Page 51 of Charlotte's Kisses

It sounded like something her stepmother would do.

“Perchance she started the rumors to hurt me,” Charlotte said.

He nodded. “I believe that is the case. I also think she intends to cause you more harm. Her jealousy has no bounds.” He gazed into Charlotte’s soul. “Firefly, right now, there are no other women but you. You are all I think about since I discovered you sparkling in the dark.”

“I feel the same way,” she said. “You make me feel alive for the first time in forever.”

He rested his forehead against hers.

“Where does this leave us?” she asked.

“I have nothing to offer you. I have no title or holdings, and even my job is in question.” He half chuckled, half moaned. “I gave all my money to a woman I encountered in the street. Her husband was abusing her, and I wanted her to leave him and start a new life. Since my rent was due, and I could not pay it, my landlord locked me out of my residence. Currently, I am homeless.”

“Oh, Hugh. How heroic.”

“I am no hero. I simply hate bullies.”

“A hero.” Her hero. “And how dare your landlord. I shall see him tomorrow. I will give him some of my pin money and then retrieve your belongings. I will also give him a piece of my mind.”

“God above, you are sweet. However, there is no point. I believe he burned all of my possessions. Let us return to the important point. I have nothing to offer you. We cannot live off your pin money.”

Dare she tell him how much she had hidden away? The truth was they would be able to live off her savings for quite a while.

“I do not care a fig for a title or holdings,” she said.

“Your brother and father would kill me before they allowed us to be together.”

“Then I shall run away,” she declared.

“My sweet little Firefly.” With his forehead still pressed against hers, he smiled. “Unfortunately, I must stay here and finish the job I have been contracted to do.”

All at once, the truth hit Charlotte. How could she have been so lamebrained?

“Were those my father’s mistresses, and you are searching for them for some reason?”

Hugh did not need to say anything, the look in his eyes told her everything she needed to know. Perhaps, deep down inside, she had always known.

“I can no longer keep count of them all, Father,” Alexander had said soon after their mother’s death.

“Did he have mistresses while my mother was alive?” she asked.

“Charlotte, ’tis not my place to tell you. I think you will need to confront your father.”

And confront her father, she would. Right after, she kissed Hugh decidedly good and proper.

Chapter twenty-three

Hugh’s night was lookingup. Gone was the tentative virgin he had met days ago, and in her place was a bold seductress. He adored both sides of Charlotte, but the one currently digging her fingernails into his shoulders as her tongue plunged into his mouth set him on fire. Hell, who was he kidding? Everything about her turned him into a raging inferno.

“Delicious,” Hugh whispered, since tonight she tasted like cherries.

Her tongue delved deeper, and she swallowed his, “Fuck, yes.”

Now that he knew she was safe for the time being, he needed to leave immediately. If he were discovered tupping her in her chamber, he would not just suffer a beating. Thistime, he would find himself at the end of a pistol, and rightfully so.

He tried to pull back, but Charlotte did not allow it. She clung to him as she nibbled on his bottom lip. His blasted engorged cock stole the blood from his brain, leaving him a prurient imbecile. To the devil. Since he could not fight his overwhelming attraction to her, he gave up and wrapped her in his arms.

Damnation, he loved everything about the breasts pressing against him. They had been bouncing about beneath her practically see-through night dress, taunting him since she had dashed across her chamber to let him in. Creamy white mounds with responsive pink tips and rosy areolas that tasted like decadent sweets beckoned and called, “Touch us. Lick us. Feast on us.”