An Indiscreet Debutante Read online

  Ian’s head spun. Rough laughter shook him by the shoulders. He looked at Lottie, who lounged in the doorway sipping champagne as if she hadn’t a single care. “This is your world?”

  “Part of it. Now do you see?”

  He was beginning to understand, at the very least. Why all the truth-laced lies at society parties. Why she put up such fronts and falsities. Part of it had to do with her mother, yes. But in running so hard from her own mother, she’d found an entirely different world full of excitement and life. Her own recklessness didn’t seem half so dramatic in such surrounds.

  He crossed the room toward her. They were probably entirely too close considering that people encircled them. He touched the back of her neck anyway, that long and lovely length.

  “I think I might. I really do think I might.”

  Chapter Twelve

  Lottie hadn’t been the one fighting, yet she felt fully absorbed in the moment. Her blood pounded. Shocks zipped down her limbs and turned the back of her neck into a prickling mess. She was caught up in Ian’s energy. His gaze locked on hers, and Lottie couldn’t look away. Couldn’t hardly breathe. He was magnetism and power, and he was finally focused on her.

  The other times she’d asked him for more touch, more contact, for him to do more to her...they faded. She hadn’t known, not really. Not like she did now, when her entire being was absorbed by him. She wanted him, from her toes to her eyes and everything between.

  She would do scandalous, delicious things if given half a chance.

  When Sera made an inarticulate noise, Lottie thought that she’d read her mind. The smaller woman clapped her hands over her mouth, then darted across to Fletcher. “Fletcher! You’ve been hurt.”

  Fletcher looked down. A tiny rivulet of blood escaped his cuff and curled around his thumb. “Well, I’ll say. Can’t be too bad, I’m guessing.”

  Sera had gone white. “Don’t you be a man about this.”

  “Can’t help it. I am one and all.” He shucked off his suit coat. Sure enough, high on his arm was a slice. It didn’t look too bad, but Sera swayed.

  “Oh, come. Come now.” She pulled him toward the doorway and into the hallway. “We’ll have to get that fixed immediately. I couldn’t stand it if you—”

  “I’m not going anywhere, wren.” Fletcher smiled down at the top of Sera’s head, where she bent over the relatively minor injury. “But I’ll get stitched if you like.”

  “I do like.” Worry colored Sera’s tone into something higher pitched and strained.

  Sera and Fletcher whisked out of the room. Lottie had to step to the side of the doorway as other employees swarmed in. Two women surrounded the whore who’d been attacked, though she seemed well enough to be joking and teasing with them.

  “Oh, was nothing,” she said on a laugh that Lottie recognized. The cover-up laugh, the one that said maybe it had hurt, but you weren’t about to say a word to anyone.

  Three burly men pinned the troublemaker. One bound his wrists, the other his ankles. They unceremoniously hitched him by the armpits and the legs and set about hauling him away.

  “Where will you take him?” Ian asked.

  One of them gave a short head shake. “You don’t want the answer to that, sir.”

  “You’ll kill him?” He all but vibrated with force, like lightning crackled over him. A storm could explode at any moment.

  She wanted the rain to fall on her. She wanted part of that. Subtly, tucking her fingers around his elbow, she pulled him out to the hallway and from the path of busy bees who were cleaning up the mess and assisting the girl. Other prostitutes stood in the doorways of their rooms, lacey wrappers held around their shoulders. Their eyes were wide as they watched the man be hustled away to the back stairs.

  Ian watched them go as well.

  Lottie reached up to touch his jaw and force his face toward her. He was hard, bold, made of heated skin over strength. “Not so far as that. He won’t be out of bed for a good six weeks, though.”

  Ian’s head cocked. His eyes were lit up, bright and wicked. “Broken bones take that long to heal?”

  “They do.” Her mouth was wet. All that attention on her made her feel taller. Stronger. Like she lived fully in her body and ought to take possession of every inch of it.

  He encroached on her space. Came closer. His chest brushed over hers until she scooted a half-step backwards. Not from fear or from uncertainty...but because she would wrap her arms around his waist and press herself against him if she didn’t soon get a breath free of his scent. “Why did we come here tonight?”

  Her tongue rubbed the corner of her mouth. She wanted him there. She wanted him filling all her senses. “Because Patricia was supposed to be here.”

  “If she comes so often, there’s plenty who could identify her.”

  “Don’t you want to see her yourself?”

  He put both forearms flat on the wall. She was surrounded by him, which wasn’t the same as enfolded. “I’ll see her.” His voice was a deep growl. “She could have easily been fetched to my new townhouse by the capable men around here.”

  “I wanted to be there, to ensure you didn’t terrify her.”

  “You’re lying again.” He touched two fingertips to the base of her throat, where her heartbeat thumped and blood singed her veins. “I can see it. So tell me, Lottie. Why are we both here tonight?”

  They were surrounded and yet alone. Inappropriate leaning and talking and nearness would be unacceptable in proper ballrooms and parlors of the aristocratic types. She rubbed the rough plaster wall. She wanted to grab him. Hang on for dear life. “Because I wanted to.”

  His fingers didn’t move from her throat and the tender skin there. He was strong and big. He’d protected a woman who many would have thought beneath him. Decidedly elemental. Her breasts felt abraded against the inside of her corset.

  “Nothing’s ever so simple with you.” His voice rumbled.

  “Is that a complaint?”

  His mouth tweaked. “The very opposite.” When that smile faded, her breath clenched. Something was coming. She couldn’t wait. “But it leaves me wondering what’s going on.”

  “Nothing.”

  His eyes narrowed. His palm spread and folded over the back of her neck. She bent backward against the wall, needing that support. “Is this your attempt to scare me off? I’ve met your mother—and liked her. Are you trying to prove how wild you are, to drive me away?”

  She couldn’t help but scoff, even over the heavy excitement that threatened to undo her. Deafening fear washed her hearing white. True and scary, and she didn’t like being seen quite so directly. But there was another side to it as well. “There’s no need to drive you away. You’ve not taken what I offer.”

  He made a rugged and needy noise. “Stop making offers you have no intention of fulfilling.”

  Her hands curled into his slick, silk lapels. She pushed up on her toes, body sliding up the craggy wall. The rough stucco was trying to hold on to her, tell her what a reckless choice she was making. They were practically in public, of all places.

  She couldn’t help it. Her need and want had finally flipped over into a life of its own. Her hands traveled up his chest, that expanse that wasn’t particularly wide but backed with steady strength she couldn’t get enough of. He was hard. Prepared and ready.

  Her mouth lifted and met his. He held himself so very rigid, like he’d snap at any moment. But his mouth was hot, wet and mobile. It swept her away to some better place. She’d never been there before, but somehow she knew that it would bring her happiness. Calm. She craved peace that had always been unobtainable.

  “I mean it.” She breathed the words over his lips.

  For a long, strange moment, she wasn’t sure what he’d do. It was part of his appeal, never quite knowing which way he’d answer. He surprised her at every turn. Only his single-minded focus on finding his sister’s tormenter never wavered. He was so bloody flexible otherwise.

  The w
ay his eyes bored into her, the way his lips parted and his chin tipped down...she didn’t know what that meant. Which way he’d go, to take or abandon her once again.

  Then he broke open, like a wild storm coming to shore. One hand cupped the back of her neck, one grasped her shoulder. His mouth took hers. His kiss was more than enough and not nearly all she wanted. Sandwiched between the wall and his implacable body, she was held still. Held ready.

  Not that she was going anywhere.

  Her fingers curled around the wrist at her neck. Crisp, manly hair tickled her fingertips. His strength came from the raw accumulation of bone and tendons and ligaments. She wanted to know what he could do to her. Where he could take her.

  She needed to know if he could make her forget the lonely stretch of her future.

  His kiss was so strong, so hopeful, that she wondered if maybe she had it all wrong. She couldn’t marry, and the idea of children turned her into a gibbering mess, but maybe, just maybe, she didn’t have to be alone.

  At least not forever.

  She poured it all into her kiss, the way her body pressed against his. Her arms locked behind his neck. This was everything she hadn’t known she’d needed.

  A raucous crash and laugh from the level below broke through the haze.

  Ian jerked his head up. His eyes were wickedly bright and completely focused on her. Both his hands hooked around her elbows, he walked backwards into the prostitute’s room. The very one where only moments ago he’d fought for no reason but what he thought right. He slammed shut the door, leaving them alone. Thoroughly alone.

  Lottie gulped. Held down her smile. “Here?”

  His eyes flashed wide, and he looked around. The room was small but not unappealing. The space was clean and soft, with lots of white netting and lace. A tiny bloodstain was left in the corner but one had to look close to see it. She had only meant to tease, but concern darkened his features. “I’m sorry. Impatience got the best of me.”

  Ian knew better. He absolutely did. There were inherent problems with indulging in his wants with regard to Lottie. She wasn’t the settling-down sort of girl. At this point, he’d be crushed when she moved on to her next conquest. After all, she had the entire ton on a string.

  All that was bad enough. Closing her in a whore’s boudoir with him... He was quickly becoming as reckless as Lottie. He wouldn’t have the chance to feel her lean curves now.

  When she stepped back, then back again, he knew for sure. His hands clenched on air, and disappointment slid down his spine. His brain buzzed at a high pitch that pushed him to the stars, only to let him drop. This was new, and he wasn’t sure he liked it.

  How did a man ride that kind of energy for a lifetime? He’d be burned to a husk trying to keep up.

  Maybe it was for the best that she drew away. Her chin lowered as she looked up at him. Her hands lifted, and he rocked forward on the balls of his feet. Couldn’t help it. She reached behind herself, the move pressing her bosom out.

  Then her dress gaped, displaying her collarbones and the creamy pale skin that made him want to lick. “I don’t mind,” she said.

  The dress fell away. She gave the tiniest twist of her shoulders, letting the material pool around her waist. Her thumbs hooked in the silk, and she pushed it down over her petticoats.

  She was unbelievably pretty and lusciously wanton. Embroidery of rose pink over pale blue covered her corset. It clung to her slim curves, displaying the taut bend of her waist. Her arms were slender but lined with delicate muscles. The straight slashes of her collarbones announced her pride.

  She was beauty in her every breath, her every movement. But the way she looked at him over parted lips made him feel like a god. A pagan one who’d rape and pillage if left to his own devices.

  Yet his goddamned mouth still wouldn’t quiet. “We shouldn’t be here.”

  Her mouth tweaked into a little smile, a real one. “No. We really shouldn’t be.” She came back closer to him. She stretched toward his ear, and he felt her voice vibrate through him. “But doesn’t that make it better?”

  “I won’t fuck you on a whore’s bed.” He couldn’t keep his hands from clenching over that skinny waist. Under the band of her petticoats, his thumbs brushed the hard points of her pelvic bones. She was lithe. Lean.

  She kissed her way down his neck, and Christ her tongue was wicked and bold. “Am I too good for that?” she asked, and the giggle in her voice implied she was teasing him.

  “I want you in my bed,” he said on a growl. Damn him, but it was true. A shimmering star such as Lottie wasn’t meant to be held long, and he didn’t want those memories soiled by a prostitute’s scent. He wanted Lottie in his world, in his rooms, so that going to bed would mean remembering her.

  “Your mother is there.”

  He turned her, hitching her up so that she sat atop a low dresser that snuggled against the wall. “My mother does not keep city hours.” He filled his hands with the pale blue petticoats that had filled out the bottom of her darker blue dress. The legs he revealed were slender and covered with pale stockings. Her delicate ankle bones all but begged for attention. “She’d never notice.”

  When he sank to his knees before her, her lazy voice turned tight, the last words coming out on a squeak. “My house would be better.”

  He folded his fingers around the God-crafted piece of art that was her ankle. The length of her leg was beautiful. Something he could hardly believe she was letting him touch. She not only waited patiently, she nudged her knees apart.

  The mounded petticoats draped and concealed his prize. Didn’t matter. He reached underneath, finding silken skin and the firm resilience of her inner thighs. The gasp that whispered through the room was enough to make him feel frenzied. Rushed. Because the sooner he tasted her, the sooner he’d know her perfection.

  “Sera will be looking for me,” she whispered. But her hands rested on his shoulders as lightly as hummingbirds. She was flight and excitement and flash. He would taste her even if the place burned around him.

  He untied her garter and drew the length of her stocking to her knees, his mouth trailing. Her skin tasted of salt and elemental woman. Behind was a soft, private cove. “We’ll leave by the back way.” He flashed a grin up at her. “The one you didn’t tell me about. She’ll never know when we left.”

  Her throat worked on a tight swallow, lines of tendons marking where his teeth wanted to land. To bite and nibble, sucking her taste into his senses. “You’re persuasive when you want to be.”

  Under her skirts, he found the second garter. “You have no idea.”

  Her touch slid over his shoulders and down his back. She curled over him a little, exploring everything she could reach. “I’d like to find out. Any time you wish to begin.”

  He smiled against the slender calf muscle he’d exposed, then dragged one slow lick all the way above her thigh. She shivered under his mouth, but the whole time she kept her knees apart.

  He wanted her wanton and completely open to him. Her petticoats frothed when he slid both hands underneath. God, her ass was a tight little piece of art. He grabbed it hard, wedging his chest between her knees so that when he drew her forward, she’d stay open. Her grip clenched on his back when her thighs spread.

  She breathed his name, and he couldn’t help but seize another kiss, no matter what he’d intended. Her mouth was mesmerizing. Fascinating.

  He could come back for more, over and over again, and never get enough.

  God only knew how he’d feel after he tasted her wettest, most supple places.

  “You’ve pushed and pushed,” he said against the small mounds of her breasts above her corset. Every movement of his lips over her delicate curves drew forth a hitching breath from her. “You’re about to finally get what you needed. Do you want to know what’s coming?”

  She nodded. Her hands splayed across the back of his neck with only the lightest sort of pressure. “Tell me.”

  His hands spanned her wais
t, then over her hips and up the insides of her thighs. She was tremulous. Whether she had much experience was suddenly called into doubt. Maybe she had, maybe she hadn’t. Didn’t matter much to him.

  The right to touch her was much more important than any concern with who’d gone before. She was no less stunning, no less responsive under his every touch. When he skimmed the slender tendon at the juncture of her thighs, she jumped toward him.

  Velveteen, springy curls gave beneath his touch. Her mouth opened on a silent gasp. Those almond-shaped eyes were wider than he’d ever seen. Her hips twitched, and she gave a tiny sound that dove straight into his brain and shook him up.

  “Right here,” he said. “Your sex. You’re already wet for me.”

  She nodded. Her lips trembled a little. “You did that. Or we did.”

  He liked that, he really did. His smile spread against her skin. The rake of his teeth over her softness made her surge into his grasp. “Yes, we did. And now I’m going to lick you. This spot. All over.” He punctuated his words with a gentle circle of the bud of nerves and mystery that topped her sex.

  “Oh, I bet that will feel marvelous,” she breathed.

  Enthusiasm, thy name was Charlotte. She grasped life with both hands, and if she did so as a lifeline to escape the things she feared, who was he to deny her. Not when it brought him such delicious opportunities.

  Despite the thrumming, surging eagerness that tightened his stomach and made his chest burn, he moved slowly. Her skirts were pushed up, out of the way, baring her legs, but he didn’t look down. Not yet. He kept his gaze fixed on hers—or maybe it was the other way around because he sure as hell felt held by her.

  “After I make you come, I’m going to keep your stockings in my pocket as we leave.”

  She shook her head as if in automatic reaction. “But why would you do that?”

  He smiled against the inside of her thigh. Satin and down. Her skin made him think of absurd things like kittens and clouds. Entirely too childish for a man of his stature and for this wicked moment, but they seemed somehow invested with goodness. With a level of happiness impossible to explain.