Chapter Twenty-Five
After she left his chamber, Malcolm had lasted five minutes.
All his life, he had striven to be honorable. He had never wanted to be like his father, a man who used all of his charms, his powers of mind, to hurt and destroy.
But Scarlett Perkins had made clear that she did not want more from him than this collection of summer nights. He had been prepared after that first night to marry her—he would have done it and gladly. But she was not interested in matrimony.
He had never imagined finding himself in such a circumstance.
Must he really be expected to refuse when the woman herself wanted nothing else?
Truthfully, it was too much. Too much deprivation. He realized now that he had never really been tempted before. Not like this. This was beyond temptation. It was beyond anything he had ever expected.
She didn’t want him forever. She only wanted him for tonight. And maybe a few nights after. Was he really going to never know what it was like to bed her? Just so that he could keep his sense of pride, his principles?
So he had gone to her. And now he was in her bed, having just made her climax, and he knew he had made the right decision.
Because being with her, like this, felt so deeply correct.
He looked down at his fingers, which were stained red. She had her courses. She had thought that would stop him. Ridiculous. Not after he had come this far.
“Heavens,” she said, looking down at his fingers. “One moment.”
She stood and took a handkerchief from the bureau. Then she walked to the basin and dipped the cloth in the water jug. She brought it back to him, running it over his fingers.
“There,” she said.
“I don’t mind,” he clarified. “It is nothing to me.”
She sat on the bed and, without thinking, he pulled her toward him, so that her head rested on his chest.
For a mortifying second, he wondered if she did not want to be this close to him, despite what they had just been doing together. But when she seemed to settle in, he figured it must be fine with her.
His cock was still hard, and he still wanted her keenly. But he wasn’t going to find release until he was inside her. He wanted to save himself for that. Now that he had made the decision to ruin her, as she had requested, he felt calmer.
“I hope being here doesn’t complicate your plans,” she said, her voice soft.
He only remembered, then, what she had said to him. That he must love another and hope to marry her.
“I have no plans.”
“I don’t understand.”
“I feel much the way you do about matrimony,” he said carefully. “I plan to never marry.”
“Oh.” She took her head off his chest and repositioned herself so she could see his face. “But I thought—”
“No. There is no one else.”
“Then why did you—why did you refuse me?”
He couldn’t tell her the truth. He knew that. He couldn’t say, Because I can’t bear to be nothing to you but a convenience. He couldn’t say, Because I might have fallen in love with you.
Because he was here, after all. The truth was that he could bear to be a convenience.
He could bear to be nothing to her but a cock and then, afterward, a memory.
He didn’t have dignity or principles or scruples.
He was desperate, pathetic even, and it had taken him all of five minutes to realize it.
Of course, he couldn’t say such a thing.
Demurring was the only scrap of pride he had left. “I know it is not honorable of me to accept your offer. I might not be a gentleman by birth, but I do have honor. Or I thought I did.”
It wasn’t untrue. It just wasn’t the full truth.
“Then you must think ill of me for wanting—nay, asking—you to bed me.”
He shook his head. The thought had never occurred to him. “It is different for a man.”
“Oh, is it?” she said archly.
“My father. He had many by-blows. He was careless. With his children and their mothers. He didn’t care what havoc his pleasure wrought on others. He would seduce women and leave them to the consequences.”
Her ironic expression went poignant. “And you don’t want to be like him?”
“I always promised myself I wouldn’t be.”
He hadn’t meant to tell her all of this.
He had hardly spoken to anyone about such things.
Only his siblings, and even then, just a little.
It wasn’t that his siblings wouldn’t respect his sentiments, but he also knew that several of them chafed against restricting their own actions on account of a man who had already done them so much harm.
It was why he didn’t judge Severn or Beatrice for their more libertine behaviors.
For them, it was too much to deny themselves on top of having had a father who had already made them suffer plenty.
“I look just like him,” he found himself saying, by way of explanation. “Or nearly. It has perhaps given me a horror of repeating his mistakes.”
“But you haven’t,” she said. “What is your age?”
“I am two-and-thirty,” he said, shifting on the bed next to her, suddenly feeling too old for her.
“You’re two-and-thirty and you’ve never done anything of the sort. You have been upright and honorable. Your father was wrong because he took advantage of women and did not care if they were hurt by his relationships with them. And you are not taking advantage of me.”
He frowned. “Am I not?”
“No. I’ve nearly begged you to ruin me, if you recall.”
She smiled up at him. He felt something in his chest loosen. It did help to discuss it with her. Even though honor hadn’t been his principal reason for hesitating at her offer, he was worried about hurting her.
“I never want to harm you, Scarlett.”
“You aren’t. You wouldn’t.”
He desperately hoped she was right.
Her brow furrowed. “But then why do you plan to never marry? Marriage would be a rather elegant solution, given your distaste for sordid attachments.”
He hadn’t meant to discuss this with her either.
It wasn’t a topic he had spoken of to anyone.
Whereas he might speak to his siblings about his father, he had never explained to them why he was disinclined to marry, try though they might to raise the topic with him.
Beatrice had tried to worm his reasons out of him more times than he could count.
But he had never wanted to talk about it with her.
To hear all the ways she would try to contradict him when he knew the truth about himself.
“I am not suited to making a woman happy.”
She gave a laugh. It stung, and his face must have showed it, because she put her hand over her mouth.
“I am sorry—I just see so many ways you could make a woman happy.”
He shook his head. “Not as a husband. My nature is too taciturn. It is not easy for me to converse with others intimately or share my feelings. I am too gruff, too surly. My siblings tolerate me because we are bonded by such unique circumstances. But I could not ask a woman to put up with my ill temper.”
“You do not seem irredeemably ill-tempered to me. And we have spent much time together as of late.”
He shook his head. She didn’t understand.
“You are different. You make me act differently than I ever have before.”
It was true, because he liked talking to her, even about these difficult, intimate topics. But even though he enjoyed speaking with her, he had begun to feel rather exposed.
“But I’ve resolved to ruin you, at your request,” he said. “And I have to say that I am quite looking forward to it.”
“Are you?” she said, giving him a little sidelong glance.
He laughed at her coquettish turn. He gloried in bringing out this playful side of her.
Malcolm kissed her then, deeply, palming her breasts and then sinking down to place his lips at the base of her throat.
He traveled further downwards until his mouth closed around one nipple and then another.
He sucked and kissed and licked until she was gasping and her nipples had gone bright and hard.
He eased his fingers into her again and was relieved to find that she was not as tight as before. She opened for him more easily this time, and he teased her, taking his time.
“Please, Malcolm,” she finally said.
And he could tell that this time, her please was for ruination, not orgasm.
He was hard, very hard, and already leaking seed into his smalls. He pulled off the undergarment quickly.
“Scarlett, I must warn you. I don’t think I will last long. I am too ready for you.”
“Don’t worry,” she said. “I plan to have you once or twice more before the evening is out.”
He laughed at that. They probably risked too much already without prolonging his visit to her chamber, but he appreciated her ambition in the matter.
“And it may hurt,” he said. “A more expert man—”
“Please, Malcolm. I trust you.”
He knew she could tolerate no more delay. Her cheeks were flushed that beautiful scarlet he loved.
He positioned himself over her, between her thighs, and guided his cock to her entrance. At first, he met with resistance, and she let out a huff of frustration. But he pressed himself, not hard, only firmly, to her core, and he slipped within her an inch.
And what an exquisite inch it was. He bit his lip to keep from crying out at the sensation on the sensitive head of his cock.
She moved underneath him, trying to give him better purchase. He slipped in further, and this time he couldn’t help but cry out.
He was only halfway in, and he was on the verge of spending.
“Darling—” He gasped. “Give me a moment.”
“Is something wrong? Am I hurting you?”
“Ah, no. Rather, the opposite.”
“Oh.”
He took a moment to collect himself. When he felt that he was no longer quite so overcome, he asked her, “Are you ready?”
“For what?”
“For—ah—more. I’m not all the way, uh, in.”
She smiled. “Then by all means.”
Not wanting to prolong this part of the endeavor any longer, he eased forward until he had filled her completely.
She gasped at the intrusion.
“Are you in pain?” he asked, barely able to keep his wits together, but knowing that—no matter what—he didn’t want her to suffer.
“No,” she panted. “It’s very—full. But it is not painful.”
“Good.”
He knew he could come off now. It wouldn’t take much. But he didn’t want her first experience, even if it was also his first, to disappoint her. He wanted to give her more to remember than a feeling of fullness and then a man swearing and shaking above her.
“I’m going to move.”
And Christ, he wanted to. Needed to, almost.
“Yes. Please.”
He slid out of her, only a little, and then back again. She hummed—actually hummed—in approval.
“That-that feels good.”
“I—am—glad.”
Malcolm was at the very edge of his self-control. His vision darkened, and his hands gripped the bedsheets. Her sweet tightness on his cock was more than anyone should be expected to bear without spilling.
He withdrew again, further this time, and then edged back in. She gasped and tightened her grip on his shoulders. His cock sang in appreciation. Near-ruinous appreciation.
“Again,” she breathed. “Oh my, that is divine.”
He repeated the motion again and then once more. He remained on a perilous brink, moaning incoherently above her, but somehow staved off his spend. He supposed he was capable because of how much pleasure she seemed to take in the act.
“Dear God, Scarlett, you are sweet,” he murmured, as he plunged into her deeper, finding even more purchase.
“I am close. Don’t stop. Please. Please.”
It took everything in him to obey. His heart thundered in his chest.
But he kept going, giving her what she asked for.
Then she was crying out beneath him, and he knew he could waste no time.
He withdrew, already beginning to climax. He coated her core and thighs in a copious spend that seemed, for one suspended moment, endless.
“That was wonderful—” She gasped.
And at that exact moment, a knock sounded on the door.