Chapter 14

L atimer should have left.

He should’ve taken his arse the rest of the way to the Duchess of Argyll’s and gotten on with the business of a betrothal, a marriage, and the ultimate prize—ownership of his newest club, The Devil’s Den.

But he hadn’t done any of those things.

Instead, he sat at the same table, in in the same taproom of the same inn where he and Livian Lovelace spent last evening alone, speaking.

Only, this time, he had an entire tap room of the same drunken villagers for company.

Tankard in hand, Latimer considered the stairs leading to the rooms above. When he’d instructed Caleb to keep an eye on his mistress, Latimer anticipated a show of defiance and fury. He had anticipated not only would Livian defy Latimer’s instructions within an instant of being back at the old inn, but that she would set herself up in the tap room.

At which point, she would’ve of course found him seated there, just as he’d been since he returned from the old, muddy road. And just as he’d been for the rest of the damn day and now night, reliving the unbridled way she’d ridden his leg and fingers, and called his name.

Since he’d parted ways with the innocent temptress, he’d had a massive cock-stand that wouldn’t quit. No, if anything, his erection grew more violent and painful with every passing minute and thought of her.

Which made it all for the best that they didn’t cross paths again.

Wonder of wonders, in steering clear of him, the spirited chit proved to have a brain in her head after all.

Latimer gave his head a rueful shake. He should be pleased as a pig in dung.

He took a swig of ale.

But he’d be lying to himself if he didn’t acknowledge, he kinda hoped to find her down here.

She…

“Some fancy lord’s sister she is, Felchin says, anyway.” A patron’s words cut through Latimer’s ruminations and were followed by protestations from another fellow.

Latimer went stock-still.

“…not a sister, Toms,” one man was saying. “Believe he said sister-in-law…”

Livian.

All his attention snapped on high alert.

A third fellow piped in. “You fools; she’s not a young miss.”

At being questioned, Toms bristled with annoyance. “Aint’ old, either, Scott.”

“Ain’t my point,” Scott said, like a wizened elder counseling the young. “With the way she looks and dresses, if she’s an earl’s sister or sister-in-law, she’d be married.”

The purveyor of information managed to silence the previously confident lot.

Latimer narrowed his eyes on the trio of men.

Engrossed as they were in their discussion, they failed to note the lethal glare Latimer fixed their way. For if they had, they’d have known not only to shut their bloody, reckless mouths but the greater peril they, with each word spoken, found themselves in.

The fool who’d die first this night, pressed his point. “No nob’s gonna let one of his own, sister or sister-in-law, go journeying alone through the country…”

Toms scratched at his receding hairline. “Dresses fine like a lady.”

Murmurs of ascent went up around the group.

Scott dug in. “You know who else dresses fine like a lady?”

A crackling, incandescently hot fury, blazed to life within Latimer.

He seethed.

Dead.

Toms, clearly the village lackwit, needed further clarification. “Who?”

“Mistresses, you dolt,” came Scott’s exasperated, answering reply. “ Mistresses do.”

Another chorus of ‘ahhhs’ went up, swallowing Latimer’s savage growl.

I’ll kill Scott here and now and then finish off each of his friends for having discussed Livian Lovelace.

“But…”

Oh, there would be no ‘buts’ about it. They were dead. Each and every last one of the sorry sods.

All the men—including, Latimer—looked to the fellow seated to the left of Toms.

Scott, the leader of the sorry sods, let out an exasperated sigh. “What is it, Eli?”

“It’s just if the woman is in fact, some fancy lord’s mistress,” Eli spoke slowly, like he was talking himself through the puzzle, “then why is she stranded here?”

Stranded.

Latimer’s entire body tensed.

They know she’s alone.

Her brother-in-law, the earl.

Latimer added that other stranger to his rapidly growing list of men he’d kill. The man whose identity he’d find out and make pay the price for not having himself, properly looked after Livian.

“…done with her, he is,” Scott was saying. “Why else would he leave her, which means one thing?”

Latimer gnashed his teeth.

Do not say it. Do not say it…

“What’s that?”

The older, fatter Scott kicked the legs of his chair back and preened. “She’s in need of a protector.”

Eli snorted. “And you think some fine lady who was a fancy toff’s mistress is going to take up with you now, instead?”

Thunderous laughter met the somewhat wiser Eli’s question.

If Latimer weren’t splintering apart into shards of icy fury, he might have joined in at the sheer stupidity and arrogance of the bastard.

Color splotched Scott’s fleshy cheeks. “What’s so diverting about that?” he asked, indignantly over the raucous mirth. “Unlike you sorry chaps, I’m a squire.”

That managed to quell Squire Scott’s detractors.

“In fact,” the pompous prig continued, giving his lapels a tug. “I’m going to say goodbye to you commoners and pay a visit to the lady myself. We shall see who is laughing when I’m enjoying the chit’s company .”

With wide, stupid eyes all on him, the fleshy squire hefted his big frame out of his chair and sauntered off.

Latimer narrowed his eyes on the unsuspecting dead man.

Then, when Squire Scott began his ascent, Latimer set his tankard down. It’d been some time, but he headed after his latest kill.

He found the old fool standing in the middle of the hall, twiddling his fat thumbs, and glancing back and forth at the doors on either side of him.

“Which room are you in, lovie?” Scott muttered, still slightly winded from having climbed the brief set of stairs.

“Looking for a certain lady?”

Gasping, the squire whipped around so quickly his corpulent belly swayed as if in slow motion from side to side.

When he faced Latimer, bright crimson stains splotched the squire’s bewhiskered cheeks.

Latimer folded his arms at his chest and glared at the shorter by almost a foot but fatter than five stone, squire.

“I…I…she’s your lady, then?” the gentleman whined.

“No.”

Relief took the place of the lackwit’s earlier fear.

Latimer held the other man’s beady eyes. “Nor is she yours, or will ever be, yours,” he whispered, cracking his knuckles.

Alas, Scott proved too arrogant and stupid to know the danger he was in.

“Ah, you want her, too?” the fool said in his whiny tones. He drew his paunch up. “I have no problem sharing her. I’ll even be the gentleman and let you have a go at her fir—”

Latimer was upon Scott in three long strides.

He had hands around his neck, before the last of the crude words left Scott’s fleshy lips.

Scott’s florid cheeks grew puffed and his mouth moved as he tried to get words out.

Latimer drove the fat bastard backward and pinned him against the wall. “Have you ever tasted your own blood, Squire Scott?” he snarled.

The gentleman’s eyes bulged; terror bled from their depths.

Latimer feasted on that fear, growing stronger, more powerful.

“If you think of going near her, if you speak her name or mention she was here…” Latimer tightened his hold upon the other man’s neck until guttural, death-like rasps spilled from his quivering lips. “If you so much as think of her, I’ll make you wish I killed you this day.”

He released his hold some. Even as Scott attempted to suck breath into his lungs, Latimer brought his fist back, and delivered three rear hooks in rapid succession, catching the squire’s right cheek.

Blood gushed from the squire’s broken nose; his eyes rolled to the back of his head.

Crazed, Latimer let go of the unconscious bastard and gave six rapid jabs before the unconscious shit-sack hit the floor.

Bloodlust pumped through Latimer’s veins. His chest heaving, his pulse racing, he stood over the squire’s fat, inert body.

He wanted to rip his jacket and shirt open, bare his chest, beat at himself like a savage animal, and then descend upon the one who’d dare besmirch Livian, all over again. He wanted to drag out the battle; toy with Scott like the filthy, inferior, prey he was, pulverize him until his own mother wouldn’t recognize him, and then feast upon his remains.

Shaking, Latimer scraped a hand through his damp hair.

What is happening to me?

Except, he knew, and it wasn’t a ‘what’ it was a ‘who’. Something about the winsome beauty, a bloody stranger to him almost two days ago, had Latimer all twisted up in knots.

His pulse hammered in his ears, and the sounds of taproom revelry came muffled as if down the length of an enormous, empty hall.

For him, a man who’d always been in full control of himself, his feelings, thoughts, and emotions and didn’t give a shite about anyone or anything beyond himself and his business goals, Livian’s ability to get under his skin—and stay there—represented the greatest peril he’d ever faced.

Go. Flee. Get the hell out of here. Save yourself.

It’s what he’d always done first and best—look after his self-interests.

Latimer needed to get away from Livian and fast. He had business to see to. Hell, a duchess to marry. Livian, the doe-eyed, clever, spirited, beauty stood in the way of everything.

With that sobering reminder, he took a quick step toward his rented room and stopped on unsteady feet.

Disoriented, Latimer looked down at the softly moaning, still knocked-out, bastard.

Were he to leave Livian to her own devices, any harm could—and would—befall her.

Mad. I’m going…

“ Lachlan ?”

That soft, hesitant, but familiar, musical voice penetrated the chaos spiraling inside him.

Wordlessly, he turned.

Livian, attired in a modest white wrapper and nightshift, stood there. She looked from Latimer to Scott and finally settled her big, luminescent, innocent eyes on Latimer.

Fuck.

Livian couldn’t sleep. Nor had it been the sounds of a short but violent fight outside her rooms that accounted for her sleeplessness.

That afternoon, after she’d returned with Caleb, she’d returned abovestairs and thought about Lachlan: the way he made her feel. The way he worried about her. The wicked and wonderful way he’d made her body come alive with passion. And the dream of a life with someone like him.

No, not someone like him.

Him.

“Lachlan,” she ventured, when he remained stock-still, his eyes glazed with rage, shock, and something akin to confusion.

Worriedly, she hurried from her room and rushed over. “Are you all right?” she asked, as she reached him. “Did he hurt y—?” Her question ended on a shuddery gasp as he took her wrist in his hand.

“Does it look like he hurt me?” he asked sharply.

Unnerved by this tightly coiled and never-before-seen side of him, she floundered for words. “N-No,” she said, shaking her head.

“Damned right he didn’t, sweetheart,” he barked.

Lachlan released her with such alacrity and force, she stumbled.

“Because I wasn’t his target.” He peeled his lip up in a sneer. “You, however, darlin’ could have been.”

Livian puzzled her brow.

This again.

And yet, instead of being affronted, she felt warmed all over, inside and out, that he should care about her well-being.

“Lachlan,” she said softly, resting her palms upon his lapel. “I assure you. I was in my room. The door was locked—”

“He was looking for you, sweetheart,” he hissed. “Like I said, one of these days, I won’t be there to protect you.”

She released a frustrated sigh. “Not everyone means me harm, Lachlan.”

How was it possible to be equal parts touched and irate with a person?

“God, you’re maddening,” he bit out.

“Which makes us a fine fit, as at this given moment, you are making me mad.”

The sounds of heavy footfalls and approaching voices cut short the remainder of their quarrel.

With a quiet curse, Lachlan, grabbed her again, this time by the hand, and steered her into her room.

He closed the door and locked it, just as footfalls reached the main landing.

Never relinquishing his hold, Latimer kept Livian anchored between his hard body and the sturdy wood panel.

The feel of his broad, muscled chest against her and his oak-hard thighs pressed to hers, sent a rush of memories of what they’d done together, flooding in. Desire pooled between her legs.

Her breathing, in perfect match to Lachlan’s, grew shallow and ragged.

Livian stared at Lachlan’s beautiful, hard, mouth and tipped her chin up in a reflexive plea for his kiss.

His dark, sooty lashes swept low, and he dipped his head.

Muffled discourse broke out on the other side of the door and stopped Lachlan in his tracks.

Livian bit the inside of her cheek to keep from crying out in misery and frustration at the loss of his embrace.

“…is he dead…?”

Lachlan pressed a finger against her lips.

“Nah. Blubbering, he is.”

“I think he’s groaning.”

While various voices chimed in with questions and explanations, Livian laid her cheek against Lachlan’s chest and welcomed the white, radiant heat that poured from his body and into hers.

Against the flat of her belly, Lachlan’s shaft hardened.

Livian’s breath caught.

He wants me, too.

After that moment of passion between them, earlier in the day, with Lachlan’s cold mockery and insistence that he’d been teaching her a lesson, she’d believed him indifferent to her, and it had broken her heart.

Her eyes slid closed.

Only, to discover, she’d been wrong.

“Get him up, lads.”

That booming order brought her crashing to the moment.

“…guess the lady did not want his attentions, after all…” one man said.

That supposition was met with a bevy of laughter, that grew distant, and then faded altogether, until only the harsh rasp of her and Lachlan’s mingled breaths, remained.

Then, the weight of the last words those men had spoken, hit Livian.

“…guess the lady did not want his attentions, after all…”

Stunned, Livian aid her palms upon Lachlan’s chest. “You knew he intended to hurt me,” she whispered. “You followed him and beat him to protect me.”

He grunted.

Livian opened her mouth, but couldn’t find the words to speak, as a new discovery occurred to her.

“You didn’t leave,” she whispered.

His expression turned black. “Do you believe I’d let anyone harm you?”

That protective, possessive counter-question liquified her. “N-No,” she said, unsteady as she’d never been. “That isn’t…what I…you didn’t leave this afternoon.”

Latimer stared dumbly back. He had the look of a proud buck who’d just found himself in a hunter’s crosshairs.

“You stayed because of me,” she repeated, her voice catching.

Oh, God, help me. I am never going to be the same…

The icy smile to curve his lips quashed all that foolish, romantic, hope.

“You’re making more of it than there was, darlin’. I was in the right place at the right time. Like you, I had problems that kept me from getting on the road today.”

“Oh,” she said dumbly.

Of course.

Livian stuck her hand out. “I wanted to thank you again, for coming to my rescue.”

He gave a gentle smile. “I don’t need your thanks, Livian.”

Had he been curt, it would have been easier to bear than this heart-wrenching tenderness.

When he made no move to accept Livian’s handshake, she let her arm fall.

She drew in a steadying breath. “Either way, you have my g-gratitude.”

And here she’d been doing a fine-enough job of holding herself together, only to have that quaver to her last word, give her away.

Maybe he didn’t hear it.

No, he heard everything.

Maybe he’d pretend he hadn’t heard it.

Maybe he wouldn’t say anything.

And, there was a Lord, after all.

Or maybe there wasn’t. For Lachlan released her.

“Goodbye, sweetheart.”

Tears pricked her eyes, and she swiftly averted her gaze, cringing at the idea of Lachlan seeing them—and worse, knowing the reason for her misery.

Sweetheart. Her heart would never not sing just even remembering the husky, gravelly way he spoke that endearment to her and for her.

“Goodbye,” she said softly.

He moved his gaze over her face all the while looking as if he wished to say more. Without another word, he left.

Unmoving, Livian stared at the panel.

This is for the best. In fact, it would have been best had he left earlier in the day. Whatever madness raged between them, could not be explained, but of a certainty, there could never be a relationship with Lachlan.

Why, as it was, she had a future bridegroom awaiting her.

And Lachlan would go…see to whatever business required he make the journey to Kent in the godforsaken heart of winter.

Why, if that weren’t yet another reminder, she and he were nothing more than strangers.

Tomorrow, they would part ways. Livian would go off to meet—and marry—some stuffy, staid, pompous lord. That unknown-still-for-now gentleman would be the one to kiss her and touch her and do all the wondrous things Lachlan had done to her.

Except, it wouldn’t be at all the same. That cold, proper, unfeeling lord would lay between Livian’s legs and bed her with the sole intent of getting an heir on her.

Bile burned her throat. Closing her eyes, she swallowed frantically to keep from tossing up the contents of her stomach.

There would only be Lachlan Latimer. Long after he’d gone, the memory of his arms would live in her heart, mind, and soul. She wanted the memory of more than just his touch and kiss.

I want all of him.

Livian hugged her arms tighter around her middle, fighting the rising tide of sorrow, anger, and regret. Before she let logic rear its head and talk her out of it, she yanked the door open and raced outside.

Livian staggered to a stop.

Outside her room, with his legs stretched across the hall floor, sat Lachlan.

“Darlin’?” he asked, coming quickly to his feet. “Is everything all—”

“I want you to spend the night with me,” she blurted.

Lachlan frowned. “I’ll be right here,” he promised, gesturing to the place where he’d set himself up as her sentry.

My protector.

My guard.

My love.

“N-No.” She cleared her throat. “Forgive m-me. I know w-what we did earlier was wrong, and this…that is, what I’m asking…what I’m trying to ask, is even more s-scandalous. I just—”

Lachlan stood and brought his lips close to hers, and she gasped.

He cupped Livian by the nape; his hand spanned the entire width of her neck. A giant of a man, he could snap her like a twig. And yet, he handled her with an infinite tenderness, stroking the pad of his thumb over the spot where her pulse pounded for him. That juxtaposition stirred a familiar ache between her legs.

Wide-eyed, she stared at Lachlan.

“It’s all right if you wanted my embrace then, darlin’,” he said roughly; his powerful gaze pierced her soul. “There’s no shame in that.”

His hold upon Livian was so unwaveringly strong and possessive, it unleashed a fluttering within her belly, like that of a thousand butterflies flapping their wings as one.

A sigh slipped out and Livian tipped her mouth up to his. “Then, what I’m really trying to say is, spend the night with me.”

Lachlan’s fingers tensed at her nape.

“Livian,” he said slowly, his voice strained. “I don’t know what you’re asking of me.”

Yes, he did. He’d make her say it, anyway.

Fine.

Livian found the strength to speak in clear, solemn, unwavering, tones. “My husband is going to be a gentleman who will most certainly see me as his inferior. To him, I’ll be nothing but property. A vessel he uses to continue his line. There’ll certainly be no passion. No tenderness.”

With every word she spoke, the menacing glint in his eyes grew blacker and blacker.

Livian took Lachlan’s hands in hers and drew them to her breast. “I want to know what it is to be,” loved , “desired—truly desired.” In the absence of romantic love, she’d settle for pure, unbounded passion.

No, not just with any man, but with this one— Lachlan Latimer .

Before her courage deserted her, Livian lifted her chin. “Before I give myself to a husband, I want to know what it is to be held in the arms of a real man, Lachlan; a true gentleman, who will see to my needs, not just his own.”

And this marked her last chance.

“So will you?” she asked, shyly. “Make love to me?”

Lachlan’s harsh, angular features went taut, his body, tensed.

With an excruciating deliberateness, he untangled his hands from hers.

“Livian.” He spoke as gently as he might to a child, which somehow proved even more painful than his non-response. “You don’t know what you’re asking.”

“I do !” When her rebuttal came too vehemently, Livian repeated herself in calmer, more collected tones. “I do.

“You don’t though, darlin’.” Lachlan’s voice came strained. “You’re youn—”

At the look she gave him, he wisely corrected course. “You’re innocent,” he said bluntly. “You’ve never lain with a man, and to do so, it’ll only complicate things for you.”

She frowned. “Complicate things in what way?”

A ruddy flush splotched his cheeks. “Virgins, hell , most all women, romanticize things in their head.”

“You’ve bedded virgins?” she asked, already almost sure he hadn’t.

Lachlan blanched. “Hell, no!”

“I know,” she said gently. “I was teasing.”

It didn’t help. Lachlan had the panicky look in his eyes of a man ready to bolt.

“Virgins will take a carnal act, Livian, and call it ‘making love’, and then go about confusing desire for love.”

“ I won’t do that,” Livian said, softly.

She couldn’t .

She’d already fallen in love with him.

Lachlan leveled a flat, implacable stare upon her. “You won’t be able to help yourself, sweetheart.”

Livian feigned breeziness. “La, I didn’t take you as arrogant, Mr. Latimer.”

“For men—myself included, Livian?” he said bluntly. “Women are all the same. Sex is all the same. Women… especially ladies,” he continued, “they get their feelings involved. I’ve witnessed it firsthand after my partner bedded an innocent miss. What did that get him, a heartless, consummate bachelor whose business mattered more to him than anything?”

He answered before she could. “ Chained to that chit forever .”

Chained to that chit?

This cynical side of him gave her pause; it reminded her that admire Lachlan though she did, he was still a stranger.

“My sister once did extensive research on your club and its proprietors.” How I wished I’d given more attention to those pieces she’d ultimately collected and written.

“Given what I know of Mr. DuMond’s reputation,” she said soberly, “he does not strike me as a man compelled to do anything.”

He arched an eyebrow. “And?”

“ And , isn’t it possible he was, is, in fact, in love with his wife?”

It was the wrong thing to say. Talking to a jaded, experienced man about love hardly strengthened Livian’s argument.

Sure enough, Lachlan’s expression grew shuttered.

Then it hit her.

I’m all but begging him to make love to me.

No, I am begging!

Livian recoiled. An agonizing embarrassment started in her belly and swiftly spread.

Lachlan didn’t want to bed her because either he, one, didn’t desire her. Or, two, he might desire her some, but not enough to take the chance he’d risk being stuck with Livian for the rest of his life.

“I see,” she whispered, dumbly.

She wanted the floor to open up and suck her under to escape the utter humiliation and pain of Lachlan’s rejection.

Unable to look at him, Livian lowered her eyes and made to enter her room.

Lachlan shot an arm out quickly across the doorjamb, blocking her escape.

He placed his lips near her shoulder. The gentle sough of his breath, combined with the rough scratch of his stubbled cheeks, sent Livian’s eyelashes fluttering.

“And what exactly is it you think you see, love?”

The chore of answering his amused question, came more of the web of desire Lachlan wove about her senses, than embarrassment.

“You don’t…want me.”

Lachlan chuckled. “Is that what you think?”

He lightly nibbled her neck.

Livian sank her teeth into her lower lip. What had he said?

“Hmm?” he urged.

Oh, yes. Is that what you think?

“I-It is what I know.”

He trailed a path higher over her heated flesh.

“Lachl ahh —”

Oh, God. How was it possible for a person to make her feel this way?

Drawing her deeper under his spell, Lachlan, alternately licked, kissed, and nibbled at her nape. “Oh, I want you, love. If you knew how much, you’d run screaming and never look back.”

Never!

Abruptly, he spun her around and propelled her against the doorjamb. Passion blazed in his eyes. “There’s no such thing as ‘making love’. There’s only fucking,’ he said bluntly, vulgarly.

His words, intended to shock, only sent her body climbing to a fever pitch.

She took in a breath.

“Yes, Lachlan.” Livian twined her fingers about his nape and went up on tiptoes until their gazes met. “I want you to f-fuck me.” Her cheeks immediately flamed hot at having spoken those words.

A feral gleam lit his stare. “I fear, darlin’, you don’t know the half of what you’re asking me to do. Like I told you, I’m no gentleman.”

As if he sought to drive home that point once and for all, Lachlan took her hand and dragged it between them. He pressed Livian’s palm over the long, steely, length, tenting his trousers.

“Do you feel that?” he jibed.

Did she feel that?

Her breath hitched. She’d never felt anything as hard as his shaft. Like it possessed a life force of its own, the rock-hard muscle pulsed and throbbed under her fingers.

“I’m hot for you, Livian,” he warned, “and I don’t think I can name anything I’ve ever wanted more than to lay between your legs and bury myself deep inside you until you’re screaming my name and coming.”

Lachlan’s forbidden husky avowal rent a plaintive moan from Livian.

“I want that too,” she said, thickly.

His expression darkened. “This won’t be anything but sex, Livian. For me, there’ll be no feelings involved. We aren’t something more. We’re nothing.”

We’re nothing…

“I know.” I just wish we could be…

That silent yearning would have sent him running.

“Don’t say you weren’t warned, darlin’.” The same roguish, half-grin on his lips turned his warning into a promise, more powerful than any words.

He didn’t say anything more, though. He waited in silence and patience, and Livian knew he waited for her to make the first move.

This man, she’d feared at first, and fought, who’d only been gentle, even when disarming her.

She nodded shakily. “I-I would l-like that,” she stuttered, “for you to…that is.” Bringing her shoulders back, Livian made herself speak the whole of it without stammering. “Would you, please—”

The request hadn’t even fully left her lips, and Lachlan’s mouth was on hers. Never breaking contact, Lachlan drove them into the room and shoved the heel of his boot backward.

Thwack.

That crash of the door closing came muffled. He consumed her like she was his last meal on earth, and he intended to take her with him to the grave and beyond.

“That’s a question that should never leave your sweet lips, darlin’,” he rasped, between each, hard, masterful slant of his lips over hers. “You’re a queen, Livian.”

She wasn’t, but when he said it in his low, roughened, baritone, she could believe it.

“Don’t you beg any man for anything,” he ordered. “And certainly not for sex.”

“I-I’m sorry,” she said, gasping for breath.

She’d disappointed him.

“Those are the other ones,” he growled, biting at her lower lip.

Moaning, her head fell back.

“Any man—current company included—should bloody bow down at your feet and fucking beg to kiss your hem.”

Livian knew they were just words of worship in the throes of passion, but God, when he spoke them, she could believe herself to be the desirable woman he exalted.

He filled his palms with her buttocks and dragged her against his enormous length. “Not a single fellow on God’s green earth deserves you. Nobs are stupid as hell, and I’m all too happy to be the recipient of their neglect.”

But I’m not a lady.

That distinction, which mattered most to the men in the world she’d been thrust into, didn’t matter to this man. Lachlan didn’t dress things in pretty, polite words. He possessed a directness and rawness she’d yearned for in the man she’d one day marry.

Such wouldn’t be her future, but Lachlan Latimer offered a waking dream, and she was content to take even that smallest but most beautiful of scraps.

Drawing herself up on tiptoe, she twined her arms around his thickly muscled neck, held firm, and kissed him, a stranger by the definition of the word, whom she’d confided more with than she even had her own sister.

The back of her legs collided with the bed, this same bed where she and Lachlan first met.

“I won’t do any more than you want to do, darlin’,” he promised.

She whimpered. She wanted to be even closer to him.

“I want all of it, Lachlan,” she said. You, I want you.

“Same, darlin’. Same.” In one fluid motion, Lachlan shoved her wrapper off and lowered her nightshift. The chaste article slithered down around her legs and settled in a cotton puddle at their feet so that she stood naked before him.

Lachlan paused only long enough to run a hungry, appreciative gaze over her person.

Instead of shame, Livian felt the same power Eve surely had known with her sway over Adam.

“God, you are perfection,” he rasped, dragging his mouth over her neck and collarbone.

She sighed; that breathy exhalation dissolving to a hungry moan as he scooped her under her buttocks.

Relentless in his tormenting, Latimer sculpted his fingers into the flesh, massaging her, gripping her hard. The ache between her legs grew sharper, and of their own volition, Livian’s hips moved as she sought some relief.

“Let me feel how wet you are for me, darlin’. I’m going to bury my fingers inside your slit.” Then, with that crass promise, Lachlan slipped a finger inside her damp channel.

Her moan melded with his groan.

“Oh, sweetheart, you’re drenched—even more than you were this afternoon.”

Whimpering, mortified, she buried her head in his shoulder. Still, in Lachlan’s arms, and with him stroking her with his fingers, her body didn’t care more about decorum than it did, satiation.

She rocked furiously against him.

“Tsk. Tsk.” Chuckling, Latimer placed a kiss against her temple. “No, hiding. And none of this shyness,” he chastised. “Not from you, love.”

Love.

Yes! I want to be your love!

Abruptly, Lachlan—as if hearing her outrageous yearning—ceased his exquisite ministrations.

Livian cried out.

“Oh, sweet Livian,” he hoarsely promised. “I’ll give you everything you’ve ever dreamed of and more.”

With that, he glided another digit inside her.

She cried out.

“You need more than my fingers inside you, darlin’, or my leg to relieve yourself with. This time, you want my big cock.”

His shocking words only sent a fresh wave of heat flooding to her core.

She bucked uncontrollably against his fingers. Her body was climbing, straining toward some goal she didn’t fully know but intuitively understood.

“Aye, you want more than my touch,” he rightly predicted. “And me? I want to feel my naked skin against yours, sweetheart,” he purred like the lion, king of the jungle.

“I want that too, Lachlan,” Livian entreated, too desperate for him to care she again begged. Where this man was concerned, she had no pride.

He straightened and began to remove his clothes, and Livian knew a virtuous, good lady would have looked away. She couldn’t have if her soul’s place in heaven relied upon that modesty.

Riveted, she watched freely and boldly.

He shucked his jacket first. Then, with a speed that hinted at a shared franticness, he tugged his white lawn shirt, free of his trousers. As he drew the fine article overhead, each defined, rock-hard muscle of his abdomen and resplendently broad, bare chest, rippled.

Livian’s mouth went dry.

With Lachlan’s olive-hued, battle-scared skin and light matting of crisp, dark curls, he bore the splendor and virility of heralded warriors from long ago.

“You’re beautiful,” she whispered.

“Beautiful?” He chuckled. “That’s a first for me, love.”

“Then the women you’ve kept company with are as daft as they are dumb.”

Suddenly, Lachlan’s eyes grew dark, and all levity vanished.

He shoved his trousers down and kicked them to the side until he stood, completely naked before her.

Curiosity pulled her focus to that organ she’d never seen, and only touched through a layer of clothing.

She froze.

Assailed by a mix of awe, reverence, and horror, she stared at Lachlan’s thick, rampant member.

Under her wide-eyed, unblinking gaze, that swollen, angry-looking organ grew to impossible lengths.

“That’s not big , Lachlan,” she blurted. “It’s enormous.”

A strained laugh shook Lachlan’s body. “Darlin’ you’re great for a man’s pride.”

His. Even when she finally married, a nobleman, whom she still did not yet know, there’d never be another man for Livian, other than Lachlan Latimer.

She’d allow herself to mourn that later.

For now, she wanted no reality intruding on this moment.

Lachlan joined her in bed. “Part your legs for me.”

That harsh order fired her blood, and she let them splay for him.

He rewarded her obedience by roughly caressing her hip. “Good girl,” he growled.

“Do good girls really…let a man touch them so?” she breathed shakily, as he came down over her.

Another gentle laugh shook his frame. “The best girls do.”

“Lie back, sweetheart,” he ordered, settling himself between her legs. “The night has only just begun.”

On the heel of that dizzying promise, he lowered his mouth to her right breast and drew the swollen, sensitive tip deep inside.

She cried out.

Her hands came up reflexively and she tangled her fingers in his dark, cropped locks.

Closing her eyes, she gave in to the feel of his mouth on her.

He sucked, licked, and flicked his tongue over the sensitive peak; all the while with his other hand, he tweaked and tugged at the previously neglected tip.

“Lachlan,” she moaned, holding his head closer, never wanting him to stop.

Incoherent moans and pleas tumbled from her lips; the throaty, wanton, quality of her voice one she didn’t recognize as belonging to herself.

“You know, darlin’,” he rasped. “I think I’ve changed my mind. I like the sound of you begging, as long as I’m the one you’re pleading for.”

Enflamed by that possessive allowance, Livian’s hips went shooting up.

“You like my mouth on you,” he crooned.

“Yes!”

Let him believe it was the things he did to her body, and that alone, and not the dream of belonging to him that set her afire.

Parting her legs, he reached between them and pressed the heel of his four fingers against the throbbing ache at her center.

He stilled.

Livian wept.

But he was only sliding lower down her body.

Lachlan stopped when he lay with his head between her legs. Dazed, her eyes heavy with passion, she struggled up onto her elbows. “Wh-what are you d-doing?”

“Oh, sweetheart, you don’t even know the half of it,” he said thickly.

With that enticement, Lachlan pressed his nose against her mound of curls and inhaled deep. “You smell so sweet,” the vibration of his voice sent a delicious humming to her core. “Do you trust me, sweetheart?”

“More than anything or anyone,” she said, her voice catching.

Passion blazed brighter in his eyes.

“I’m going to kiss you here,” Latimer said huskily. He dragged a finger over the slit between her legs and then followed his tongue along that same path.

Livian’s brows shot up.

“I’m going to lick you and eat you like the finest dessert you are, darlin’.”

That wicked promise sent a fresh flood of heat rushing between her legs.

Lachlan chuckled; the sound pained and strained, and only slightly mirthful. “That made you come a little bit.”

He caught the gleaming fluid that’d seeped onto her thigh with a finger and licked. “How sweet you taste, love,” he praised. “I want more than a taste, love. I want the whole thing.”

Snarling, he buried his face between her legs and set to work delivering on all the promises he’d made.

There was nothing patient or gentle in the way he worshipped her with his mouth.

Panting and gasping, she lifted her hips, grinding herself against him.

“Slow, love,” he coaxed, his breath a sough upon her heated center. “Savor it. Yes,” he coached when she adjusted her thrusts. “Just like that, darlin’,” he praised as she relaxed and lifted slowly into each stroke of his tongue.

Closing her eyes, Livian gripped the sheets, held on for dear life, and surrendered herself fully to the wonder he wrought.

All the while, Lachlan slipped his tongue in and out of her, simulating the mating movements. He licked at her nub and the slight, gentle sucking pulled a strangled cry from her throat.

“As I predicted, love,” he panted, “sweeter than even the finest wine.” Lachlan filled his hands with her buttocks and brought her closer to his mouth.

He flung himself more deeply into the carnal task. He stroked her with his tongue, probed her. And as his efforts took on a greater intensity, he drove that hot brand of flesh inside Livian’s aching channel.

Incoherent with need, Livian thrashed her head back and forth. “Mmm. Mmm.”

He growled as he feasted on her; the rumbling reverberations caused her to cry out.

She’d never felt anything like this. There’d never been anything like him. There’d never be anyone like him and would never be again.

Refusing to let the sorrow of that sobering realization rob her of this other-worldly feeling, Livian thrust aside the maudlin, and focused on the now.

While he licked her, he pressed the heel of four fingers against her opening, driving her mad with desire.

Her speech dissolved. “Mmm. Yesss. More.”

It was too much…

The pressure between her legs mounted; a sensation she now, because of this man, knew meant her body was close to a glorious rise and fall.

“I need it, Lachlan” she begged.

“What do you need?” he taunted like a dark devil who’d been put on this earth to tempt a lady to sin.

“Tell me, Livian,” he impelled. “What do you need?”

Livian tangled her fingers in his silken hair and gripped him hard. “I want…I want…” She bit her lip.

You! I want you!

“To come,” he ordered. Reaching up, he laid his enormous hands over her breast and played with the stiff peaks. “Say it, Livian. You want to come.”

“I want to come, Lachlan,” she screamed his name a prayer, and a plea. “I want to come.” Her words ended on an anguished, frustrated sob.

“My sweet, beautiful, Livian,” his husky, silken dominion penetrated a haze of beautiful suffering.

Yes! I am forever yours, and only yours!

Lachlan stopped.

“ Nooo !” she wept.

Gripping Lachlan by his glossy, black hair slick with sweat, she attempted to force him back to that place she needed him most.

He was too strong.

A strangled cry of desperation tore from her lips.

“Oh, my girl,” he vowed, his breath coming as hard and strangled as her own. “I’m going to make it even better for you.”

Impossible!

Lachlan’s body shook with laughter. “I’ll take that challenge,” he said, his voice strained.

And she was all too happy and eager for him to.