Chapter 23

Wasn’t it you who just—not even an hour ago—promised that you were going to leave The King’s Purse and go home to Berkeley Square after your drink?

Yes, it had been him. And that had been Fast’s intention, too. Yet here he was, breaking his word to himself yet again.

Fast had known Lorelei Fontenot was trouble from the first time he’d seen her. He’d felt the spark of desire for her even last year at Avington’s betrothal ball, when she’d been covered from toes to chin in a hideous gown that looked like it belonged to somebody’s spinster aunt. Even when she’d had the audacity to accuse him—in the middle of a ton ball, for pity’s sake!—of engaging in child prostitution.

True, the spark he’d felt for her had quickly been overwhelmed by fury, but it had been there all the same.

He should have gone back to Berkeley Square tonight rather than come here. He should have danced attendance on his grandfather, who was already seething that Fast wasn’t living in the family house.

He should have kept her prisoner somewhere else. Perhaps at his family’s estate in Scotland. Somewhere far, far away from him.

He should have done just about anything other than come back to The King’s Purse and immediately— immediately —arrange to have dinner with her.

Quite frankly, the list of things he should have done was almost as long as the list of things he was about to do to her.

Fast shrugged off what he should have done and gave himself up to the pure sensual pleasure of having her in his arms, reveling in the feel of her full sweet lips pressed against his and her soft, curvaceous bottom balanced on his thigh.

How in the hell could a man resist such temptation?

He groaned when she suddenly pulled away. “What is it now?” he asked with a distinctly sulky tone in his voice.

“Yes,” she said, her pupils all but swallowing the magnificent green of her irises.

“Yes, what?”

She laughed softly. “Yes, Fast. I will go to bed with you.” She paused and then added, “Yes, I will m-make love to you.”

Fast stroked the sweet curve of her jaw. “You know if we have intercourse there is always the chance you might conceive, even if I am careful?”

She nodded.

“You needn’t do this just to please me, darling. There are other ways we can amuse ourselves. We don’t have to—”

“I want to.”

Fast shot to his feet, lifting her along with him and making her laugh. “I want to see all of you this time,” he said, carefully lowering her to her feet.

“I want to see all of you ,” she shot back, reaching for his coat, her fingers fumbling slightly with the buttons.

“I suspect that could be arranged,” he said as he began to pull the pins from the elegant coronet of hair. “I like this style a great deal more than the one you wore the last time,” he murmured, unraveling the thick plait and running his fingers through the strands until they fell in a wavy black curtain to her hips. He buried his nose in a fistful of it. “It smells better, too.”

She laughed. “It took two washes to rid it completely of that horrid rose scent. Now, step back,” she ordered, shrugging out of his grasp so she could push his coat and waistcoat from his shoulders.

“So impatient,” he chided, amused by her intent stare and urgent hands.

When he reached for the buttons on her gown—the practical sort that fastened up the front—she pushed his hands aside. “No. I want to undress you, first.”

“As you wish.”

She cut a quick glance up at him and snorted.

“What is so amusing?” he asked, turning his wrists up so she could remove his cufflinks.

“You don’t look at all shy at the prospect of being nude.”

“Should I be?”

She ignored his question. “How many women have undressed you?”

Fast took her hands in both of his and stilled them. “Look at me,” he said when she stared down at her feet, her jaw clenched. “Lorelei.”

Her head whipped up. “You enjoy using that bossy tone with me, but I’m not one of your sailors.”

“Believe me, sweetheart, I have never mistaken you for one of my men. As to the other matter, I have been with a great many women. But right now”—he transferred her wrist to his other hand, easily holding both her arms with one hand so that he could cup her face. “Right now, I’m only thinking of one woman—and that is you.”

She glared for a moment, but then jerked a nod.

***

Lori couldn’t believe that she was stripping Lord Stand Fast Severn naked.

And he was letting her.

You should put a stop to this now. You will be devastated when this is over…

The joy she’d been feeling began to shrivel.

“What is it?” a deep voice rumbled beneath her fingers. “You look as if you swallowed a fly, Lorelei.” He stilled her hands. “Look at me,” he ordered yet again.

“What?” she retorted, not caring how rude and petulant the word was.

“We don’t have to do this. You can change your—”

“I don’t want to change my mind.”

“Then what made you look so dejected?”

“I wasn’t dejected,” she lied. “I was just thinking.”

“About?”

“It’s a bit embarrassing to engage in love making when a person knows so little about the matter. I’m bound to be a disappointment after all your experience.” It wasn’t what she’d been thinking about, but it wasn’t a lie, either. She might have lain with Dorian a half-dozen times, but she’d taken nothing away from the rushed, furtive encounters.

“Hush,” he murmured, pulling her closer. “You couldn’t disappoint me if you tried.” He claimed her mouth with one of his wits obliterating kisses, his strong hands stroking her back in a soothing way while his lips and teeth and tongue slowly broke her into a thousand little pieces.

When he began to withdraw, she chased his retreating tongue, first sucking him into her mouth and then exploring him the way he always did her.

He rewarded her boldness with a low growl that sounded so much like the purr of a huge cat that she laughed and pulled away.

He grinned down at her. “See what you do to me? You turn me into an animal.” He purred again.

“A larger version of Mr. Pouncefoot-Jones?”

He nuzzled her neck. “But I won’t steal your garters.”

She laughed.

“You don’t need to worry about a lack of skill. Trust me. My cock is hard for you all the time, even when you’re pestering me with questions I’m suffering for the want of you.”

“What a martyr you are,” she accused, a reluctant smile twisting her lips.

He laughed, released her, and pointed to his cravat. “Get back to work.”

Still smiling, she pulled off his neckcloth. For some reason, the action made her think of something else entirely. “I believe Mr. Gregg has designs on my friend Freddie.”

His eyebrows shot up, but something about his surprise didn’t seem real. “You wish to talk about this now ?”

“You already knew about his interest in her, didn’t you?”

He shrugged.

“He’s not the right sort for her—not even as a lover.”

“They are both adults, Lorelei. I’m sure Lady Sedgewick can put him in his place if Gregg steps out of it.”

Lori grunted and then reached up and unbuttoned the single button that held his collar closed, an action which caused his shirt to fall open, exposing a delicious expanse of golden-brown skin.

“What is it?” he asked when she stared.

“You’ve got hair on your chest.”

He smirked. “Guilty as charged. Why do you look so startled?”

“The drawings I saw didn’t have hair.”

“What drawings were those?”

“Never you mind.”

“Didn’t your lover have any hair on his chest?”

“That’s none of your concern,” she said, not wanting him to know that Dorian had never bothered to do more than unbutton his fall, as if Lori was a whore he’d encountered in a Covent Garden alley. What had seemed like passion when she’d been seventeen now looked like what it was: selfish haste. Lord, but she had been foolish!

“Lorelei? Is aught—”

“Lift your arms,” she ordered.

When he complied, she tried to tug his shirt over his head.

“Oye! Not so violently or you’ll tear off an ear,” he complained, his voice muffled by the cloth over his face.

“Bend lower so I can reach.”

He obeyed and she pulled off the garment.

Lori did not bother to hide her interest in his torso, which was indeed glorious—hair and all. His body was not as dark as his face and neck, but it was clear he’d spent time in the sun. “Did you go about on your ship without a shirt?”

He blinked at the question. “On occasion. Er, you’re wrinkling that. Bixby will be most displeased and scold me.”

She tore her gaze from his nipples, which were a darker pinky-brown than her own and absurdly tiny. “What?”

He gestured to the shirt that she’d not realized she was clutching in a death grip. “My valet gets personally affronted if any of my clothing comes to harm.”

Lori couldn’t have cared less about his valet. She was fascinated by the way the hair grew on his chest, swirling around his nipples and then thinning to a fine line that led between the fascinating musculature of his abdomen down to his navel.

But it didn’t stop there.

It continued in a much finer line that disappeared beneath his low-slung breeches.

A big warm finger slid beneath her chin and tilted her face up and up until she met his warm, amused gaze. “You appear to be fascinated by my body hair. Does it revolt you?”

“No.” Her face heated but she forced herself to say, “No, it doesn’t revolt me. I like it.”

He nodded slowly. “Good.”

Lori gave his chest a shove. “Sit,” she ordered. “Boots next.”

***

“Give me your foot,” Lorelei ordered.

Fast complied and she turned and straddled his calf, the sight of her bottom pressed against the thin fabric of her gown making him wish like hell that he’d stripped her naked first.

He gripped the armrests as she yanked on the boot hard enough to pull him half-way out of the chair.

Once she’d repeated the process a second time, she sank to her knees in front of him and reached for his placket.

Fast gritted his teeth to keep from groaning when the heel of her hand bumped his erection. He had to grit even harder while she methodically worked the five buttons that held his breeches closed.

Once the last button had been opened, he lifted his hips and she pulled down his breeches slowly, her eyes licking over him like fire as she stripped him, until only his monstrously tented drawers remained.

And then she spent an inordinate amount of time carefully folding his breeches—as if she’d suddenly been stricken with shyness—before turning back to him, her gaze snagged by his cock.

Amused by her rapt stare, Fast reached down, curled his fingers around his shaft, and stroked himself from root-to-tip.

Her eyes instantly leapt to his. “Does that feel good?” she asked in a raspy voice.

“Not as good as if you were doing it.”

She caught her lower lip with her teeth, her eyes riveted to him, but her body motionless.

“Touch me, Lorelei.”

She hesitated only a few seconds before reaching for him, her long, elegant fingers twitching slightly before they closed around him.

Fast’s eyelids fluttered. “Yessss,” he hissed when she commenced petting him, her awkward touches by far the most erotic he’d ever felt.

“I want this off,” she said a moment later, not taking her eyes from his muslin sheathed shaft.

Fast pulled the tape on his drawers and pushed the material lower. Her eyes widened as she stared down at his exposed cock. When she did not move to touch him, Fast stroked himself until the foreskin slid back to expose the sensitive, bulbous crown. And then he squeezed.

Lorelei sucked in a breath when a bead of liquid formed on the tiny slit.

Fast aimed the swollen head toward her and said, “Will you take me in your mouth, Lorelei?”