Chapter 45
Wolfgang was in terrible pain.
He was also in heaven, his mouth full of the taste of Charlotte, his hands splayed on her inner thighs, his thumbs drawing ragged circles against her skin, and the earthy scent of her satisfaction drowning him.
Christ. He could lick her all night and still want more Charlotte for breakfast.
And yet, the pain.
His neck was a cord, his muscles were locked, and his cock throbbed so thick and heavy that if she so much breathed against him, he was going to toss back his head, howl, and spill out all over the mattress.
Think of battle. Think of blood.
But three times in a week with no relief was too fucking much.
His head was full of her breathy little sighs and his heart still pounded with how it felt for her to go off against his tongue.
He wanted to make her come again and again until that curving mouth of hers could only say, Oh, please, Wolfgang, and Wolfgang! I’m so sick in love with—
She shifted beneath him and he could feel a slight tremor ripple through her.
Wolfgang whipped his head up, alert as a hound.
Was it an aftershock? A shiver of cold? God help him, she wasn’t shuddering with regret?
All at once he was conscious that she’d come to his bedchamber, she’d cried, and he’d responded by ripping her clothes off. Wolfgang crawled up and pulled her unresisting into his arms. He leaned over to catch a glimpse of her face, but all he got was a mouthful of black hair.
“Charlotte?”
When he batted her curls away, they sprang back higher and bouncier than ever, like puppies who wanted to play.
Her hair was also loose and impossibly silky, and of course, he did want to play.
It was all he could do not to dig his hands in and get lost in threading each glossy coil around his fingers.
“Charlotte, where the hell are you? I see nothing but hair.”
She laughed, thank God, and his chest settled as she nuzzled in closer, rubbing her cheek back and forth against the crook of his arm, like a cat too tired to purr. Wolfgang’s heartbeat began to slow, until her knee drifted up his leg and his pulse shot up once again.
Cannons! Bayonets! Gunsmoke and screaming!
Just like she’d screamed when—
“Good Lord, Wolfgang. I’ve gone soft as butter and you’re so…” Her fingers trailed across his chest. “Tense.” She rested her elbows on him and propped her chin up in her hands, blowing a mass of hair away from her face, only to have it drift lazily down her back. “Perhaps if I touch you here…”
Wolfgang had her on her stomach and pinned on the other side of the bed in no time, holding her down with one arm only, so he could keep vital parts of himself a safe distance away.
“Charlotte, fuck,” he growled. “We can’t. We must be married first.”
“How you do love rules, how I do hate them,” she said gently. “Break the rules with me, Wolfgang. Give me everything tonight.”
The pain twisted and tightened into agony.
“It’s not that,” he managed, through tightly gritted teeth. “You could get pregnant.”
She pushed herself up on her elbow. “No. I’ve just finished my courses and you can spill on my stomach.” When he looked startled, she waved an impatient hand. “You’ve no idea how much information I’ve gleaned from my courtesan friends in Covent Garden.”
There is, Wolfgang reflected, even as his arms tightened around her, even as the silk of her naked skin fogged his head with pleasure, only so much a man can take.
He rolled her over and his brain whited out.
Three fucking years to think of this, to try not to think of this.
Three fucking years of yearning, and his imagination wasn’t even close. Especially not when her sweet hands were skimming along his sides, lighting up his nerves, one by one. Lighting him on fire, because it was Charlotte, and he was caught somewhere between heaven and—
“Wolfgang?” she said, alarmed, as she reached the massive scar on his hip.
Yes.
Right.
Her stopping was the worst pain of his life.
“Gunshot. Waterloo. It went clean through. Carry on!”
But Charlotte had other ideas. She pushed him on his back and he let her, because the sight of her naked breast above him, the most gorgeous blackberry-tipped weight just beyond the reach of his mouth, was a torture he was more than willing to endure.
When her mouth touched his scar, Wolfgang nearly leaped from the bed.
She lifted her eyes to him, and they were filled with drunken wonder and… accusation?
“You never said.”
“Flesh wound,” he growled again. “It’s nothing.”
“But—”
“Charlotte, you could cut off my fucking leg right now and I wouldn’t notice.”
Wolfgang pushed up onto his elbow, ready to take control, but—
“No! Stop—lie on your back. I want to explore.”
Well, thought Wolfgang as he fell back against the mattress, it’s not the worst way to die.
He grabbed the sheets and held on for all he was worth as Charlotte, up on her knees by his side, her bare skin licked by candlelight, her thundercloud hair billowing down her back, ran her hands once more over his stomach, over his chest, making little cat noises of pleasure as she explored.
One of those soft, clever hands reached lower still and her eyes went wide and wondering as her thumb brushed over the ridge—
Wolfgang had Charlotte flat on her back in less than half a second. He notched his cock up against her center and watched her lashes flutter with pleasure. “Christ, I—you’re sure?”
Her mouth curved. “Certain.”
Wolfgang would rather have stabbed himself than hurt her, and yet he was the one who hissed, almost in pain, as he dipped in the first inch. His lungs worked as if he were galloping into battle.
Charlotte’s eyes shimmered. “Please, I need more.”
He slurred her name and pressed slowly forward, the pressure inside flaring intolerably, shuddering at the effort not to move too fast. His spine was a column of steel as she began to twist and rock, and only when he was certain that she was frantic—that she was slick, wet and swollen—did he cup her ass and drive in once, slow and hard.
Helpless sounds spilled out of her mouth and so he drove in again.
Again.
Again and again.
A tidal wave was surging toward them, an ocean rising with vast power, sucking them up high on a crest. Charlotte broke first, and her shocked, grateful cry was too much for Wolfgang.
He pulled out just before he cracked in half and tumbled down into the deep, drowning, his lungs crushed by the force of all he felt.
“Charlotte, Christ, Charlotte. I fucking love you, Charlotte.”
Charlotte, Charlotte, Charlotte. Her name as his last rites.
When he crashed back onto the bed, she was boneless beneath him, so worked and exhausted that even her curls had gone limp. Wolfgang didn’t think his body was capable of movement, but that raised a grin. He rolled onto his back and pulled her with him, perfectly content for the first time in years.
“Wolfgang,” she whispered, running her fingers through the whorls of hair on his chest, “I think I’ve ruined you.”
He grunted. It was all he could manage.
Charlotte pushed herself up on an elbow.
“I hope you know—I do want to marry you, it’s only…
” She paused and it sounded important, so he forced his eyes open.
“This all started, if you remember, because of what Major Dumbarton did. He assaulted me, and now I’m told I have to marry.
As if marrying you is a punishment! Dash it, as if I deserve a punishment for what he did.
I know that’s how the world works, but the world is wrong, and I can’t stand that our marriage would be taken as a victory for everything I don’t believe in.
” She peeped down at him. “I don’t suppose you’d rather run away with me and be notorious in Italy? ”
Wolfgang sat up, an idea barreling toward him fully formed. “Why should we bow to the world? Instead, let’s change it.”
That’s right, Wolfie. John’s voice came to him for the first time in three long years, and it was strong and clear. It’s time to be a fucking duke.
Charlotte stared at him, but it wasn’t long before her busy mind got to work. Her lips curved slowly into a criminal grin, and Wolfgang gave a shout of laughter and pulled her back into his arms.
Charlotte at Her Utmost, and she was right there beside him.