Never Tempt a Rogue: A Rogues' Rulebook Novella

by Christy Carlyle

  “I did,” she conceded, “but we don’t know each other very well.”

  Even through the haze of lust and need, Alex could see the hesitation in Felicity’s eyes. She didn’t trust him yet. Yes, she’d allowed him into her bed chamber, let him hold and kiss her. But that wretch Kenniston had wounded her. Alex had never cared enough for anyone to mind rejection, but he could imagine the pain of losing Felicity’s affection. And his brother’s death weighed on his mind. If not for a broken heart, Henry would be the one taking his rightful place as Viscount Lindsay.

  “Very well.” He grasped her hand, led her to the room’s corner sitting nook, and drew her down onto his lap as he seated himself in the plush chair.

  His body responded instantly when she settled the warm curve of her backside against his groin. The hem of her skirt was far too close. He slid a hand down to lift the fabric. Felicity gasped, and he stilled, resting his palm against her ankle.

  “Ask me.” His voice emerged breathless, harsher than he’d intended. “Ask me anything, sweet. I won’t hide anything from you.”

  He moved his hand as he waited, sliding it slowly up her stockinged leg. Mercy, she was warm. Her vanilla scent made him ravenous for the taste of her. When he gripped her knee, pulled her legs just an inch apart, Felicity bit her lip and closed her eyes.

  “Coffee or tea?” she finally whispered.

  “Whiskey.” He slid a finger behind her knee as she giggled at his answer. As he stroked the tender flesh there, she gripped his shoulders, bunching the fabric of his shirt in her fists. She wiggled as he reached higher, snaking his fingers toward the top edge of her stocking.

  “What time do you rise in the morning?” Felicity seemed to have no notion of the double meaning of her question. At least at first. Then her cheeks bloomed in a fierce blush. Alex shifted his hips to show her how thoroughly she’d caused him to rise.

  “With you by my side, sweetheart.” Under her skirt and petticoats, his hand glided higher, along the inner edge of her thigh. “I suspect I’ll be rising quite early. And quite often.”

  “Good.” She gasped as he crested the top of her stocking, finally sliding his bare fingers against the flesh of her inner thigh. “I find there is much one can accomplish early in the morning.”

  “Oh, darling. We will use our mornings well.” Alex could imagine nothing better than waking with Felicity, making love to her all morning after doing the same all night. His fingers tangled in the ruffles of her drawers. The fabric was soft as silk, but nothing to the velvet of her skin.

  Felicity knew just what he needed. She allowed him in, moving her leg just enough to fit his fingers inside her drawers. When he delved deep enough to feel her damp curls against his fingertip, she dropped her head back and emitted a lusty moan.

  Alex pressed his mouth to her neck, pushed at the fabric of her chemise, licked a trail from her throat to her chest. When he kissed the plump swell of one breast, he slid his finger deeper. Found the place where he belonged, snugged inside her glorious heat.

  “Any other questions, love?” He pulled back to watch her eyes, to see the mix of pleasure and love. To see that there was no more hesitation, only a need as intense as his own.

  “Children,” she gasped. “Do you want many?”

  Alex stilled. He’d vowed in his youth that he would never be a father. Never risk inflicting his father’s brand of disdain and disapproval on a child. Now he knew begetting an heir was his duty. Felicity’s question caused an image to bloom in his mind. A pair of flaxen-haired children frolicking in the meadow near his family estate, just as he and Henry had years before.

  “At least two.” He shaped a hand over the curve of her breast, reveling in the insistent thrust of her nipple against his palm. “But not immediately. I want you to myself for a while.”

  “While I learn how to be a proper viscountess.” That divot of worry began to form on her forehead again.

  “I’ll be there with you.” Alex began stroking her, using all he knew about giving pleasure to erase that line of worry marring her brow. “Every step of the way. Learning how to be a viscount.”

  He took her mouth as she began to quiver, her body tensing as he drew her closer to the edge. She kissed him hungrily, one hand tangled in his hair, the other curled around his nape.

  “We’ll do it together, love?”

  “Yes,” she breathed the word against this mouth, letting out a little gasp with every stroke of his fingers.

  “Alex?” She clutched at his neck, tugged at his hair as her own body drew tight around him.

  “Let go.” He nuzzled her cheek, nipped at her lobe before whispering in her ear. “Trust me, sweetheart. I’ll catch you.”

  And he did.

  Felicity buried her face against his neck and cried out his name as she fell to pieces in his arms. He stroked her back as she trembled, kissed her flushed cheek. “I love you” he whispered against her hair.

  It took every bit of restraint he possessed, used up his whole meager supply of honorable behavior, not to lift her in his arms, deposit her on the bed, and make love to her until she cried out his name again. And again.

  She let out a little grown of protest when he began settling her skirt and grasped her waist to help her stand.

  “I’m not ready to let you go.” Felicity emphasized her words by gripping the front of his shirt, as if she meant to hold on rather than let him dislodge her.

  “I never intend to be parted from you for long.” He offered her one quick kiss to emphasize his words. “But we must do this properly.”

  After glancing between them, at his half-open shirt and her gaping chemise, Felicity quirked a dubious look.

  “Well, as properly as a rogue and thoroughly disheveled chaperone can manage.” He needed to do right by Felicity, to treat her with the respect she deserved. And he had to ensure everyone else treated her with the same deference. “We both need our rest for the day ahead.”

  She relented by maneuvering off of his lap and standing before him. But the moment she began gathering the edge of her chemise, Alex yearned to pull the garment down and taste each lush breast peeking through the sheer fabric.

  Still holding her hand, Alex drew her with him toward the door. He knew he needed to stop touching her, to let her go, if only for tonight. For however many nights it took until they could be married. Few lonely nights, he hoped. Very few.

  As he reached for the door handle, Felicity gripped his arm. “What happens tomorrow?”

  Everything had changed between them since he’d knocked on her door an hour ago. She’d promised to be his. Now they needed to announce their plans.

  “Tomorrow we tell my aunt and uncle. And Miss Huntingdon.”

  Felicity blanched and loosened her hold on his hand.

  “You can’t back out now,” he teased, though his heart began hammering in his chest. She wouldn’t change her mind. Would she?

  “My cousin.” She lifted a finger as if she’d bite her nail, then shoved her hand down at her side. “When we arrived, she harbored a bit of a tendre for you.”

  “As her chaperone and the one who watches over your cousin, you can’t have missed Lord Baxindale’s interest and how ardently she returns it.”

  “True.” She twisted her mouth in a rueful expression.

  Alex bent and placed a kiss on her adorable pout.

  She pushed at him playfully. “I’m sure my cousin won’t be the only lady disappointed by your engagement.”

  “Our engagement.” Alex’s gut clenched when he thought of the other women who might have a less than pleased reaction to their announcement. He hadn’t been the most reliable of lovers, but he’d never made promises he had no intention of keeping. Perhaps he deserved a bit of feminine wrath but Felicity did not. He’d do his best to quell the backlash. Then a much more pleasant thought struck. “I will enjoy telling Lord Kenniston our news.”

  The hand she’d placed on his chest to push him away in jest clenched into
a tight fist. “What if he reveals my past indiscretion?”

  “He won’t, sweetheart.” Alex sheltered her hand with his. “The man was every bit as indiscreet himself. I suspect the bounder is far more interested in protecting his reputation than ruining yours.” He cast no judgement on Felicity for following her heart, but he still loathed the notion of any other man touching her.

  Still, it wasn’t Kenniston, any of the gathered aristocrats, or even the rumormongers back in London that worried Alex. His aunt’s resistance would be their main stumbling block.

  “You’re worried.” Felicity spoke softly as she reached up to clasp her hands around his neck. The movement melded her chest to his, arched her hips into his. Holding this woman made sense, made everything ahead seem right, made him look forward to the future. As long as she was there. As long as he could hold her every single day.

  “Not truly. Not anymore.” He’d convince his aunt. She wasn’t his father. In the end, she would wish for his happiness above all else. “Worrying is what I’ve been doing for months. Fearing the future, imagining any way I could escape.” He cupped her cheek in his palm, swept his thumb across her lips. “Then you walked onto my aunt’s terrace and chastised me about a note I didn’t write.”

  “And you wondered why your aunt had let such a wretched woman into her home?”

  Alex hunched until their foreheads touched. “I wondered how I could make you wish to stay, and keep you from ever walking away again.”

  “Now you’ve done it. You’ll be stuck with me forever.”

  “Yes, sweetheart.” He didn’t deserve this much bliss. He’d broken hearts, avoided responsibility, lived only to please himself. But he wanted this gift she offered. Wanted her by his side always. “Forever.”

  ABOUT THE AUTHOR

  Fueled by Pacific Northwest coffee and inspired by multiple viewings of every British costume drama she can get her hands on, Christy Carlyle writes sensual historical romance set in the Victorian era. She loves heroes who struggle against all odds and heroines who are ahead of their time. A former teacher with a degree in history, she finds there's nothing better than being able to combine her love of the past with a die-hard belief in happy endings.

  To keep up with Christy’s upcoming releases, read exclusive excerpts, and be the first to get notification of giveaways, sign up for her newsletter here.

  Connect with Christy via Twitter @writerchristy or follow her on Facebook.

  If you enjoyed this story, the kindest thing you can do for an author is to take the time to review his or her book on Amazon, Barnes & Noble, Kobo, Apple, or at Goodreads.

  You can find Christy’s Goodreads page here.

  Stay tuned for Rules for a Rogue, the first novel in the Romancing the Rules Series, coming from Avon Impulse in November 2017!

  COMPLETE BOOK LIST

  Scandalous Wager

  Wanton Wager

  Reckless Wager

  One Scandalous Kiss

  One Tempting Proposal

  One Dangerous Desire

  Here’s a sneak peek of Never Trust a Scoundrel, coming September 2017!

  Excerpt from

  CHAPTER ONE

  Maxwell, Viscount Devery, was in the midst of a huff.

  Firm arms flailing, elegant hands gesticulating, long legs pumping, he stomped a path back and forth across his brand new Aubusson rug. Vases and knickknacks, freshly dusted by his two young housemaids, rattled like dry leaves in a wind storm.

  Both housemaids were outside the door of the drawing room while Lord Devery’s storm raged, fussing over who got first dibs staring at him through the crack in the frame. When impassioned, the man was simply too delicious a sight to miss.

  In his fashionable Bond Street clothing, when his attentive valet had clipped his hair and shaved his chiseled features, the viscount was every inch an Adonis. But now, striding about in shirtsleeves with silky black hair riffling in disheveled waves over his head and his deep voice roughened with fury, he was more akin to a warrior. The young maids were certain he’d win any battle, if only by incinerating his enemies with one of his infamous “devastating Devery” gazes.

  When the viscount wasn’t dominating their attention, the housemaids spared longing glances for his handsome friend, Grayson Thorne, Earl of Rothwell, who sat bearing the tirade from one of the viscount’s plush new settees. Though less volatile, Lord Rothwell was no less appealing. Golden, lean, and taut—like a lion ready to pounce—he carried himself with a lithe grace no woman could help but admire. And if his beauty wasn’t compelling enough, the earl’s prospects were. The man was first in line to a dukedom.

  “Wasn’t it always meant to be a parody? How could anyone imagine a book titled The Rogues’ Rulebook to be anything but a farce?” Devery stopped long enough to swipe his snifter from the mantle and swig down a bit of the amber liquor inside. “Rogues don’t have rules! If they did, they’d be as boring as proper gentlemen.”

  “Perhaps the reading public hopes it’s all true.” Rothwell subtlety lifted his pocket watch from his waistcoat and glanced at its face.

  “They prefer to believe the three of us are incurable rogues? Because London needs more rogues, apparently.” With a third friend, Alex Evering, Max and Gray had authored a scandalous book they dubbed The Rogues’ Rulebook. Beyond whatever roguish deeds had already marred—or enhanced—each man’s reputation, they were now feted and famed for the utterly outrageous tales recounted in their book. Readers had come to believe each man as libidinous as the stories, many of which they’d dreamed up during a boring country house party over far too much French brandy.

  “Is it truly so burdensome?” Gray quirked a tawny brow, doubt writ large in his aquiline features.

  “Look at me.” Max gestured at his rumpled clothing, then scrubbed a hand along his unshaven jaw. “I’m a prisoner in my own home. When I go out, women pursue me like a Bow Street runner hunts a thief.”

  “And you’re never tempted?”

  “Tempted? I’ve no interest in chastity, Gray. I pleasure as many as I can, but a man needs to eat and sleep. A body requires recuperation.”

  Gray chuckled, thoroughly unsympathetically. “The furor will die down, and you can soon go back to pleasuring a reasonable amount of women, I’m sure.”

  Max swigged down the final gulp of brandy. “From your lips to—”

  “My lord, a caller for you.” Mr. Fenwick, Max’s recently hired butler, was an inordinately tall, straight man and possessed an irritating habit of interrupting at the worst possible moment.

  “Have you lost your mind, Fenwick? I’ve told you I am not at home to anyone.”

  “I do recall your directive, my lord.” The balding servant nodded solemnly.

  “It was a command.”

  “Yes, of course, my lord. I do recall your command.”

  Max turned back to Gray and took a breath to continue his rampage, though he’d be damned if he could recall precisely where he’d left off.

  “But this caller is a young lady, my lord,” Fenwick persisted.

  “There, you see! It never ends.” Max thrust a finger at Gray, who sneered down his aristocratic nose at the digit, every ounce the duke he would soon become.

  “A young lady who—”

  “No, Fenwick.” Max stomped toward the door and lifted a hand to push his butler out of the room bodily, if it came that.

  “…says she is…” Fenwick continued, apparently unperturbed by his master’s approach.

  “Good God, man, do you mean to provoke me to violence?”

  “…Lord Westing’s sister.”

  “Emily?” Max stopped as if he’d slammed nose first into a wall.

  “Miss Emily Danbury.” The elderly butler held a calling card at eye level and squinted at the buttery yellow square of paper. “So it says here, my lord.”

  A memory, bright and refreshing, bloomed in Max’s mind. Brown curls, peach plump cheeks, and a silly little giggle. Even Westing adored his siste
r, and as the brother of three sisters, Max knew that was an extraordinary feat. A kind of giddy relief fizzed up his chest. Knots in his neck and shoulders began to unfurl.

  Emily Danbury—a light, frothy counterpoint to all the drama of the past months. His own sisters were married and settled. He hadn’t been able to tease or talk nonsense with them in years. He longed to spend time with a female who had no wish to bed him, one who did not tempt him to think of divesting her of every inch of satin and silk.

  “By all means, send her in.”

  After looking at Max for a full minute as if he’d completely lost his mind, Gray rose swiftly and announced, “I’ll be off then.”

  “We’ll see each other at the club on Thursday and finish this discussion then.”

  “Oh, goody. Something to look forward to.” The problem with Gray’s sardonic quips was his dry delivery, without a hint of humor. If he didn’t know the man better, Max would consider Rothwell an insufferable prig.

  When the earl had departed and Fenwick hied off to fetch Miss Danbury, Max walked to the mirror over the mantel and sighed. Nothing about the blue-black crescents under his eyes or wild disarray of his hair made him look at all the sort of man who should be entertaining an innocent young woman on a Monday afternoon. He stared at his debauched reflection and wondered when the lines across his forehead had formed. And where had he acquired those divots between his brows?

  Poor Miss Danbury was calling alone at the home of a notorious rake. He wondered if she knew of his frightful reputation. Surely she’d heard of the Rogues’ Rulebook. Why come unaccompanied by her brother? Was she in the midst of some dilemma that required his aid? Perhaps Westing was ill and unable to come with her himself.

  Once again Max cursed the infamy that damned book had wrought. He’d been out of touch with friends and family for weeks.

  Before he could worry more or do anything to settle his disheveled state, Fenwick’s tread halted at the drawing room threshold. “Miss Emily Danbury to see you, my lord.”