“Auntie, I’m hungry.” Lourdes tugged on the lacy nightgown.
“I’ll bet you are, sweetheart,” Charlotte said. “Let’s go find the kitchen and get you something to eat.” She wasn’t going to put on any of those clothes until she had a bath and eased the soreness between her legs.
Genevieve was already in the kitchen drinking a cup of coffee. She looked beautiful. Serene. So Genevieve. She looked up from the glossy magazine she was reading when Charlotte entered with Lourdes. Her smile froze when her gaze centered on Charlotte’s neck.
“Oh. My. God.” Jumping up, she rounded the table to sweep aside Charlotte’s hair. “You are such a slut. You have a collar around your neck. Girl, you did the dirty with Tariq Asenguard, didn’t you? The most sought-after bachelor in the city.”
“You have no idea,” Charlotte whispered, trying to motivate Genevieve to do the same. She rolled her eyes toward Lourdes and hissed her response in a very low tone. “I totally am a slut. I couldn’t help myself. He’s, like, off-the-charts good, and I’m not even exaggerating.” The aroma of coffee, usually something she loved, made her slightly nauseous. She pressed a hand to her stomach to quiet its churning.
“What’s a slut?” Lourdes asked, clearly paying close attention.
“Your auntie,” Genevieve answered. “Her picture is beside the word in the dictionary.”
“Vi! Stop. Lourdes, that isn’t a good word and we shouldn’t have been using it. We’re joking, but it isn’t appropriate.” Charlotte made a face at her best friend, widening her eyes to signal she needed to behave herself.“Tell me everything, or this child is going to get an education,” Genevieve warned, pulling a pan down from where it was hanging over the center aisle. “Get the bacon and eggs out of the refrigerator.”
Charlotte did so, wrinkling her nose at the smell of the bacon. She’d never noticed that it was so strong even uncooked. “I don’t know how it happened, Vi. Seriously. One moment I walked through the door and the next I was kissing him.”
Genevieve mouthed the word slut. Charlotte nodded. “With him, totally. I can barely walk this morning and was hoping you’d watch Lourdes while I took a bath.” More than anything she needed to inspect the rest of her body for his marks.
“You can barely walk?” Genevieve echoed. “I’m so jealous.” She expertly broke the shells of the eggs and whipped the mixture as she talked. The smile faded from her face as she really looked at Charlotte. “All kidding aside, are you all right?”
Charlotte touched the tip of her tongue to her bottom lip. She could still feel him there. Taste him in her mouth. The bacon and coffee were seriously making her feel sick. If she didn’t escape soon, she might really throw up. Everything in her went still.
“Oh. My. God. Genevieve.” She slammed her palm over her mouth as if that could keep her thoughts at bay. Her eyes went wide with shock and she knew she looked stricken. She stepped closer to her friend and lowered her voice even more. “I had unprotected sex. What was wrong with me?”
“What was wrong with him?” Genevieve countered. “Girl, face it, you held out forever, too busy for men and dating, and the first time you decide to indulge had to be crazy wild. But he knows better.”
“I know better.” Charlotte refused to shift the responsibility. “I wasn’t thinking. And that bacon is going to make me throw up. I’m not kidding. Will you watch Lourdes just until I can pull myself together?”
“Of course. No problem. We’ll eat breakfast and then go exploring.”
“Keep her away from the lake.”
“Will do. And Charlie, no one gets pregnant their first time.”
Charlotte wished that were the truth. She pressed her hand to her heaving, protesting stomach again and began to back out of the room.
“Wait, hon, I made coffee and he has great coffee, a soft brew. The best. Let me get you a cup.”
Charlotte shook her head and turned and fled before she vomited all over the floor. What was wrong with her that she hadn’t shown one ounce of good sense or discipline? She’d practically thrown herself at the man from the first moment that he’d touched her. Granted, he knew what he was doing. No one got to that level of skill without a lot of experience, but still, she had her rules. She wasn’t a one-night stand kind of woman.
She locked the bathroom door and turned on the golden faucets. In the small, white, antique cupboard she found bath salts and dumped them liberally into the hot water. What kind of bachelor had scented bath salts in his guest bathroom? One who entertained all the time—that was for certain. She was grateful the fragrance didn’t worsen the churning in her stomach; in fact, it seemed to make it a little better.
Waiting for the claw-foot tub to fill, she pulled off her long gown and walked slowly over to the full-length mirror to stare at her body. She felt different. Not just a little different but very different. Her body was the same yet not. She had marks and smudges all over her. Little bites and bigger ones. A shiver went through her as she remembered how each of those brands had been placed so deliberately. She’d gloried in that last night. All night. She’d wanted him to mark her. She touched one smudge along her thigh, and instantly her feminine sheath clenched with need. For him. Tariq.
Charlotte cupped her breast, her thumb sliding across her nipple, and instantly she had a vision of his mouth over her soft mound. Sensation followed, the stroking of his fingers, the heat of his mouth, the erotic bite of his teeth. She touched the exact spot where his teeth scraped and bit, sending a streak of lightning straight to her clit. The impression was so real that damp heat collected and her body felt empty and needy all over again.
She wanted him for her lover. For her man. She wanted him to belong to her exclusively. Did men like Tariq Asenguard commit to one woman when they had several clubs and thousands of women to choose from? That was highly unlikely.
She touched the dark strawberry on the swell of her breast. Two tiny puncture wounds from his teeth were there, and once again sensations swamped her. That bite of pain resonated deep inside of her. She gasped as she felt the burn. The need settled into a continuous torture. She would never be free of her hunger for him.
The fragrance of the bath salts helped to soothe her when a part of her wanted to cry. She would never be the same, but did she even want to be? Did she wish she’d never met him—spent a long, beautiful, perfect night with him? Sinking down into the steaming water, she had to admit, she wouldn’t have traded the experience for anything. Not. Ever.
She’d felt loved and protected. Safe with him. She’d trusted him with her body. Not just her body, she realized, but with her soul and maybe even her heart. It was impossible to fall for a man she barely knew, but they’d shared such intimacy she felt connected to him in ways she’d never connected to another human being.
The water soothed her body and she closed her eyes to savor the feeling. She was very sore, but every movement was a delicious reminder of his possession. She pulled her legs up and rested her head against the tops of her knees.
She was still tired, almost in a fog, but she couldn’t allow herself to take advantage of Genevieve by letting her take charge of Lourdes’s first day at the Asenguard compound. She just needed a few minutes to get herself under control. What was she going to do? You didn’t sleep with the boss. Essentially, if she took the job of restoring his carousels—and she wanted the job very, very much; it was her dream job—she couldn’t make the mistake of sleeping with the boss.
Of course she hadn’t actually accepted the job yet. But she would if she hadn’t already blown it. If he had the wooden horses Ricard Beaudet had shown her in the photographs, she had to take the job. Ricard had been so excited, believing them to be some of the oldest carousel horses in existence. Where a collector in the United States had gotten such treasures, Ricard didn’t know, but he was certain they were authentic. If they were, Charlotte wanted to be the one to restore their splendor to the world, but . . . Her boss. She’d thrown herself at Tariq, and she still wanted him . . . desperately.“Almost desperately,” she corrected herself, not believing it, whispering against her knees. He’d kissed her knees. He’d woken her twice more, worshiping her body. There was no other word for it. He’d worshiped her. Slowly. Making her unravel. That had been just as good as the wild—and there had been a lot of the wild.
Her body shuddered, remembering the pleasure his mouth and hands brought her, the way his body stretched hers, filling her full, flinging her into a world of pure feeling, over and over again. The kisses. He’d kissed her like he was a starving man, so hungry for her. So worshipping of her. He’d made her feel as if she were the only woman on earth. The only woman for him. Could he do that and walk away from her the next evening?
She needed to know. She had to believe she wasn’t just a one-night stand for him. If he could act that well, make her become something she had never imagined, a purely sexual creature, when she knew she wasn’t, then he was the greatest actor on the face of the earth.
Charlotte sighed. She couldn’t hide forever in the bathtub. The water felt wonderful on her tired, sore body, and the fog was beginning to lift. She glanced toward the window. It was covered with filmy Victorian lace and looked out over the lake. Shrubbery was everywhere, beautifully cared for, but left a little wild. Everything seemed to be a little wild on the property. She’d noted that even when she’d driven in so late and it had been dark. That should have given her a warning.