An Imprudent Lady (4 page)

It was easy for Charlotte to find out where Daniel lived and even easier to get there. As he’d purchased the old Evansleigh town house, his residence was a mere two streets away from her own.

Naturally, she waited until the house settled down for the evening then, draped in her grandmother’s old wool cape, Charlotte slipped out the kitchen door. She should have been horrified by her own behavior, and perhaps she was beneath the determination that drove her. Proper ladies did not go about unescorted at night. But as she had decided to no longer depend upon propriety as a guide, she didn’t dwell on the thought.

The deep hood, designed to cover the towering wigs of the last century, flopped about and obscured her vision so she was able only to see a step or two ahead. The inconvenience was of no consequence, as it stood to reason that if
she
couldn’t see out very well, then neither could others see within and recognize her.

“Who the damned—!”

It wasn’t the butler who answered the bell with that growl. She could make out the rumpled figure and bleary eyes of Daniel if she held back a corner of the droopy cloth.

He leaned forward and lowered the lantern to illuminate her face. Then he cursed again, grabbed her hand and pulled her into the hallway. The black-lacquered door slammed behind her.

“I’m glad you’re still awake, Daniel,” she said, eyeing his shirtsleeves uneasily. He’d doffed his jacket at some point so was no longer properly dressed, but it wasn’t as if he’d been expecting her.

He shoved aside her hood and glared. “What, in the name of all that’s holy, are you doing here?”

Startled by the undercurrent of anger in his booming voice, Charlotte almost departed as abruptly as she had arrived. He looked tired and agitated. Well, so was she.

“We need to talk,” she said, gathering her determination.

“You’re damned right we need to talk, but not at this hour and most certainly not here. Go home, Charlotte.”

“No.” She quaked but was pleased that her voice didn’t waver. Much. She wasn’t used to standing up to others, but she was resolute. “This won’t keep.”

Daniel stepped around, reopened the door and looked outside. Then slammed the door shut again. “Where the hell is your escort?”

“I’m not here to discuss my escort or lack thereof. I’m here to discuss you, Daniel, and your designs upon my sister.”

He ran a hand through his hair, tousling the golden curls further. He started to say something, then stopped and pinched the bridge of his nose as if to allay a headache. With a resigned sigh, he turned and stalked away, leaving her to follow.

Apparently, he’d been in the study when she rang. A fragrant fire crackled in the fireplace and an open decanter of something that looked suspiciously like brandy sat in the center of his desk. Charlotte removed her cloak and draped it over a side chair.

“May I have one?”

He quirked a brow but courteously filled a cut-crystal glass and avoided touching her fingers when he handed it to her. She sipped the contents, savoring the burn and respite it provided. Let him think what he would.

“Say what you’ve come to say.” Daniel stood beside the hearth scowling, arms crossed.

Lud, he was imposing.

Charlotte set down the glass. “I’ve come to ask you not to court Angelica.”

“As opposed to demanding it, as you did earlier?”

She couldn’t restrain a blush. “Yes.”

“Why?”

She closed her eyes. “Because she’s my sister, Daniel.”

“No other reason?”

“Should there be?”

“Perhaps not,” he said, sounding closer than before. When she opened her eyes, she found Daniel before her, so close that she caught the musky scent of him, and she trembled in response.

He rubbed his jaw and studied her. “If there’s no reason than that, I suppose you have come to offer suitable inducement?”

“What did you have in mind?” she whispered, distracted by the urge to bury her nose in his warm neck.

“Hmm.” His eyes raked her body, encased in the same rose gown, now wrinkled from the evening’s activities. Was it getting hotter in there?

“What do you want, Daniel? Be specific,” she said.

He stepped closer and her pulse accelerated.

“You.”

The bold declaration washed over her and a primal response stirred within. When he reached to touch her bottom lip and rub it softly with his thumb, she thought her heart stopped. Surely the abused thing couldn’t survive this turmoil again.

“You want specifics, Charlotte?” he asked. “I’ll give them to you. I want you. In my bed.”

Her soul trembled, demanding she accept, like a thief rattling the iron bars of his cell to demand release. The shock of it was that she would take any opportunity to get close to Daniel again, even if it was a base demand. She wanted to oblige for purely selfish reasons, but she wasn’t so far gone to forget her purpose tonight.

“In exchange for which you will not pursue Angelica?”

“As you wish.”

She wanted to accept his proposition, but the consequences of letting Daniel back into her arms and, subsequently, her heart might prove disastrous. Nothing about this proposal suggested anything long-term; an ending was inevitable. Could she survive loving and losing him again?

Without uttering the words, she opened her mouth and engulfed the tip of his thumb, stroking the soft pad with the tip of her tongue. His eyes widened, riveted to her lips.

When she gently eased the digit in farther, sucking gently, the dark brown of his irises melted like warmed chocolate, and he groaned.

“If you do that again, I’ll take that as an accord,” he murmured.

Charlotte had ached for this man for years. And here he was, offering her what she had yearned for.

So, God help her, she did it again.

With a groan, Daniel grasped her by the nape to haul her forward. She eagerly met his kiss, so achingly slow and tender that she lost all sense of time. It was a simple touch of the lips, a silent exploration and rediscovery of the magic of kissing each other. And he tasted of the brandy he’d consumed earlier.

Passion ignited in her veins, like a spark set to aged tinder, and she couldn’t get close enough or hold him tightly enough. She pressed into his torso, encouraged by his hand at the base of her spine. The kiss ravaged her soul, and she clutched the open collar of his shirt as if she could hold him there forever.

With the banked passion of decades fanned to life, they didn’t make it past the door, or even so far as the sofa that flanked the fireplace.

Daniel’s hand slid low and cupped her buttock to hold her in place as his pelvis rolled against hers. The hard ridge of his erection rubbed inquisitively and her hips echoed the movement. A shudder racked her frame, and he murmured unintelligibly in reply. Then his other hand slipped around, and he lifted and set her on the edge of the desk.

“Don’t move,” he ordered hoarsely. With a violent shove, he sent the blotter and every other article on the desk crashing to the floor.

Charlotte would have giggled but she found her arms filled again with Daniel and the notion dissolved like sugar in hot tea. Amidst a long, insistent kiss, he nudged apart her knees and pressed her back onto the desk until he leaned above, dominating her world. She arched into his touch, hungry for more, and he obliged by cupping her breast.

But it wasn’t enough. She wanted those fingers on her bare skin, and she wanted to touch him in return. She pulled aside his collar to stroke the searing skin underneath.

Hot kisses trailed across her cheek to the sensitive tendon at the side of her neck, where Daniel paused to lick tantalizingly down to her shoulder and then back to her ear.

“God, angel. You taste like a dream.”

This was decidedly better than any of the erotic dreams that had left her hot and needy and incomplete over the years. Hunger bloomed, flooding her senses.

She was desperate to touch him, to slide her fingertips across his flesh. It took a couple of tugs, and Daniel’s assistance by shifting his weight, but she managed to pull his shirttails free. She burrowed her hands under the pool of linen and discovered raw heat. She hesitated when she brushed the patch of hair upon his chest. At nineteen, Daniel had been smooth and the unexpectedness of it reminded her of the past when she’d been awash in the moment.

Then Daniel groaned again and whispered, “Touch me some more, Charlotte. Please, just touch me,” and she let the moment steal her away again. Now her palms ached to explore his chest, but that didn’t prove enough to satisfy her restlessness. She wanted to
see
him. To study the man he had become and the changes the years had wrought.

When she tugged on the shirt again, he obligingly pulled it off and tossed it aside. And there he was, muscles sleek and gleaming in the firelight. Her joy at the sight was eclipsed only by the scars she could make out in the dim light. Old scars. Scars that marred one shoulder and the pectoral muscle beneath.

“Oh, Daniel,” she whispered and traced a pale seam with her fingertip. “Look at you. Were you hurt badly?”

He shrugged and leaned forward, stifling her words with another consuming kiss. He gathered her, lifting her by the shoulders in counterpoint to his hips, which ground seductively against hers. Her laces loosened at his tug, and his lips moved to her neck, leaving a trail of fire down the length. He nudged the shoulder of her gown aside as he descended, exposing a breast covered in nothing but a thin chemise.

“Look at
you
, angel,” he whispered and palmed the soft curve. “A bit more to you than before.” The opposite shoulder fell free and her other breast received similar treatment. “But these nipples are every bit as pretty as I remember.” As he spoke, his thumbs grazed the puckered peaks and she groaned, lust pooling between her thighs. His eyes dilated at her cry, and he did it again, clearly relishing her response and demanding more.

“Kiss me, Daniel,” she begged, rocking against him. He inhaled deeply.

“As you wish,” he murmured, and then he tugged free the ribbon of her shift. His warm lips engulfed one nipple, and he continued caressing the other with his thumb.

Her heart pounded and her breath came in quickening gasps. She ran her hands down his broad back, enjoying the muscles that shifted beneath her touch. As he continued to kiss her, she felt an urgency she could no longer contain.

Her inquisitive hands returned to Daniel’s waist then drifted lower. With one, she eased her fingers under the waistband of his breeches, and with the other she boldly stroked down the length of his erection. Daniel reared back, looking as wild as she felt, on the verge of losing control.

Good. She wanted everything: every breath, every sensation, every thought.

She smiled and, feeling more than a little wicked, stroked him again.

In a quick move, Daniel seized the hem of her dress and hauled it up, exposing the length of her legs to the cool air and his heated gaze. When the material cleared her hips, she lifted in wanton invitation, enjoying the sight of Daniel as he watched her. Obligingly, she widened her legs farther.

One hand reappeared from the length of her skirts and he passed a gentle finger across the rosy center she’d exposed. Only once, as she’d done with his hardened flesh moments before.

“You’re so wet here,” he said, then raised the finger to his mouth and lapped at the moisture he’d acquired. “I want to lick you until you sob.”

Charlotte wasn’t embarrassed by the whimper his words evoked, just enflamed by the image he wrought. He smiled at her reaction and she wondered if he recalled as well: he’d only done it once before and, if memory served, she hadn’t just sobbed then. She’d screamed.

She wanted everything. Whatever he wanted she would welcome. She was his. Always had been.

“But it’ll have to be later, my angel. I almost came off when you touched me through my trousers.”

With deft fingers he had his falls undone, and his thick, turgid cock sprang free. He stroked the length once, twice, gauging her reaction as he touched himself. Her groin heated even more, if that were possible.

Charlotte leaned upon an elbow and slowly ran one hand down her stomach, easing over the corset and bunched silk until her palm rested atop her mound. Then she slipped her fingers into the slick folds and separated the sensitive, eager flesh for him.

“Here, Daniel,” she whispered, unusually husky to her own ears. “I want you here.” She felt her insides contract in anticipation. “Now,” she begged, and he accommodated, easing into her swollen, aching flesh. She closed her eyes to the pleasure as she adjusted to the feel of him. When he was deeply seated, she wrapped her legs around his hips and laid back to focus on the intimate sensation.

Daniel leaned over her again, and his hips stilled. She whimpered, desperate for a deep, stroking pace.

“Look at me,” he said. When she didn’t immediately comply, he reached down and flicked her nipple. The sensation was sharp but not painful, and her eyes flared wide in pleasure. “Do you feel this, Charlotte? What is between us, even after all of this time?”

“Yes,” she said, shuddering as she tried to move, but he held her immobilized, eyes boring into hers.

“Don’t ever deny me again,” he demanded.

“I didn’t—”

He thumbed her nipple again and her lids fluttered.

“I don’t want to hear what you did or didn’t do. I want your promise of what you
will
do. Do you understand?” With a long, smooth motion he withdrew, then pushed satisfyingly home only to pause again.

“Yes,” she whispered, awash in sensation. She tried to wiggle, to urge him on, but he remained still.

“Never again, Charlotte. Don’t ever deny me again. You’re mine. Say it.”

“You’re mine,” she repeated obligingly, claiming him when she knew that he was demanding her surrender.

His hips began to move, forward and back, raw sensation and rising passion. She braced her hands on the slick desk for better leverage, to increase the friction.

“That’s it, angel,” he whispered. “Give it to me. Just like that.”

She gasped for breath and a thin sheen of sweat broke across her skin, sensitizing it further. Daniel leaned forward and laved a nipple hungrily. Charlotte wrapped her arms around his head, holding him in place just above her heart.

And then she burst, sensation pouring over her in pulsing waves. She heard Daniel cry out and felt him shudder with his own release, but her lips were numb and she couldn’t have uttered a word if she’d needed to.

She knew she’d savor every detail for the rest of her life, especially when he kissed her temple and whispered so softly that she almost didn’t hear him. “Yes, angel, and I’m yours.”

Her heart soared at his quiet surrender when he had begun as a burning marauder. It was as if he, too, saw how they belonged together. And always had.

Perhaps they really could begin again.