She was a quick learner. He dropped his hand and let her take over.
The sight of her pale fingers around his thickness mesmerized him.
He watched, transfixed as her head suddenly dipped.
She kissed him there. It was gentle and sweet and tentative. Her tongue darted out to taste him. He jerked at the first velvety swipe of her tongue on his pulsing head.
She looked up at him, her lovely lips inches from his manhood. “Is this not acceptable?”
“Oh, it’s completely acceptable.” He threaded his fingers through her wet hair, piled atop her head in a messy arrangement.
She lowered her head back down and lapped at him with her tongue, her hand still flexing around the root of him.
It took everything in him not to thrust deeply into her mouth. He held himself back and allowed her to lavish him with her lips and tongue and hand.
His balls tightened, rising up, and he reached for her arms, hurriedly lifting her up and moving her away.
With a choked gasp, he turned and spilled himself into the grass, pleased that his ragged breaths matched her own behind him. He wasn’t the only one affected. She was every bit as discomposed.
“Kingston?” she said behind him, her voice shaky as a brittle leaf on the breeze.
He turned to face her. She’d covered her legs again, hiding her sweet quim from his gaze. Despite her bedraggled appearance, she looked deceptively demure and not like a chit given to shagging in the out of doors.
And for some reason that irked him.
Even with his body still humming from release, he was irked that she looked so wholly unsuited to illicit trysts.
He could almost believe she was under the influence of a love spell or aphrodisiac or some other such rubbish. If he believed in rubbish, which he didn’t.
But she did.
She thought this was inspired by something outside of herself.
“How was that?” he asked. “Better than your last taste?”
Her cheeks went scarlet.
Instead of stopping there, he added, “Lucky for me your tonic was still holding strong.”
The softness melted from her face. She turned to hard edges before his eyes. If he tried to touch her, he was sure he would cut himself on one of them.
“You mock me.” Not a question. She stated it unequivocally. The sky was up. The ground was down.
And he mocked her.
“Admit it was you here.” He waved back and forth between them. “You. You, Charlotte Langley. Not a female possessed.”
She stared at him with her chilled blue eyes—the only sound between them that of the water burbling nearby and the anger pounding in his ears. Anger she could deflate with just a few words.
A few honest words.
Instead, she said, “I should go. Anyone could happen upon us.”
“Indeed. You wouldn’t want to be compromised with the likes of me.”
“No.” Her chin lifted. “I would not.”
“Have no fear, Miss Langley. You can count on me for discretion.”
“Can I?” She looked at him intently, as though truly concerned.
Fear shadowed her eyes. In that moment, she looked so very young. Lost and confused. He had the fool impulse to gather her up in his arms and reassure her, tell her everything would work out for the best—whatever that meant. It was what people said. What men told the women for whom they cared.
Absurd, of course. He needn’t go that far. He did not possess such depth of emotion. Not for any female.
“Indeed.” He gave a single resolved nod. “I’m not looking for a wife. You may trust this is behind us.”
She sighed. Relief draped heavily within the sound. “Very good then.”
After a long moment of awkwardness, she turned and fled in the blossoming dawn, snatching up her shoes and stockings in her hasty flight.
He watched, unmoving from where he lounged partially naked on the grass. Honestly, he did not think he could tuck himself back into his trousers. Not yet. That would require more movement than he could manage. His muscles had the consistency of jam, so undone by her untried talents.
His own words echoed in his ears. You may trust this is behind us.
He’d said the words, but he did not like them.
He forced himself to remember that she would soon be wed, and he didn’t dally with married ladies.
Soon be wed.
But not yet. Not yet wed.
He released a short, tormented laugh. Brilliant. He was laughing to himself like a madman alone in the woods, demented and fantasizing after a woman he ought not want.
He knew he should leave her be and cease this senseless pursuit of her. Disaster loomed ahead if he did not. He recognized that. She might be fatherless, but Warrington was her brother-in-law and he knew the man well enough to know he would not tolerate Kingston dallying with her—for the sake of his wife, if nothing else.
He sighed and fell back on the cushion of grass. This attraction, this unfortunate pull he felt toward her, was because he had not been with a woman in a long time. He was suffering for it. It being a shag, of course. It had nothing to do with her. Nothing at all. Nothing to do with the unusually compelling creature that was Miss Charlotte Langley.
He watched shades of pink streak across the sky, splashing through the purple cotton fluffs of clouds.
The chit was not to be shagged. Plain and simple.
She was the kind of lass one married.
Specifically, she was the kind of chit another man was going to marry. Another man, not him.
He needed to remember that. That was the critical distinction. As much as the idea knotted his gut, he accepted it. Because whilst she was not for him to shag . . . he was not built for marriage.
He was not husband material. It was not in him. He was not fashioned that way.
He knew himself well enough to know that.
Chapter 8
Hours later, Charlotte paced a hard line back and forth across Nora’s bedchamber, taking a breath amidst the accusations she was hurling at her sister.
Sunlight streamed in through the windows, doing little to cheer her mood and dampen the barrage of words she launched at her younger sister.
Irresponsible. Reckless. Dangerous. You could have killed me!
When she’d returned from the pond, despite her maelstrom of thoughts and emotions, she had somehow returned to her bed and fallen asleep. She’d dropped into her bed like a lead weight.
Not only had she managed to sleep, but it was perhaps the best sleep she had ever enjoyed since moving into Haverston Hall. She’d slept deeply, the ravages of Nora’s tonic melting away with the vestiges of night.
When she woke up to ready for church, her encounter with Kingston felt as illusory as a dream. Gossamer wisps of fantasy.
One of those wildly impossible dreams that faded bit by bit, piece by piece with each passing waking moment.
Except it had all happened. It was no dream.
In the broad light of day, the truth was a maelstrom hitting her in full, unremitting force.
What had she done?
The blue-and-yellow-striped fabric of her skirts swished smartly about her ankles as she moved. It was a new dress. Far lovelier than anything she had owned before her sister married the Duke of Warrington. Almost all her dresses were new now. She and her sisters were regularly outfitted in all the latest fashions. Marian enjoyed clothes. To be fair, so did Charlotte.
Charlotte had a way with needle and thread. Unlike her sisters, though, she actually enjoyed sewing. She had not necessarily enjoyed it when she had been forced to work long hours for the local dressmaker after Papa had died, but there had been no choice in the matter then.