until she relaxed again and swearing to himself that this was the last time he would ever cause her pain.
Finally he pulled back a little and pushed in again. “Better?”
“Yes,” she returned. “I want more.”
“Well, then.”
Ranulf rocked inside her again, then began a slow, full pump of his hips. She felt … exquisite and tight around him, her soft moans driving him faster and deeper. They both might know their philosophies as much as their lives made them incompatible, but it didn’t feel that way. Skin to skin, sweat intermingled, tongues tangled, they fit extraordinarily well.
She came again, pulsing around him, and finally he gave in to the urge to well and truly take her. Harder, deeper, faster, until with a surging groan he spilled into her.
Collapsing onto his back, he pulled her over across his chest. For a long moment they lay there, limbs tangled and her breath warm on his skin. Her carefully coiffed hair was a shambles, and one by one he pulled the pins from the soft golden mass, letting it fall across his chest like sunlight. Her blistered palm lay flat over his heart, and he wondered if she could feel it beating.
He’d never believed in fairy tales, in the phenomenon of love at first sight. That was what had driven his father to drag an English bride into the Highlands. She’d wanted a title, and he’d wanted her, and disaster had ensued. But he knew for certain that Eleanor MacLawry would never have run outside at night to help battle a fire on her own family’s property—much less anyone else’s. And she never would have stood her ground to the point that her hands blistered.
Charlotte had done more than that. She’d helped organize the chaos of men and buckets and water, and men who couldn’t possibly know who she was had listened and obeyed. She was lovely and kind, but stood her ground and spoke her mind—even to him, when no one dared do so.
Most tellingly, she’d come to his bed after he’d agreed not to run off and attack Berling. When he’d worn his proper, civilized attire and sworn to let logic and reason carry the day. Was that such a difficult thing to do? He’d been raised in a place where a man held power with both his fists and his mind. Was there a different way to proceed?
Ranulf frowned as he twined his fingers softly through her hair. He’d bedded his share of Scottish lasses. They were pretty, and enthusiastic, and otherwise forgettable. The woman presently in his arms was anything but forgettable. Were the two of them so incompatible, after all? What would he have to give up, but punching a deserving scoundrel or two? Evidently, since he’d gone to the bother of having sketches made and collecting evidence, he’d already decided that he was willing to utilize legal means to stop Berling. Whether he removed Donald Gerdens or the law did, the results would be the same—with one crucial difference. Charlotte Hanover.
“Are you asleep?” she whispered, curving a lazy circle now over his heart with her forefinger.
“Nae. I’m gathering strength for another go.”
“Mm.”
Just the way she said that went a fair way to making him hard again. “I’m thinking we spent a long afternoon at the museum and stood for quite a long time ogling those naked Greek statues ye like so much.”
She chuckled, the sound reverberating into his chest. “I think I prefer the Scottish version, actually.”
He damn well hoped so, because he had no intention of parting from this English lass. What had begun as a mild curiosity had altered and deepened. In fact, he meant to keep hold of her until he could put a ring on her finger and tell all the world that Charlotte Hanover belonged to him. Forever.
* * *
Charlotte rested her head on one elbow to watch Ranulf pad naked and magnificent to the bedchamber door. Pulling it open, he leaned into the hallway. “Owen!” he bellowed. “Sandwiche
s!”
“Very regal,” she commented, as he returned to his big bed and settled back against the headboard.
“I’m hungry.”
That was no surprise, considering his exertions. And she was rather famished, herself. “Are we dining in the museum’s tea room, then?” she asked, shifting a little to run a finger along his ribs. Touching a man’s skin—his skin—was indescribably arousing.
“Aye. And I assume we’re sipping tea from dainty cups and nibbling at wee sandwiches with the crusts trimmed off.”
“Yes, we are. And then I think we’ll take a leisurely stroll among the sarcophagi and mummies before you return me home.”
He slid down the bed until their faces were even. “I like the British Museum. What other sights around London could ye show me, leannan?”
“What does that mean? Leannan?”
Shrugging one shoulder, he captured her right hand and brought it up to examine it carefully. “Ye know, Debny has some horse liniment that would likely do ye.”
She grimaced. “I do not want to smell like horse liniment.”
One by one he kissed her fingertips. The sensation, the gesture, made her shiver. “We’ve been slathering it on fer years. Bumps, scrapes, sprains—it cures everything, according to Debny.”
“I prefer to suffer, thank you very much.” Charlotte flexed her hand. “You aren’t going to tell me what leannan means, then? I can ask Winnie, you know.”
“Ye’re a persistent lass, Charlotte.” He tugged her over his chest again, wrapping his strong arms around her. “I suppose the best translation would be ‘dear friend,’” he drawled.
That sounded very nice. What it didn’t sound like was a term someone would use to describe a partner in a one-time union resulting from simple mutual attraction. Of course, at this moment there was nothing at all simple about how she felt. Or how he felt against her. Indeed, the only simple fact was that she didn’t want this to be the one and only time she shared his bed.
“What’s this, then?” she asked, tapping her nose and trying to distract herself from unhelpful thoughts.
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