Free One Whisper Away by Emma Wildes

hips just a little as she pinched her nipple. “Do not make me start without you, Augustine.”
    Displayed on the luxurious sheets, she resembled a courtesan, deliberately perfumed and ready, her nipples already peaked, her face flushed. He had to wonder if she hadn’t started without him anyway, enjoying his bed in his absence and quite frankly, even if he didn’t have scruples about her married state, the invasion of his privacy annoyed him. Still, he kept his tone modulated. “I’m sorry, Valerie, but without me it will have to be. I have a strict rule about married women. That aside, my daughter is just down the hall.”
    She rolled over to her stomach playfully. It presented the rounded curve of her bare bottom, which was, he had to admit, a sight any man would enjoy. The countess was extremely attractive physically, and he wished he could say nothing about her aroused him, but that aside, he wasn’t going to touch her. “My husband doesn’t mind,” she murmured, crossing her ankles, her hair spilling in a dark wave over her back. “And aren’t children asleep at this hour?”
    She had several offspring of her own, if he wasn’t mistaken, but undoubtedly they were taken care of by a retinue of servants.
    “ I mind.” Jonathan ran his fingers through his damp hair and sighed. “Don’t misunderstand, you’re very tempting, I won’t deny it. But I’m not interested in an affair, and I don’t need the chance of another wave of whispers attached to my name.”
    “You mistake me , my lord.” Her smile had a feline curve to it. “I don’t want to have an affair. I want you to fuck me.”
    And here Jonathan had thought he was beyond the age and experience when he could be shocked. Even his considerable worldly psyche took issue with the bluntness of that declaration.
    Then, suddenly, he understood. While the men placed public bets on everything from horseracing to the ridiculous obsession of speculating on what he might have said to Lady Cecily, women were no better. Plenty of them were inveterate gamblers. It was a fashionable pastime. “How much did you wager,” he asked outright, not sure if he was insulted or just amused, “that you could get me to bed you first?”
    She pouted with convincing drama, full red lips drawing into a playful moue. “That’s remarkably arrogant. How could you even—”
    “How much?” he interrupted, his voice mild but commanding. He crossed his arms over his bare chest and leaned a shoulder against one of the heavy carved bedposts, his brows lifted in inquiry. “What is the current prize for an interlude with Earl Savage?”
    Lady Irving sat up in an indignant flurry of dark hair, a faint scowl on her beautiful face. “That’s none of your affair.”
    “Odd. Considering our circumstances, my lady, I think it very much my affair.”
    “You really aren’t going to do this, are you?”
    “Going to fuck you? Isn’t that how you put it in your very genteel English way? No, I really am not.”
    She gave a small frustrated sigh at the definitive tone of his response, but then slid off the bed with pragmatic promptness, her heavy breasts swaying. She admitted grudgingly, “A thousand pounds to the first woman who piques your interest. And it isn’t the profit as much as the winning .”
    “How flattering. And here I thought the purpose of a man and woman enjoying each other in a sexual way was something a bit deeper than a superficial competition. I can expect more midnight visits from your competitors, I take it? I’ll start locking my door.”
    At least the countess proved to be a good sport, for she shot him an arch look and picked up her chemise. “It isn’t just the wager.” She deliberately ran her gaze over his bare chest. “You are somewhat of a novelty, my lord. Are all the men of your”—she obviously searched for a word that wouldn’t offend him—“breed so barbarically handsome?”
    In answer, he picked up her discarded gown. Any sense of