Chapter 44
Tap, tap, tap.
In the darkest hours of the night, the upstairs corridor was a long stretch of shadow lit only by the faint spill of moonlight.
Charlotte pulled her pink wrap tight around her, not cold exactly but shivering all the same and too aware of the way the night air whispered over her skin.
She tapped on the door again, lightly, and yet in the quiet it sounded loud as a gunshot.
There was a noise from within and a candle flared to light.
The cracks around the casing began to glow amber, making Charlotte’s pulse skitter and jump.
“Wolfgang?” she whispered, and pressed her hand against the wood.
The door opened and there he stood, outlined in bronze by the candlelight flickering behind him. His hair gleamed, as did one side of his throat and the silk banyan that he’d tied roughly around his waist.
“Charlotte.” He drew her into the room, standing so close that she could feel the warmth of the bed on him, just as she could hear sleep roughening his voice.
It would be so easy to sway toward him, tumble down on the mattress and curl up together into the imprint his big body had made, pulling the covers over them and against the world. “Are you all right?”
“I—I…”
Was she all right? Charlotte glanced at the bed but found nothing to say.
The count and the margrave had already left for London.
Lady Margot was staying the night and would leave the next morning for Calais and then Paris, where she planned to “take myself off and be a bother to no one,” as she’d said morosely before she swept up the stairs.
She meant, of course, live like a queen in the H?tel Ramsay, but Charlotte saw no need to argue the point.
“Charlotte?” Wolfgang prompted, much too gently.
Charlotte couldn’t quite meet his eyes, and why should she when she could study his shoulders instead?
The heavy green silk of his robe clung tight over the slope of his shoulders and down over the dips and swells of his arms. Charlotte swallowed.
Strange that his dressing gown should be the one garment that fit him properly.
Her eyes fell to his neck, bared to her gaze by the wide V of his nightshirt.
Oh God. She’d licked that neck just yesterday.
His forehead furrowed. “You’re worrying me, Charlotte.”
“I’m fine, I promise.” Because she was determined to be, very soon.
“Why did you come?” His voice was impossibly gentle.
They both knew the answer, and still her cheeks lit with embarrassment. Perhaps she’d start with something easier?
“I was in my room and I heard you thrashing about. It seemed terribly impolite to turn in without a good-night kiss.”
Wolfgang uttered a low curse, sounding so pained that Charlotte could only be pleased.
Oh, how she loved to be dangerous, especially to this man.
She kept her eyes wide and innocent, holding Wolfgang’s gaze as he brushed a curl off her face, his knuckles rough against her skin, and bent to place a quick kiss on her cheek.
“There,” he growled. “Does that satisfy?”
Not hardly.
She shook her head.
Wolfgang laughed, though it sounded like a groan. “Are you trying to kill me, or only to make me hurt?”
To Charlotte’s horror, something hot began to prickle in her throat. “No. I believe we’ve all had enough unpleasantness today.”
Wolfgang’s mouth went grim. Before she could so much as squeak, he swooped her up against his chest and lowered them both gently to the bed, pulling Charlotte onto his lap as he crooned senseless words against the top of her head.
“No, no! I’m perfectly fine,” cried Charlotte, just as a big ugly sob pushed its way up her throat.
Wolfgang pulled her closer, his fingers working deep into her hair to find the stiff muscles at the nape of her neck. “That’s right, have a good cry.”
“I don’t want to,” she howled.
Wolfgang’s big body settled around her with all its solid warmth, cradling her close as she cried so that her cheek was flat against his chest and she could hear the steady beat of his heart. Slowly his calm seeped into her, reaching deeper and deeper until it settled into her bones.
“Now,” he said, “tell me what’s wrong.”
The whole story of her mother’s debt tumbled out, though it took some time because Wolfgang kept stopping her to praise her, and to mutter dark little asides about the damage different calibers of rifles could inflict, and at certain points his body went tense, which gave Charlotte the good idea of patting his muscles until he cursed and had to pry her hands off him so he could concentrate.
At other points she got teary again, which made him dissolve completely until he settled them both by wrapping himself around her and clucking at her softly to tell her how well she’d done.
The candle was burning low before she’d finished and Wolfgang had asked the last of his questions.
He tucked his chin into her hair. “I wish to God you’d felt you could tell me. I’d have written a thousand bank drafts to—”
“But I’m proud I solved my own problem—I feel capable of anything now. Did you ever think—”
He nipped her ear. “Not for weeks. I fear my brain is scrambled.”
Charlotte shifted to look up at him. “Did you ever think I’d run to you for comfort?”
“A vast improvement on running away from me. How’s it possible for one so little to be so quick?”
“Little! I’m tall as a willow. Perhaps you didn’t notice, because you’re the size of a draft horse?”
His eyes flared. “I notice everything about you.”
That shut Charlotte up, particularly because she was noticing, too.
Her hand spread experimentally on his chest. How could the man have muscles that were hard as oak and yet so warm and alive, as if they were preening for her?
She spread her fingers even wider, holding his gaze, and his muscles pressed into her hand.
Good Lord, could she do anything to him?
The thought made her feel quite drunk, so she twisted around to straddle him, lifting up until his mouth was just in reach of hers.
“Charlotte!” Wolfgang grunted.
It seemed to be a warning.
She wound her arms around his neck. “Yes, Wolfgang?”
It seemed to take some effort for him to reply. “You’re alone with me. In my bed.”
“Am I?” She considered. “I’d say rather that I was on your bed. Or, more precisely, on you.”
Wolfgang made a savage noise low in his throat, which gave Charlotte the excellent idea of inspecting the area more closely, perhaps with her mouth.
But just as she was about to put her plan into action, Wolfgang leaned abruptly forward.
Suddenly, instead of being perched on his thighs, she was tipped backward and clinging to him.
The breath whooshed out of her and her lips parted on a gasp.
“Damn it, Charlotte, if you don’t watch out, you’ll be flat on your back and panting my name.”
Her stomach swooped and her legs went liquid. “What if you’re panting my name?”
“Even better. Shall I begin?”
Wolfgang lifted her hand, fitted his mouth to the base of her palm, and sucked. “Charlotte,” he muttered into the cup of her hand.
She felt it like an ache.
Her head tipped back and her hips rocked forward, and Wolfgang turned his attention to her neck.
“Charlotte,” he groaned, and gave her throat a small, rough lick.
She gasped again, which made him mutter, “Christ, Charlotte!” and tip her farther over, one hand tight on her ass and the other forming a cradle for the back of her head as he dropped his mouth to hers and kissed her hard.
God, she loved his tongue in her mouth. She sucked him deeper as she clung to him, clutching his jaw, tightening her legs around him, and rubbing her breasts against his chest. He gripped her harder, one big hand frantically kneading the globe of her ass as her insides melted and everything went swollen and slippery.
“Fuck.” Wolfgang wrenched them both up straight and lifted her firmly off him, planting her in the middle of the bed.
Charlotte could only sway unsteadily. Where there had once been acres of man, there was now nothing but night air, too cold after the heat of him.
“Wolfgang?” She was appalled at how weak she sounded.
But he was sitting on the side of the bed, his arms on his knees and his face buried in his hands.
“Wolfgang?” She crept nearer, slipping her hand onto his shoulder.
“Don’t touch me, for God’s sake. I’m trying to remember that I was born a gentleman.”
Oh.
Oh!
Charlotte smiled.
“I wasn’t born a gentleman,” she offered helpfully.
The side of her breast grazed his arm, and it made her feel so shivery that she did it again.
Wolfgang choked out a laugh, which encouraged Charlotte to bend her head to nibble at his collarbone.
She wanted to feel it with her lips, and also with her cheek and nose.
Her fingertips glowed at the pleasure of skimming over his fascinating ridges and valleys.
What would it be like to peel back his robe and nightshirt, so she had all that bare skin to—
He pushed her back hard and she landed with a gasp against the pillows.
“Wolfgang!” she protested, but not for long, because he followed her down, his shoulders filling her view as he loomed up over her, his pelvis pinning her to the bed.
Charlotte stared up at him, the mattress at her back and so much Wolfgang on top of her.
He filled her vision and her lungs, the scent of him mingling with hers and making her senses swim.
Her body churned and ached, but her mind felt blessedly clear for once.
She tilted toward Wolfgang like he was her gravity.
He narrowed his eyes and swooped down until his lips hovered a feather’s width above hers. “You exist to try me, Charlotte.”
Oddly, that made her feel even lighter.
“No, don’t smile at me,” he growled. “I want you, damn it. I want your smart mouth. I want you flouncing about and scheming, or making me trail after you at balls, or in silk mills, or wherever you care to go. I want to marry you, though you’ve been harassed enough by suitors and I’m not going to ask you now. ”
“What are you saying, Wolfgang?”