***A/N: PG13 moment ahead, folks! Don't like it, don't read it ;) ***
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"How long have you known?"
Charlie's words came out harsh in the silence of the room. What the devil had gone on inside this room? What did Greyson mean about her uncle? What deal had he made?
Charlie could have kicked herself for believing for one moment that her uncle might have been forced into it, that there was something bigger at play.
She shook off the disappointment weighing her down, and instead focused on the man before her.
A deep chuckle bore from deep within Greyson's chest at Charlie's words, and it took every ounce of self control she possessed not to close the distance between them and box his ears.
The bloody arse.
"You, my lady," Greyson said, coming out from his lean against the door as he crossed his arms over his chest, "are as poor of an actor as your dear uncle."
Charlie placed her hands on her hips. "What the devil is that supposed to mean? And I don't know what part of 'how long have you known' was supposed to be funny, my lord. Did you know this whole time?" Charlie's foot stamped in frustration as her eyes probed his across the room. Her lips were tight, the corners of her mouth white from the strict way she held them.
When silence met her question, Charlie placed a hand on her hip, her chin resting upon her chest. "You kept me working within your stables. We shared a room at a hotel," she whispered, her head coming up. They locked eyes and Charlie could feel color creeping from the collar of her shirt and spreading along her cheekbones. "For heaven's sake, you had me worried for days that you were attracted to men -"
Greyson choked and his shoulders swept back, his black tailcoat straining across the breadth of his chest. "I beg your pardon?"
Charlie laughed, bitterly. "Oh, don't be so surprised. What else was I supposed to think, Greyson?" Charlie's words ended on a shriek and she cleared her throat, her fingers stretching at her sides as she shook her head. So consumed in her anger was she that she failed to notice the change that came over Greyson. His eyes went heavy lidded, focusing on the stretch of her fingers, the tenseness of her shoulders, the color climbing over her throat. He uncrossed his arms, his legs taking slow, measured strides towards her.
"The way you stared at me," Charlie continued, unheeded, grabbing pieces of her shorn locks and tugging. "That first day, after the robbers...in the stables....you had me on the ground...beneath you and...I felt...something," she finished lamely, her gaze falling onto Greyson.
It didn't register how much distance he had closed as she had carried on so. Part of her angry and the other...knowing she hadn't imagined it.
It had been there.
Of their own accord, Charile's eyes took in Greyson's full lips - ones that had kissed her, to his hands - ones that had gripped her thigh, bringing it up to straddle one of his hips, to that part of him she had felt, but not seen - one that had been pressed intimately against her softness.
Charlie felt her cheeks flame and she cursed silently.
The cad! How he must have laughed at her! While she had been worried about maintaining her disguise, worried she would give herself away, he had been wondering how long she would continue, how long until Charlie's disguise would crumble.
And then to have her worried that Greyson had been attracted to her - Charlotte and Charlie both. How often had Charlie replayed their every interaction? How often had she been kept awake tossing and turning, cursing herself for thinking the bloody man would ever be attracted to her.
Er, to him?
Charlie didn't know and it made her anger arise with a vengeance.
The least the earl could do was hear how much he had inconvenienced her!
"And then in the shack along the road when you stood so damned close and you carried me in your arms!" By now, Greyson had closed half the distance between them, and Charlie's eyes came up. Her breath halted in her chest as she noticed his swift and sure strides, the way his eyes were trained unerringly on her person. "T...then the bedchamber. The...the..."
She cleared her throat as Greyson stopped before her. Her heart beat frantically; any moment it would cease to be inside of her chest. The earl hovered mere inches from Charlie and as his eyes dropped to Charlie's lips, the warmth of his breath ruffled the hairs at her temples.
Her own eyes followed the steady pulse beating rapidly in his neck.
"What, Charlotte?" Greyson said softly. "What happened in that bedchamber?"
Charlie shivered.
God, but her name sounded sweet on his lps.
The question brought Charlie's gaze back to the earl's eyes. They had darkened to a stormy hue, and Charlie licked her lips, her mind retreating as quickly as her anger had. "I...what?"
A smirk tilted Greyson's lips as he leaned in, placing his hands on either side of Charlie. Her back stumbled into the bookshelves behind her, the spines of various tomes digging into her shoulder blades.
"What were you going to say?" he asked, his tone low as he leaned in. His face stopped moments from the soft skin on her neck and he blew a stream of air over the flesh. Goose bumps rose on Charlie's skin. "What happened in that bedchamber, Charlotte? Remind me. I seem to have forgotten."
Greyson leaned back and Charlie took a stuttering breath. That was when she noticed the gleam of amusement in the man's eyes. Charlie bit her tongue, meeting the earl toe to toe just as she had before on that balcony what seemed like ages ago, both of them staring off. "The kiss happened as you well know!" Charlie thumped him on the chest with her finger, and a grin broke over his features, as if he took delight in her show of temper.
If that was what he wished then who was Charlie to oblige?
Remembering the way the earl had responded to her that evening of the kiss, and the day after, in his stables, Charlie leaned in herself. Greyson's eyes shuttered, his gray irises turning smoky as he peered at her curiously from beneath his lashes.
Charlie stood on tip-toe, her head coming up to his chin. She watched his chest move up and down, a rhythm that was fast and short and sharp. It sent a surge of power through Charlie's veins.
She had done this to him.
It was her nearness that sent his heart racing beneath her palm. Her scent that had him inhaling deeply, as if ingraining each part of her into a different part of him. Storing her away for later, to cherish as he wished.
Perhaps it was that that made Charlie take it one step further. Perhaps it was the unsatisfactory way they had ended their union last time. The barest of tastes, the merest of awakenings of her body. But she leaned in, her tongue giving a long lick from the first hint of tanned skin all the way up to the back of his ear.
He drew in a sharp breath, and in the next, he exhaled harshly, muttering, "By God, Charlotte. What you do to me."
And then he was pushing her back. A heavy hand pressed into her abdomen, the absence of her stays and corset making the contact all the more thrilling. She could almost feel the rough skin of his fingertips pressing into her,
His scent of pine and woodsmoke tantalized her nose as the weight of his lean hips pressed into her breeches-clad body. Her buttocks dug into the wood of the bookshelves behind her and she settled more firmly on it, the heart of her nestling that part of him.
Greyson's body was a furnace against her, and Charlie was left wondering if perhaps the fire had encapsulated him. Every place he touched Charlie scorched her skin, left imprints of his person on her.
Red ringed around the collar of his shirt as his hands came up. They trembled slightly as they cupped both sides of Charlie's neck. His thumb dipped into her pulse point at the crook of her neck and shoulder, and Greyson's eyes followed, lingering on it. Greyson's tongue slipped out to wet his lips, the depths of them parting as if he couldn't take in enough oxygen.
"I have waited so long to shed this silly disguise of yours, Charlotte. You have no idea."
His other thumb roamed over, dipping into the dimple of her chin and rubbing the skin lightly. The slight pressure had her bottom lip lowering with each slow drag of his finger. Charlie's eyes fell from Greyson's parted lips to his cravat, wishing to unwind it, undo the few meager buttons revealed and uncover his torso.
Wildfire lit behind her eyes as she pictured his body the way it had been after the fires. Gleaming, dipping with hidden hollows and curves.
Was this what other ladies whispered of in ballrooms? Was this how ladies felt when they garnered a man's full attention? As if they were separating into two beings - one that desired the shot of lust that singed in their veins while the other wondered at opening so thoroughly to another's mercy?
Being willing to?
This sweet sense of how she breathed, how her body moved, how each sense was heightened.
She thought it must be, indeed. It was something Charlie couldn't imagine sharing with anyone else.
Though her hair was shorn and jagged, though she was dressed in dirtied breeches and her shirt was rumpled from hiding in what amounted to no more than a holding closet, Charlie was astounded that she had never felt so much like a woman.
Greyson's hands left her entirely only to settle delicately, one on each side of her cheeks, covering the visible skin from her hairline to her jaw.
"It was lilacs."
Charlie broke from her haze enough that her eyes met Greyson's and her brow furrowed. "That makes no blasted sense, a'tall, Greyson."
His lips spread, a full grin as he leaned in, placing his lips to the tip of her cheekbone. "Greyson," he repeated, drawing back before placing a gentle kiss on the left side of her lips. "I like the sound of that."
God, but so did she.
"Lilacs. That was how I knew it was you. At the inn."
Charlie's heart stopped. "You really have known this entire time."
Greyson didn't look suitably chagrined. Not at all. For his lips fluttered next over to the right side of her lips, pressing a whisper-soft kiss there. Charlie barely stopped her head from turning to meet them.
"You smelled of them at the ball when I met you. It was as if you bathed in them," another kiss on the tip of her nose, "and when I awoke to you over me in the stables-"
Charlie cursed the flushing of her face as Greyson chuckled knowingly.
"Imagine my confusion when I awoke not to see my imagined angel, but a stable boy. Would you believe a boy would smell of such a scent?" Greyson asked, his tongue coming out to give Charlie a quick lick along the line of her jaw.
She couldn't help it. She gasped at the laviscious feel of his tongue.
"What boy coming upon hard times would even have lilac bath salts, hm?"
Drat! A...a good...question.
"You are lucky it was me who came upon you, Charlotte."
She frowned, even as she followed the breath of his kiss on the right side of her temple, disturbing the hairs there. He pulled back, and the seriousness in his eyes, had Charlie focusing.
"Do you know what a man would want to do, Charlotte?"
All of a sudden, Charlie realized she was tired of all the games. Whatever it was the earl was playing at. She was tired of being teased, of feeling she had to be something she was not - someone. All along she had felt so uncertain, as if her true self had fallen by the wayside and she had to cover her up.
But with this man, she found her cares and concerns and worries flying from the window.
Hell, she simply didn't care.
For she was here. Now, with Greyson. A stable hand no longer.
"I imagine," Charlie whispered, her eyes drifting to Greyson's lips. "I imagine it would be something like this."
And Charlie was moving, wrapping her arms around his neck as her hands dug through the layers of his hair, gripping his head firmly and bringing his lips down to hers.
***
Greyson hadn't imagined his interrogation going quite like this. Wasn't there something he had to find out? Something in regards to her uncle?
As to why Charlie had been hiding? Disguised as a stable hand?
Hadn't he been angry?
Was this yet another instance in which Charlie diverted him? Some plot to keep him off her trail?
Charlie's tongue dipped out, stroking along the seam of his lips.
Bloody hell, where the devil had the chit learned to do that?
Greyson tilted his head, and breaking Charlie's grip on his hair, threaded his hands through her arms, forcing them to wrap around his waist instead, as Greyson moved Charlie's head in the direction he desired, taking her lips as he had hungered to do since the evening of the fire.
Charlie arched into him, bringing Greyson's mind to the one secret that had plagued him for nigh on eternities.
She jerked in his arms when his hand burrowed beneath her shirt, landing on the bare curve of her waist and stealing upwards. He swallowed her gasp, the skin of her stomach so bloody soft that he groaned into her mouth.
And then he was there.
A...cloth?
Greyson pulled back as his hand ran over the material covering Charlie's chest. Hell, but she had bound them?
He wondered how they would fill his hands and would have discovered it for himself if Charlie hadn't taken over and moved his hands over her still clothed breasts. He could feel the tips of her nipples through the cloth, and then his mouth was once more on hers.
Greyson was afraid he would never get enough of her taste, her scent. Her hesitant touch as it traced the muscles of his chest and arms, squeezing the flesh there and biting into it with her nails.
Then his hands were moving again, lifting her up under her thighs and then she was pressed into the bookcase, the center of her pressed deliciously into his hardness. He thrust experimentally and Charlie's head fell back, the layers of her dark hair gleaming against her pale skin.
He was half crazed as he placed an open mouthed kiss on her neck, biting the flesh between his teeth.
"Greyson..."
The sound of his name on her lips broke through the haze, and he halted his motions. Bloody hell, he thought, what was he doing?
This was no normal miss, but a lady. His Charlotte.
An innocent maiden for all intents and purposes, regardless of the state of her reputation after this whole debacle.
Charlie, realizing Greyson had stopped, tensed in his arms, and then she was struggling against him. "Put me down," her hand thumped his chest and Greyson released her, turning his back and throwing his hands through his hair, pulling the strands as if that would return common sense back into his person.
He could hear Charlie's heavy breathing behind him, and he couldn't help but look. She was faced away as well, one hand on the bookcase as she caught her breath. Greyson could see the binding around her chest now through the thin material of her shirt, could admire the fully rounded curves of her arse and the way her legs curved hugged by sleek buckskin.
"What did you mean?"
Charlie had turned to face Greyson, her gaze solemn and something in them caused Greyson to tense. A feeling of wariness stole through him. "Mean by what?"
"What you said about my uncle? The acting part?"
Greyson's hand squeezed the back of his neck as he turned to look to the side.
"I don't think so," Charlie said, stalking to Greyson as she settled her arms over her chest. "If you can cast some type of insinuation upon my character, you can sure as hell look at me while you do it."
A tic began in Greyson's jaw, and he found the spark of anger gave him the courage to look into her eyes. "Your conniving uncle is a con."
"And?"
Greyson sputtered. "And? What do you mean, and?"
Charlie shrugged. "All of London knows my uncle's reputation is as clear as mud and yet they seek to do business with him anyway. Were you going to?"
"Hell, no," Greyson said, meeting her eyes. "He tried to sell me his bullshite at the ball, but I told him to go to the devil then as I have now."
"That's not what I meant," Charlie said. "Were you going to take his offer? Was that why you paid such particular attention to me?"
Greyson's jaw dropped at her own insinatuion. "God, no, Charlotte." He stole up to her, bringing his hands once more to cradle her face. It felt delicate in his arms, and he felt his temper flaring. This innate belief it seemed Charlie had in regards to men, in general. To the ton, in particular. And he could see why. "That's the reason I gave him the cut direct. To even contemplate selling one's niece. And I had no idea you were the niece in question. In case you didn't notice, we never had been introduced, my lady." Greyson grinned. "Unless a fruit tart counts, of course."
He delighted in the color that flamed on her face.
It all fell to the wayside when Charlie went quiet, and she turned away from him. She laughed, but it held no humor. "I shouldn't be surprised my uncle would go to such lengths."
Greyson swallowed harshly, wanting to go to her. He knew his previous accusations were false. The forthright way Charlie had acknowledged her uncle's business, and now, the downcast slope of her shoulders, told Greyson all he needed to know.
"That's what you ran away from, then? Your uncle?"
It made sense. Charlie would never willingly work with a man such as her uncle. The lady was never one to back down from an argument or an injustice. He had seen it in the way Charlie had protected herself against Simpton on the balcony. The way the girl had bloodied the man's nose and then gotten angry at Greyson for taking away her upcoming victory.
Greyson almost laughed at the remembrance of Charlie declaring her intention to cause physical harm to the man's balls.
And then how Charlie had taken to the road in nothing but her shoddy disguise - ill-thought out though it was.
She wouldn't have done such a thing if it weren't an injustice she was running from.
Greyson watched Charlie's face for any indication that she had heard him, that she would answer. It was then that Greyson understood what bothered him every day that they had been together. Something that had stuck securely in his craw.
It was his need to protect her, to have her trust him to do right by her. Had she any reason not to trust him, Greyson wondered.
Because at every turn, Charlie reproached his efforts.
"Charlie?"
She shook her head, and a pang of disappointment struck Greyson's chest. Charlie was still refusing to accept his care. To accept him.
Something had happened to have such a detriment to her that she no longer trusted anyone.
That's when it struck him.
Charlie's words of only moments ago. I shouldn't be surprised that my uncle would go through such lengths.
As though he had before.
Greyson's breath froze in his lungs as her words at the ball replayed in his mind.
You men, acting as if we are chattel to be carted around at your whims.
You men, blaming a female's fortunes...or our looks as your rights to...do things like this!
"Hell."
Charlie frowned at him. "What is it?"
"Your uncle," Greyson said, stepping up to Charlie and grasping her shoulders firmly. "Your uncle was behind that attack, wasn't he?"
Her face said it all.
Greyson's blood boiled and he was releasing her and making his way to his study door.
"Oh, for God's sakes, not this again!"
Charlie's words halted Greyson's angry strides and he faced Charlie, his hand falling on the curve of his hip. "What is the matter now?"
"This," Charlie said, waving at Greyson. Was he supposed to know what that meant? "This whole thing you are doing. Turning protective cave-man. Why not piss a circle about me and be done with it?"
Greyson's jaw dropped at that. "I am doing no such thing."
Charlie raised a brow. "No? So you weren't going to do something completely rash and ill-advised like go after my retreating uncle? Threatening the life of the man?"
Greyson laughed. "Oh, I will do more than threaten, I can assure you."
"Exactly!" Charlie shouted, turning in a circle before facing him again. "I don't need your protection."
"That isn't what it seems like, Charlie," Greyson shouted, angry at the whole bloody situation. "You have been surviving on my protection for a week now!"
Charlie's gasp shredded through the room and now, Greyson thought, irritably, he truly felt like an arse.
Greyson sighed. "I didn't mean that how it sounded, Charlotte."
"Charlie," she correct swiftly, her expression closing. "So, I haven't been an inconvenience to you then? I haven't been living on your goodwill then, for all this time? I haven't made my place within your home?"
Greyson was struck with a bad feeling of where this conversation was going. He tried to placate her, his hands held out before him, appeasing. "Now, Charlie."
"Don't bloody placate me!"
Lud! Did the woman read minds now as well?
"No need to worry, my lord. By tomorrow, I will be out of your hair."
She made to move past him, but Greyson reached out, his hand capturing her wrist.
"Dont," Charlie said, glancing from Greyson's hand to his eyes, "touch me, if you please."
Greyson released her as if he had been burned. He knew there would be no reasoning with her now. His foot had been firmly lodged in his mouth.
He was no bloody good with such things! Just ask his sister.
"I wish you would make use of our guest rooms -" Greyson tried, desperate for a way to keep her safe. Now more than ever.
Charlie snorted. "Not on your life."
She unlocked the door, her hand twisting the handle.
"Fine, we can discuss it tomorrow when you have time to cool down."
Charlie stiffened, and Greyson could have groaned.
Shite. Both of his feet were now firmly in his mouth.
She didn't say a word, however, as she opened the door, the last traces of lilac leaving with her.
This, Greyson decided, was the worst thing of all. Because to him, Charlie's silence was much more painful than her anger.
***A/N: What did you think, guys? Too much? Too little?
Ahhh, but this was a fun scene to write! Also, special dedication to _Teddy_Z for this amazing cover:
Thank you so much :)))
Vote! Vote! Vote!***