Who Wants a Brawling Baron (Romancing the Rake 6)

“But this was for you?”

He grimaced as he looked down at her, now on his knees. “No. I stole this moment because…” He drew in a deep breath. “You are too tempting and I am not a good man. But the others…they will be for him.”

Him? What him? There was only one him that she could see right now and he looked down at her, dark and masculine in a way that made her ache all over again. “Why? Why does it have to be for another him?”

He frowned, the lines of his face growing deeper. “Because, we’ve already come too close to ruining you. Because you wish to marry and because I will never be married again.”

Surprise, like cold water, doused her. Again? That word hit her as she pushed up on her elbows. “I changed my mind. I need help with my stockings after all.”

His gaze slid down her body, scorching her with the heat of it. He stopped as he stared at her breasts. “Charlie.”

“Yes?” She gave him her most innocent smile. Because several things had occurred to her. He had secrets that she wished to hear. And the only way to wheedle them out of him was to be alone. And she wanted his hands on her skin. But another thought poked around the back of her mind. For a rake, he was unduly concerned with her reputation, with what he should and shouldn’t do. He’d said that she’d know the difference between a gentleman and a rake by his intentions, his caring.

She was beginning to wonder if her rake wasn’t a gentleman in disguise after all.

Putting on Charlie’s stockings was a form of exquisite torture. His teeth ground together and his cock throbbed as Raithe rolled the silky fabric up her body. Her feet were small and ridiculously pretty. He had the urge to kiss her arches, then nip his way up to her slender ankles, and over her shapely calves. He pictured pushing her skirts higher and kissing her just behind the knee, along the inside of her thighs. He squeezed his eyes shut even as his man parts throbbed again.

“There,” he growled out. “Done.”

She gave him an angelic smile, those pale pink lips parted to show her pearly white teeth. He wanted to kiss her again…starting with her lips and allowing his mouth to wander…everywhere.

“And my shoes? Can you put those on too?”

He let out a groan of dissent. He wished to topple her backward again and bury his face directly into… His hands stilled. Interesting, but he was far more curious about hearing her finish again than he was in taking his own pleasure.

That made him slide back on his heels, leaning further away.

She lifted a foot, still only clad in her stockings, and gave him a small push in the middle of his chest. “I take that as a no? You won’t help a lady with her shoes?”

What was sh

e playing at? Did she know how close she was to being ravaged on a blanket in the sand? He’d make sure she enjoyed every minute of it but then what? Then, of course, he’d have to marry her.

To his shock, the idea did not fill him with the normal amount of dread nor did thinking of Jennifer make his chest ache. “If I put on your shoes, my lady, then I’m going to kiss my way up your leg.”

Her foot, which had been waving in front of him with a hypnotic sway, stilled. “Kiss your way up my leg?”

He’d balanced on the balls of his feet, still squatting and he rested his elbows on his knees, leaning toward her once again as he captured her foot in his hand, and did exactly as he’d imagined, planting a kiss on the arch of her foot. “I just showed you one way a man might give a woman pleasure. Letting me kiss you there is very safe, we needn’t even remove your clothing. But the more dangerous the method becomes, the better it feels.”

She gasped in a breath and he roared with satisfaction as her knees fell a bit further apart. “Dangerous? Pleasurable?”

Raithe knew he skirted close to the line from which he would not return. He’d give up his vow, marry his little minx, and tuck her in his bed where he’d spend days, weeks, years of his life teaching her all about pleasure.

He closed his eyes, attempting to conjure up a picture of his Jennifer. But her outline was hazy. He could see her blonde hair, her innocent smile. Their love had been pure and sweet, but for the first time since her death, he wondered if there was another woman who could capture his heart. What if he had more love to give?

Jenni had been a good girl, always. Even in their nightly activities, she’d maintained a level of chasteness that had left him…wanting.

Never would she have proposed he teach her about rakes, or ask him to roll on her stockings, or allow her knees to fall apart at the very idea of his face in her most private of parts.

He’d gone too dark to marry another woman like Jenni. And perhaps that had always been his intent.

But a sweet little innocent desperate to be bad with just one man…well that was a different matter entirely. “Do you want me to show you?”

Her tongue darted out, dragging along her lips, and she trembled… But her eyes. Damn but her eyes dilated and her breath was coming out in short gasps.

“Charlie,” a feminine voice called. “Where are you?”

“Bloody hell,” he ground between his teeth, grabbing her slippers and pulling them onto her feet.