Secluded with the Rogue

Chapter 6

Six

D rew blinked gritty eyes and sighed as he lay in bed. He'd tossed and turned all night, plagued by dreams of the kiss he'd shared with Charlie, and just how much further he'd wanted to take things. Too far…

He looked down the length of his traitorous body to where his cock was still hard. Bloody hell, if he didn't deal with that thing, it would torment him all day and most likely at the worst imaginable times. Pushing the sheet down, he let the cool air kiss his heated skin and took hold of his unruly cock.

The damned thing really had a mind of its own.

Drew smiled as he pulled up one of his favorite memories. A young widow he'd met, in a marketplace in a small village in France where they'd stopped on the way to Jamaica, had invited him to visit. He was no fool, and the woman was everything he appreciated in a woman. All soft curves, full breasts that more than filled a man's hands, and she came with a wealth of experience. She had knelt before him and taken his cock in her mouth.

Stroking his cock slowly as he let the memory push back into his brain and stir his senses, Drew watched her golden brown head bob up and down in his lap as he sat on the edge of her bed. But he didn't want to come in her mouth, so he fisted his hand in her luxurious hair and pulled her off his cock. He groaned as he looked down at her face—and instead of the snub nose and green eyes of the French woman…he saw Charlie's fathomless dark eyes and full lips.

His brain was taking over now and going where it wanted. Where he wanted, with or without his conscience’s permission.

Drew hauled fantasy Charlie up into his lap and roughly tugged her peasant blouse down to reveal her full round breasts tipped with dusky nipples that begged for his mouth. Pleased with his discovery, he leaned her away from himself, bent over her, and sucked. He'd felt those breasts and her hard nipples pressed against him, even through her clothes, so knew they were full and plump, and God, he wanted to lick and taste them.

He stroked his cock faster as he imagined letting her nipple pop from his mouth and then his hungry lips captured it again. Fuck, he was so hard for her. In his mind’s eye, Drew stood up and bent her over the imaginary bed. Pulling her skirts up, he lined up behind her and plunged his cock inside her tight, hot pussy. He fisted his cock hard and sped up his stroking motion, feeling his balls draw up tight.

No! He needed to stop this. Needed to stop wanting her like this.

But he couldn't stop.

Not in his own personal fantasy, where he plunged into her over and over again, making Charlie whimper and moan with pleasure. Nor could he stop his hand from finishing what he had started. Drew continued to stroke his cock, working and twisting the tip as he grabbed his balls with his other hand. He massaged them gently as his back arched up off the bed and shot his load onto his stomach, all the while pumping his hand. In his fantasy, both he and Charlie finished on gusty cries of ecstasy.

Drew opened his eyes to find his stomach covered in his seed and his cock unrepentantly still hard.

“Fuck!” He rolled out of the bed and grabbed the shirt he'd worn yesterday to clean himself off. By the time he'd managed to clean up and head downstairs for breakfast, he was in as surly a mood as ever.

That was why, when he walked into the breakfast room to find Charlie—the very object of his morning fantasy—sitting in the sunshine looking well rested and far too innocent for what he'd been thinking of doing to her, Drew was forced to close his eyes and turn around to leave.

But the room was too small. She'd heard him.

“Please, don't leave on my account, Drew.” Charlie smiled up at him.

She wore a simple yellow gown made of wool, he suspected, over a white linen chemise which was far too reminiscent of the peasant blouse he'd imagined her in—except this bodice was modest, covering up her breasts, much to his disappointment. He was also disappointed that he noticed how it made the gold flecks in her brown eyes light up. Her hair had a golden nimbus around it from the sunshine streaming in, teasing out all the blonde and red highlights in her brown hair. She had always called it drab, but he'd always seen it as a riot of colors hidden in the dark depths.

“I didn't wish to interrupt your breakfast.”

“You aren't,” she said cheekily as she took a delicate bite of toast, chewed, swallowed, and continued to smile again.

Drew really wanted to kiss that smile off her face, but that was not possible. Not something he would ever do again.

One time. One slip up. That was it. He had other things to focus on.

Wentworth Shipping was at a crucial point in its growth. He didn't have time for distractions, and Charlie was a hell of a lot more than a distraction. She was the kind of woman you courted and married. She was not the kind of woman a man played around with.

Not a man like him, at any rate.

“Did you hear? Lady Kensington went so far over her allowance that her husband made her give away half her wardrobe as punishment?” Charlie giggled and carried a fork full of scrambled egg to her mouth.

Realizing he was still standing in the small room, Drew turned toward the sideboard where breakfast was laid out and surreptitiously adjusted his uncooperative cock before he filled his plate while making a non-committal noise. Speaking was beyond his abilities at the moment. He took in a deep breath and turned to join her at the table. The small, round, and far too intimate table. Bloody hell, why hadn't he thought to have breakfast served in the dining room, where it was dark, and the table was big enough they could have sat in separate counties?

He tried to push his careening thoughts aside and focus on his breakfast. Charlie carried on updating him on the latest on dits from London, none of which he cared about.

As his lack of proper sleep caught up with him and his patience ran out, Drew finally broke into her monologue. “Do you have nothing else to speak about beyond fashion and gossip?”

Her beautiful brown eyes grew wide in surprise then narrowed in annoyance at his rudeness. He knew he was being rude, but a man could only take so much punishment. Watching her throat bob with every swallow, the way her lips pursed around her fork, and—truly the thing that broke his ability to endure—the way she paused and silently moaned when she tasted something she enjoyed.

“I'm sorry, was I boring you, Mister Wentworth?” Her lovely bow shaped mouth had flattened into a straight line, a mere slash across her face.

He hesitated. This was where he could apologize, beg her forgiveness, and end any strife. But some instinct, some desperate need to keep her away from him, had him answering in a far different manner. “Very much so, Charlie .”

Her face turned red as she sat there for a moment, looking flummoxed. “Do. Not. Call me. That vile name. If you were so bored, you could have contributed to the conversation with a topic of interest to you.”

“I could have, but what I really prefer in the morning is silence .” Drew glared at her, taking a breath and letting his words sink in. “And I shall call you by whatever name I choose in my home, Charlie .” He was just being mean, and he knew it, but better she hate him than she foster any ideas about more kisses.

He wouldn't survive more kisses from a siren like her.

“You are an unmitigated bastard,” Charlie sneered as she stood up and slapped her napkin down on the table. “If I weren’t a lady, I’d punch you in the gut as I did when I was a girl. You certainly deserve it.”

Drew's heart stopped in his chest as he took in what she was wearing. He assumed she had on a gown, as any woman of her ilk would. But no, not his bloody Charlie. The vixen was wearing trousers! Trousers, that lovingly hugged every one of her delectable curves and proved his imagination had been greatly lacking.

“What in the bloody hell are you wearing?” exploded from his mouth before he could call back the words.

“Clothing.” Charlie crossed her arms and stood there on full display.

He wanted to rip the tablecloth off the table and wrap it around her hips. What if someone else saw her? “ That is not clothing. That is a scandal waiting to happen!” He practically bellowed the words, he was so frustrated by the desire that pounded through his veins.

“Scandal? What scandal? There is no one here but you and I and Polly and Billy. Who could possibly see me? Besides, my one traveling gown is being laundered. The other was ruined in the process of saving John. It was this, or I prance around the house naked. Which would you prefer?”

Visions of her lusciously curved figure running through the house nude had Drew’s unruly cock at full attention. It was all he could see for a moment, not her in trousers, not the morning room, and certainly not the food on his plate.

Drew groaned softly, trying to quell his wildly inappropriate thoughts. “If anyone were to come by here and see you like that, there would most definitely be a scandal!”

“Who in the world is going to venture by for a visit in the middle of a bloody snow storm?” She looked at him like he was crazy.

“It doesn't matter. It is not appropriate. I've met prostitutes who were more modestly dressed than you are!”

Her eyebrows rose and her mouth gaped open, but no sound escaped.

Had he ever seen her at a loss for words? Certainly not as a child. Not even when she’d punched him.

“Now go put some fucking clothes on, Charlie.” More words flew out of his mouth, and Drew wanted to bang his head against the table. The bloody woman drove him to distraction.

Her face became a mottled shade of magenta that was not particularly attractive, but then he supposed in that moment she wasn't too concerned about what she looked like. “You have no right to say anything to me. You are not my father and you are certainly not my husband. You're not even my friend—and I told you not to call me by that name. My name is Charlene.” With that, she stormed out of the room, leaving him to sit in blessed silence.

Drew sat there alone and tried to understand how things had got so out of hand.

Yes, he wanted her a little miffed at him. But he hadn't intended to get her into a full on rage. He knew when things had got out of hand—when she had stood up with the full force of all her curves was on display in a way he had never seen before. All Drew could think about was wrapping his hands around her hips as he pounded into her welcoming body.

Swallowing hard, he knew he would be an unmitigated fool if he'd thought riling her up was going to work in his favor. The last time he'd done that, she'd punched him in the stomach.

He knew he was lucky to escape this encounter unscathed.

The question was, what would happen when next they met? Drew knew retaliation of some kind would come. It was just a question of what she would do—and whether he could continue to keep his hands off Lady Charlene.