Wolf told himself he was not going to tup her. He was not going to drop the fall of his trousers and align his aching cock to her dripping cunny. Was not going to push inside her. Was not going to smash his every good intention to disastrous bits by joining his body with hers.
He had waited this long to bed a woman.
He would not have his first experience here, on the desk he shared with his brothers at the family gaming hell, with a woman whose surname he did not know. With a lady. A woman who was clearly his better. A woman who could have been anyone.
Not just anyone, he acknowledged then as his finger found the swollen bud he sought. Portia. Her name was Portia, and her hips danced on the desk when he played with her pearl and a seductive gasp tore from her as he applied a bit more pressure, working her back and forth. She came with another cry, riding his fingers as he continued to tease her.
More. Give me more.
Her name was Portia, and he was going to sink his cock deep inside her drenched cunny and fuck her until he forgot about everything but—
The sound of the door opening cut through the haze of desire threatening to drown him.
His reaction was swift. He removed his hand and flipped down her skirts, spinning around, careful to place himself between Portia and whomever had dared to intrude. His brother Hart, as it happened.
Hart’s brows rose. “I didn’t expect you to be…within.”
Wolf’s ears went hot at the implication. Had his brother been making a bloody terrible joke? It hardly mattered.
He struggled to control himself, to regain composure and catch his breath.
“What are you doing here?” he demanded, when at last he found his voice. “Thought you were courting.”
Hart was the last of Wolf’s brothers to marry—aside from Loge. Supposing Loge was unwed. No one knew the answer to that question, and Logan wasn’t speaking to any of them. And Hart was in the process of wooing Lady Emma Morgan, his betrothed.
Hart eyed him with a barely contained smirk. “I’ve an hour before the appointed time to pay a call. Em’s Aunt Rosamund is bleeding particular about these matters. Care to introduce me to your friend?”
Portia grabbed a fistful of Wolf’s coat at the small of his back, the desperate warning clear. The lady wished to remain anonymous. And Wolf could scarcely blame her.
He crossed his arms over his chest, willing his heart to cease galloping and the lust to die a hasty death. “No.”
His brother, however, being the arsehole he was, was rather reminiscent of a dog with a bone. Perhaps repayment for the taunts Wolf had admittedly issued to Hart concerning ladies, the parson’s mousetrap, and falling in love.
Because Hart lingered instead of departing, grinning. “Hugh didn’t tell me you had petticoats in here or I’d have waited. It ain’t like you.”
His brother was right, and he hated it. Having a wench here at The Sinner’s Palace wasn’t like him at all. Indeed, aside from Lydia, he had never willingly brought another woman beneath this roof. Had never bedded a woman, either. Not that he had not been tempted before. He had. But his convictions had always been far stronger than the need to lose himself in a woman’s body.
This one ain’t like the rest.
He cleared his throat, tamping down the voice within, the acknowledgment that there was something about Portia which made her stand apart from every woman he had known. “Sometimes we all do things that ain’t like us. Courting, for instance.”
Hart’s eyes narrowed, the only sign Wolf’s barb had found its mark. “Aye, brother. I will leave you to conduct your business then.”
With a curt nod, Hart stepped out of the office, closing the door behind him and leaving Wolf and Portia once more alone. The interruption had been enough to quash his raging lust and to invite a return to reason. Wolf faced the woman who had so unexpectedly turned his evening asunder.
Her cheeks were flushed, and her bonnet was askew, tendrils of dark hair having come free of her coiffure to curl around her cheeks. Her emerald-green eyes were luminous as she avoided his gaze, her gloved hands rearranging the fall of her skirts, not without a telling tremble. Her mouth was kiss-bruised and the sweet shade of crushed summer berries, and the urge to put his lips on hers once more took him by surprise with its sudden ferocity.
She slid from the desk, her slipper-shod feet landing with a demure thud. “I must apologize.”
The cool elegance had returned to her voice, her bearing. It was as if the conflagration between them had never burned. As if she had not sealed her mouth with his and sucked his tongue, as if his fingers were not still wet with the evidence of her desire.
Delicious evidence.
His thumb, forefinger, and middle finger rubbed together, slick from her dew, and despite his deeply held notion of honor and his vow to himself that he would never allow a woman to lead him astray again, he burned with the need to touch her once more. Longed to guide her back to the desk, to kiss her, raise her hems, and slide his hand between her thighs to reassure himself the decadent silk of her cunny and the throbbing bud of her pearl had been real.
“Why apologize?” he asked her, although he knew damned well he should not.
Instead, he should allow her to gather her pride and flee. Rest easy in the knowledge that he would never see her again. That this wild and reckless passion had been a passing thrill he would soon forget.
Her gaze flicked to his, and he felt it as if it were a caress. “It was not my intention to behave with such a shocking absence of morals. I can assure you that I do not… I have not acted so injudiciously in years.”
He was not sure if he should be pleased or disappointed by this news.
Wolf remained still, refusing to retreat but instead remaining near, lingering in the spell that her luscious, floral scent had cast upon him. “You have before, then?”
She blinked. “I have what?”
“Acted injudiciously.” And she had done so with another. Years ago, apparently. That part rather stung, and he could not say why. The notion that someone else, some faceless, nameless nob, had been the recipient of her potent kisses and sensual allure nettled him.
For the brief span of time he had held her in his arms, how easy it had been to pretend she was his.
Her tongue slid over her lips, the jerky inhalation of her breath drawing his attention to her throat where he had inadvertently left his mark on her in his reckless enthusiasm. And damn, but the sight of her skin reddened from his mouth and the scrape of his whiskers abrading the sensitive flesh was enough to make his cock begin to harden again.
“I have made many mistakes in my life, Mr.…”