Free The Rake and The Rose (A Rake's Mistake) by Amelia Clearwater

He shifted in his chair as if it would ease the ache.
     
    How in God's name is this exciting? He wondered, but it was. Her eyes, her hair, the look was all it would take to have him begging, and she didn't even know it.
     
    "Please?" the coy little smile on her lips aroused him, but he opened his mouth to protest; she quickly spooned a bite past his lips before going back to eating her own. He coughed but chewed, what was even worse; he wondered what it would be like eating from her hand, the mixture of flesh and fruit instead of a fork.
     
    The staff thought it was great fun and were nudging each other, and he chewed slowly looking at her before swallowing "Are you satisfied?"
     
    "Did you like it?" she asked with an eyebrow cocked.
     
    "Actually…yes."  He took a proffered plate from Sophie who was in a fit of laughter.
     
    "I told you." Charlotte whispered. 
     
    Alexander stifled a grin. "You tell me a lot of things it seems."
     
    "Out of the mouths of babe's as the Good Book says, though I am not that young." her eyelashes fluttered against her cheeks as she looked down at her hands. She wondered to herself where she had heard that verse.
     
    "No, but you seem to be more wise  than most, even without your memory." He took a long gulp of wine to steady his nerves. It only made the rush she gave him even worse.
     
    Everyone was quite past the stage of tipsy, Charlotte got up after they all had decided to go to bed. Alexander, no worse for ware watched how with great ease she walked, but her body was loosened, less rigid. He liked that.
     
    "Here, let me help." He got her arm in the crook of his again and they walked to her bedroom. She turned, her hair tumbling slightly out from the ribbon and he rubbed a curl between his fingers. When he caught a glint of gold he saw the ribbon about her neck. "Hm, that won't do." He untied the ribbon quickly, and felt her body shiver at the touch.
     
    Charlotte glanced at him confused "Alexander?"
     
    "Here" he fished her locket out of his coat pocket and fastened it about her throat, he had gotten the latch fixed after Giselle had snatched it off, when she had arrived. It settled just below the swell of her breasts, his hands softly traveled and he touched the locket, her breathing hitched slightly and it caused the locket to be pressed against his fingertips. In a quick movement he lifted the locket and kissed it, his mouth precariously close to her collar.
     
    "It belongs on you, I will ask for it when I find any leads." 
     
    "Alright…" she whispered brokenly. He turned away "My Lord?" 
     
    "Yes?"
     
    "Thank you." Her breath quickened slightly and he found himself walking closer, until they were but a breath away.
     
    "You  are  very  welcome,  Charlotte."  She  felt  the  words  like  warmed  honey dripping onto skin. It was sticky and inviting, it stuck to her and her heart, and she then really did wish he had been serious with all his fairy talk. 
     
    But he more than likely was not.

 
     
    C hapter 05
     
     
    Charlotte noticed Alexander had become very belligerent again, and it boiled her blood. She had just come out of his office being told to stop nagging at him like a shrew over small things and he had promptly tossed her out, shutting and locking the door! But not before telling her that she should stick to staying to her rooms!
     
    Charlotte was enraged even more as she leaned against the door to his study. “How dare he try to tell me what to do!” she flustered about and stomped down the hall. “I should make him pay for that.” She mused, “I don’t know how…but somehow.”
     
    She then realized how he looked at her was an interesting manner. She knew her body registered it but her experience did not. Charlotte wanted to see if that demeanor would snap, and what that emotion he held back was.
     
    “Let the games begin my Lord.” She grinned as she went down to the kitchens.
     
    While she ate her lunch of soup and