Chapter Ten

The Oak's Pleasure was the smallest of the three brothels and the furthest from the docks. Talia wanted to start in that establishment, partly because she hoped its size and proximity meant it was the least depraved of the three, and partly because she still held out hope that Louise was not in the nastiest of nasty places.

Once darkness had fallen, begging for a job from the barkeep had gone well in the back alley, especially at the ridiculously low price she had named for her services. Five hours into hauling chamber pots and scrubbing ancient spit from the ragged front wood of the bar, Talia bent down to the floor behind the chair Fletch sat in to clean up a glass that had shattered. Shattered by her husband, for just that very purpose, she guessed. Setting the chamber pot she had been carrying onto the floor by her black skirts, she started picking up the shards of glass, angling her head to be close to the curved wooden slats along the back of Fletch's chair.

"Anything?" Fletch asked, his mouth hidden behind a tankard of ale.

"Nothing," Talia whispered loudly enough for him to hear with the off-key pianoforte clanging out a tune across the room. "And I have seen all the rooms except for the ones on the third floor above."

"We only have an hour left, maybe less. It is getting too raucous in here, and I will drag you away if I have to."

Talia stifled a sigh, tossing glass into the pot. She dragged her forearm across her face, hiding her mouth. "I am attempting to make my way up there now."

Fletch gave a slight nod, setting the tankard in front of him on the small square table. He raised his hand to a barmaid, waving her over.

Talia dropped the last few shards of glass into the chamber pot, happy she only cut her fingers twice. Wiping the two lines of blood on her apron, she picked up the chamber pot and began to snake her way through the small, closely bunched tables to the back door.

Two tables away from Fletch, a drunkard tossed his arm out, capturing Talia around the waist. She spun, sending liquid from the pot splashing onto his arm. It made no difference to the louse. The weight of his arm went heavy on her belly, dragging her down onto his lap.

She shoved at his arm, trying to twist away while not sending the contents of the entire pot onto her clothes. Blast it. The drunk was already waving his hand at the main procurer.

Talia had identified the brothel's procurer early in the night. Smartly dressed with a keen eye on the room, he was the one that made the deals, completed the transactions for the prostitutes working the floor. And if the drunk clamping her down, grinding her into his lap was waving at the procurer, it only meant one thing.

She squirmed harder, trying to escape the drunk before the procurer made his way across the wide room. Five tables away. Three tables away. One table away.

"Three shillings. She be gross—a wretch smelly and dirty ‘er be, but it be all I got," the drunk clutching her to his lap shouted out past her shoulder.

A hideous blast of his breath, straight past his three black teeth, sent her head spinning.

Talia attempted to not be offended by the cur calling her gross—that was what she had intended with her appearance—but the man's own level of disgustingness gave him little right to judge.

The procurer stopped at the edge of the table just as Fletch stepped in front of him, blocking Talia from his view.

Fletch leaned forward, talking into the procurer's ear. The procurer leaned to the side, looking Talia up and down, and then quizzical, he looked back to Fletch.

Fletch nodded, then leaned forward to say something else Talia couldn't hear.

With a shrug, the procurer stepped around Fletch, grabbing Talia's arm and wrenching her away from the drunkard and to her feet. "You're to go with this one, wench."

"But oye—oye—oye be clean'r, sir. No more. No more." Talia dropped her words into her thickest gutter accent, clutching the chamber pot to her chest in feigned fright.

"She will do." With a nod, Fletch handed the procurer a sack of clinking coins.

Tucking the coins into an inside pocket, the procurer grabbed the edge of the pot Talia held, ripping it from her as he shoved her toward Fletch. Talia sprawled into Fletch with a terrified squeal, clawing at his clothes to catch herself before she fell.

"Room fourteen, third floor," the procurer said.

Fletch gripped Talia's upper arm, forcibly pushing her out in front of him as he weaved them through the maze of tables. She squirmed and twisted, making a show of wanting to escape his grasp.

They made it past the door that led to the stairs and Fletch loosened his grip on her. He wrapped his arm about her shoulders, drawing her into him as he ushered them up the skinny flights of stairs.

"You could have acted faster." Her accent dropped with her harsh whisper as she glared up at him.

"I wanted you to fully understand what an asset having your husband accompany you to a brothel would be."

She smacked his chest. "That was a lesson? You ogre. You saw how that drunk was manhandling me, and you just let it happen."

"You were in no danger." He squeezed her shoulder. "And he got most of that pot spilled onto him, which was well done by you. You knew what you were doing, and I knew what I was doing."

"You are an arse." She stomped up the next three steps next to him and then glanced up at him. "But thank you. What now?"

Fletch shrugged. "We go upstairs and have sex, I suppose."

Her eyes flew wide. "No."

Fletch didn't curb his smirk.

Moments later, they slipped into room fourteen. A bed, neatly made with a shiny, blood-red coverlet commandeered the middle of the room. In front of the bed sat a backless bench, half the width of the bed, upholstered in red and black stripes with the sides swooping upward into Grecian scrolls. Draperies matching the blood-red coverlet lined the far wall.

Talia glanced up. A large mirror was attached to the ceiling. She had seen it in many of the brothel rooms, yet still wondered at it.

Fletch freed her shoulders from his arm.

"This room is much nicer than the ones below," Talia said. "Cleaner, as well."

He moved to face her, leaning in, his mouth next to her ear as he dropped his voice to a whisper. "Speak softly. There are always holes in rooms like these." He stood straight, his voice normal. "When one pays for the whole night, one gets better treatment."

Her look flew around the room, looking for holes. She went to her tiptoes to reach his ear. "All night? How long is it expected that we stay in here?"

Fletch slid his hands down around her waist, burying his face in her neck. "I imagine for at least a few minutes. I look virile, after all." His nose rubbed the handkerchief that wrapped over her ear. "I hate this blasted wrap on your head."

His fingers moved up and started to slide under the edge of it, but she caught his wrist. "Leave it. I still have to check the rooms on this floor."

He dropped his hand back down to her buttock, squeezing it.

She smiled into the side of his face. "You can take it off when we get back to your house. And you can unwrap my bindings as well."

"You liked how I did that the other night?"

She nodded into the heat of his neck, her lips grazing the dark stubble lining his neck. "I did. You did it so slowly, your fingers slipping along my skin. I both wanted and did not want you to be the gentleman you were."

"Do not tempt me with visions of your naked body, Talia, or I will strip you down right now and take what I paid for."

She pulled slightly away from his neck. "You don't think to actually—"

"They have peepholes everywhere, Talia." Both of his hands slid down, tightening his hold on the curve of her backside. "We have to make this look real."

She looked around the room. "The bed?"

"No. You are mine, Talia. I am not about to let a lecher see you. Not about to let the slightest bit of your skin show." Fletch moved backward, lifting her slightly and dragging her on her toes along with him.

For all she didn't care for Fletch's constant manhandling, she couldn't deny the way her chest tightened when he staked claim to her. Raw and male. A primeval lust awakened in her core, teasing to the surface.

Reaching the scrolled bench at the foot of the bed, he sat. "Here. Straddle my lap. Your skirts will cover you and we can mock the motions."

His hands still clutching her backside, he drew Talia forward and split her legs, making sure her skirts still covered her legs down to her tall boots. She dropped to sit on Fletch's lap, the heat of her nestled onto the bulge in his pants.

His hand came up, fingers slipping under the back of the handkerchief covering her head, and he pulled her down to him, his lips meeting hers. They were creating a farce, but the kiss was the furthest thing from false. Fletch plied her lips, his teeth running along the swell of her bottom lip. His tongue plunging up, seeking to taste her deeply.

Her hips started moving on their own volition. Circling, gyrating slowly on his hard shaft as his tongue swept long strokes into her mouth.

What had been contained when she sat on Fletch's lap was quickly spinning out of control. Her core throbbed as she grew to despise the flap of fabric on Fletch's trouser that kept their bodies apart. Kept him from entering her.

If she had learned anything about herself in the past few days, it was that she was wanton, through and through, and she wanted Fletch deep inside of her at any opportunity.

His lips left her mouth, his hand shifting her head to the side as he traced kisses down her neck. Talia leaned into it, her eyes closing as her body demanded more. Her knees went wide, bracing on the bench to leverage herself harder onto him.

Her hips swung with force against the fabric of his trousers, his cock granite against the pulsating swell of her folds.

"Why do you do this to me?" Her voice came out in a raspy whisper, foreign to her own ears. "Make me want this, make me feel this when all I want to do is concentrate on finding Louise."

His lips did not leave her skin with his words. "I do this to distract you, Talia."

Her hips stopped circling and her eyes opened to look down at him. "Distract me from finding my sister?"

He held her in place with his left hand on her backside, his right hand dropping from her neck to dive between them and under her skirts. Invading the heat of her, his fingers found her pulsating core and he twisted his forefinger around it. Talia jerked from the sensation ripping through her—both fighting and wanting to succumb to his manipulation.

He nipped her neck, then ringed the spot with his tongue. "To distract you from your worry. It is destroying you, and there is nothing else we can be doing at the moment than this very thing."

His fingers flicked through her folds, and Talia curled onto him, clutching the back of his neck.

She dropped her head, her words in his ear. "This is too much, Fletch. I am throbbing. I need you in me."

His fingers stopped. "Damn, Talia. No."

"Yes. My skirts will hide everything." She reached down, pulling her skirts higher up to hide his abdomen before her fingers worked fast along the line of buttons on the front flap of his trousers.

His lips never left her neck. Denied her nothing.

His shaft free, jutting up, Talia went up onto her knees on either side of him, lifting herself and then guiding him into her depths as she descended. He filled her, massive, stretching her, but her slickness was her ally as he slid up into her, reaching so deeply within that she wondered at the ability of her body to accommodate him.

Her arms went wide to grab the tops of the side scrolls on the bench as Fletch gripped her hips, his thumbs digging into the flesh around her hip bones.

He lifted her slightly, rocking her in circles as he let her slowly descend. Torture. Her body met his and a scream escaped, catching in her throat as she buckled, burying herself tighter to him. He let her gyrate for a breath before lifting her again, taking the same cruel path downward with her body.

Her fingers nearly cracked the wood of the bench when he landed her fully onto him. He swiveled under her, the pressure on her core too much as her body ripped away from her conscious thought, the eruption gripping her every nerve, contorting her body as she ground wave after wave into him.

Gasping for breath, the rolling sparks of climax still seizing her body, she felt herself being lifted, losing his shaft from her body as he dropped her onto his thighs. A growl into her chest, and she could feel Fletch's body shudder violently under her, wetness suddenly smearing onto her thighs under her skirts.

Her mind only half aware, she realized he had just climaxed not inside of her. But outside.

She froze in place, her arms still wide, her chin curled over the top of his head, trying to comprehend what he had just done. Again.

A repeat of every time they had been together.

He didn't want to ejaculate into her.

Fletch had not done it once—always pulling free at the last moment.

Maybe she didn't understand something about sex. Even after all she had seen in the brothels. Maybe that was how he enjoyed it. Maybe he needed air, to not be constricted to come.

Maybe.

But the harsh truth of the only reason he wouldn't want to do so squirmed into her mind and began eating away at her thoughts.

He didn't want his seed in her body.

She wasn't good enough for it.

Wasn't good enough for him.

His body still twitched under her, but Talia could not take another instant of touching him.

She jerked backward, yanking her skirts with her and jumping to her feet. It left him bared to the world, but she didn't care.

Before Fletch could react, she grabbed the chamber pot from under the table by the bed and rushed toward the door. "I need to check the other rooms on this floor. And then we can be done with this place."

She sped out the doorway, escaping into the hallway and closing the door with held breath.

She stopped, gasping for air as she leaned against the door.

Fletch had married her. But he didn't want her. Not truly. She was beneath him after she had been ruined by her circumstances.

That much was evident.

She allowed herself one more gasp. The whimpered gargle of it spiked her ire, pride straightening her shoulders.

Giving herself a shake, she hurried down the hall, knocking on the first door she came to.

She had rooms to check.

***

"We will go to the Pink Filly tomorrow night. I am sorry your sister was not at the Oak's Pleasure."

Talia jumped, looking across to Fletch in the low lantern light of the carriage.

After she had checked the last rooms on the third floor, they had said very little as she had disappeared out the back of the brothel, and he had followed her, ushering her through the shadows to the carriage a block away.

She shifted on the carriage bench, nodding quickly, her gaze dropping to the dark blue cushion next to his right leg.

"What is amiss, Talia? It is more than your sister—you left me in that room with hardly a word and now you are avoiding me. You are not one to usually do so."

Her eyes stayed on the cushion, replaying in her mind the scene in the brothel room with Fletch. Maybe she misunderstood all of it. Maybe he had other reasons.

Or maybe she was very right about his opinion of her.

"Talia?"

Her gaze skittered up to him. "Why do you pull away—out of me? The first few times I did not think on it. I thought that was how you liked to…finish." Talia could feel her cheeks starting to burn, a hot flush blanketing her neck. "But I know. I have seen it in the brothels. That is what they do to avoid becoming with child—have the men finish outside of the women."

Fletch straightened on his bench. "Talia, you are making assumptions."

She shook her head. "I thought you wanted to satisfy your aunt with our union."

"I did."

"Yet you do not want me to be with child?"

His fingers ran through his hair, mussing it wild. He sighed. "No."

"No? But why?"

Fletch's jaw clamped shut, and he looked away from her, staring at an upper corner of the carriage.

Talia's gut sank. "Is it because of where I have been? What I done? What I have witnessed? I have ruined myself and I am beneath you."

She stared at him, stared at his eyes, waiting for the slightest twitch, the slightest blink to tell her she was wrong. Tell her she was imagining all of her worries.

He said nothing, his eyes trained on the dark corner.

The silent rejection blasted her, struck her deep in her chest, a brick of humiliation that threatened the very air she breathed.

Her chin dropped, her look landing on her lap as she tried to control her breathing, tried to control the panic threatening to seize her body.

What had she done? Married a man that thought so little of her, he could not taint himself with her blood?

The panic snaked around her belly, squeezing. It moved to her chest, cutting her breath. No. Not now. Her hands clamped together in her lap, fighting the fear gripping her. She could not break. Not now. Not in front of him.

He would see how his rejection affected her, and she could not allow that.

If he did not think she was worthy of him, then she sure as hell would not let him have the satisfaction of seeing her falter at the news.

Talia parted her lips slightly, trying to draw an even breath. It only came in ragged, halting.

She needed to stop thinking of Fletch. Stop considering him as part of her life now.

She gulped another breath. It brought air into her lungs. Not a lot, but enough to hold at bay the panic attempting to seize her.

He had said one year.

Maybe it was time to convince him a much shorter time period would be convenient for both of them.