Page 13 of A Story of Love

“You should have thought about the ramifications of your actions before you scaled the walls of my establishment and peered into my bedchamber.” He gestured to the gaudy room around them. “You wanted to look in here so badly. Well, here it is.” He cocked his head. “Tell me, did you see anything that interested you while you were peeping?”

Her skin flushed crimson one moment and then paled just as suddenly, her lush lips pinching into a prunish moue that communicated prim horror as effectively as if she wore a placard around her neck that said: Disapproving Prude.

“I saw enough to tell me that your sobriquet is well-deserved.”

“Oh? And what sobriquet is that, pray? There are so many, you see.”

“None so apt as King of the Rakes.”

Fast gave an appreciative chuckle. “Now there is an ancient cognomen. I’ve not heard it for at least sixteen years.” Once, long ago, the moniker had possessed the power to annoy and even pain him. But now it amused him to hear the old nickname trip off Miss Fontenot’s prim little tongue.

“I don’t know why you look so proud, my lord.”

“No? Do I?” he mocked.

“Although”—she broke off, scrutinizing him with an arch look.

“Although?” he urged.

“I don’t think the name is exactly accurate.”

“Really? And why is that?” he asked, genuinely curious.

“A rake is a philanderer, but the female I saw kneeling at your feet and—and servicing you is one of society’s downtrodden wretches. A woman who has absolutely no choice in her depravity. That sort of behavior isn’t rakish, Lord Severn, it is predatory.”

It just so happened that Fast agreed with her assessment. He’d not fucked a whore since his very first time with a woman, when he’d been fourteen.

He could have admitted as much, but Miss Fontenot was a spying, prying, judgmental little scold who’d not earned the right to know his opinions about prostitutes or any other matter.

Besides, teasing her was fun. He couldn’t recall the last time he’d met a person who lunged so enthusiastically for every baited hook he cast out.

“Predatory? Is that so?” he taunted.

Her look of scorn should have burnt the hair off his body. “How like a man to believe that a woman reduced to selling herself to keep body and soul together actually desires one of her abusers and takes pleasure in such debasement.”

He laughed, thinking about the wealthy, sensual woman who’d just been kneeling for him.

Miss Fontenot gave him a look of pure loathing. “I’m so pleased that you find the thought amusing.”

Yet again, he could have easily set her straight. Lady Mansfield was surely one of the wealthiest peeresses in England and was greatly enjoying her widowhood. She wasn’t in any hurry to remarry after she had only just liberated herself from her husband a few years earlier. Fast wasn’t her first or only lover and he knew he wouldn’t be her last.

If either of them was exhibiting predatory behavior, it was Meg, who had no compunction about regaling all her friends with explicit tales of her amorous exploits with Fast.

Fast, on the other hand, was not the sort to kiss and tell.

Had he not respected the countess’s privacy, he could have shared Meg’s identity and wiped the sanctimonious scowl from Miss Fontenot’s face.

But he didn’t have the desire to set Miss Fontenot straight in her misapprehension; largely because it amused him to see the way her eyes spit fire.

“You seem to know a great deal about the subject of servicing men, Miss Fontenot.”

Her lips thinned and her jaw muscles knotted with visible effort. For once, she remained quiet and did not snap for the bait.

Fast smiled at her in a way he knew to be maddening and said, “It seems only fair that since you interrupted my entertainment with my tart”—he’d have to remember to share that description with Meg the next time he saw her—“that you should make amends.”

Her eyes widened with confusion. “Amends?”

Fast spread his thighs wide and pointed to the floor between his bare feet. “Yes—amends. Kneel for me, open that pretty mouth of yours, and suck—”