Ash nearly choked on a laugh. “I don’t doubt it.”
“If I’m to be ruined, I wanted to experience pleasure at least once.”
Ash cleared his throat. “It wasthree times…and counting.”
She tossed a pillow at his head. He caught it and gave her an unrepentant grin. “So?”
She arched a brow. “So what?”
“Ahem, I do hope I didn’t disappoint.”
“Fishing for a compliment, my lord?”
“Never.” He dragged his fingers up her thigh again and chuckled. Then he fell back against the mattress, clutching the pillow to his chest. “Where do you suppose your mother thinks you are at this very moment?”
Clare exhaled a slow breath, blinking up at the ceiling. “She usually leaves me alone when I’m staying with Meredith.”
He nodded, letting his fingers trace little circles on her hip. “And when you’re not?”
“When I’m not,” she said, voice dry, “I’m at home in the countryside with her. Where she provides me with nearly constant condemnation.”
“Truly?” Ash asked, his brow crumpling into a frown.
“Oh, yes. She never allows me to forget for a moment that I’ve ruined the family.” She let out a loud, long sigh. “At least I am an only child. I should hate to have ruined a sibling as well. I doubt I could handle that guilt.”
Ash’s hand stilled on her skin.
“She shouldn’t treat you like that,” he said, his tone sharp with quiet disapproval.
Clare laughed, though the sound was humorless. “As if I have a choice,” she murmured. “As if I have a choice aboutanything—how I’m treated by my mother, by Society.” She turned her head to look at him. “This is my choice. Tonight is my choice.”
His gaze darkened.
And then—just like that—the tension between them shifted.
Ash moved swiftly, rolling her onto her back, his bare weight pressing against her.
“Then by all means,” he murmured, lips ghosting over hers, his voice all heat and promise. “Let’s do it again.”
She gasped as he captured her mouth, their bodies already moving together, desire flaring white-hot between them once more.
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
The Next Day, Gentleman Jack’s Boxing Saloon
The rhythmic thud of fists against leather echoed through the saloon, the air thick with sweat, exertion, and the lingering haze of cigar smoke from the men watching from the benches along the walls.
Ash drove his fist into the practice bag again, his bare knuckles smarting against the leather. It wasn’t enough.
Nothing was enough.
He had spent all night tangled in Clare Handleton’s body, his hands on her skin, his mouth at her throat, his name on her lips as she came apart beneath him—and yet here he was, aching for her all over again.
It should have been enough. It should have burned her out of his system.
Instead, it had only made things worse.
“Let’s go,” Southbury called, already circling in the ring, rolling his shoulders as he prepared for another round.
