To the Last Man I Slept with and All the Jerks Just Like Him (8 page)

“Great-Aunt Theodora!”

“Chastity! My favorite great-niece!”

The older woman, who was the daughter of an earl and therefore very rich, took one look at the delicate young beauty and noticed that Chastity’s dusty black pelisse was torn at the hem immediately. Lady Theodora remembered that she had read in the paper that Chastity’s father had died.

Chastity looked at her great aunt and saw that not only was she very rich, she was old and fat. She wore a purple turban with a ruby and yellow ostrich feathers, because she was fat and comical, but also because she had a heart of gold.

“Oh, my dear! We must get you into some more appropriate garments! It’s almost time for the dowager and her son to join us for tea! And from now on, until you snag yourself a husband, you will live here with me and I will buy you an elegant wardrobe.”

Hastily dropping a curtsy and demurely murmuring her thanks, Chastity was commandeered by a maid who led her to her room. The abigail presented her with a round morning gown of sprigged muslin, which would have been beautiful had it not been so huge, being that it was one of Lady Theodora’s. But the maid came with her sewing box and, after a nip here and a tuck there, the dress fit Chastity’s lushly petite figure to perfection.

As she walked back down the stairs, it occurred to Chastity that she hadn’t yet eaten that day. She felt that she could drink a whole half cup of tea and perhaps even nibble the edge of a biscuit. She hoped to be able to restrain herself and behave with ladylike decorum so as not to embarrass her great-aunt in front of her guests. Just then, Chastity heard voices coming from the Burnt Orange Salon, where she had left Lady Theodora. The guests had arrived! Chastity quickened her step down the remaining few stairs.

She was the very picture of maidenly, yet sexy, womanhood as she stood in the doorway of the Burnt Orange Salon. However, she had no inkling of the fact because first of all, she was very modest, and second of all, her attention was immediately caught and held, like a sweet little mouse in a falcon’s sharp grasp, by one in particular of her great aunt’s guests.

“Ah, my dear Miss Fairbody. We were beginning to despair of your ever—ahem—coming.”

It couldn’t be! It was! It was that heinous rogue, Lord Hawksleigh!

Chastity’s eyelashes fluttered as her eyes rolled up in her head and she daintily slid to the floor in a faint.

Chapter 3

Chastity awoke with her cheek nestling against something hard as stone yet soft as velvet. Her long dark lashes fluttered upwards and saw with a gasp that it was Lord Hawkley’s bicep! She immediately fainted again.

The second time she came to, it was to a strange sense of freedom and relaxation.

“Gracious, child, but you did have your corset on too tight!” started Lady Theodora. Chastity didn’t hear as she was staring into dark, hawk-like, ebony eyes that seemed to see right through her corset, stays, and bodice.

“If Miss Fairbody is not feeling quite the thing, perhaps it would be better if Mother and I took our leave now,” his full, moist, masculine lips seemed to say. Chastity shook her delicate head, came out of her daze, and for the first time noticed the Duke’s mother, the Dowager Duchess of Hawksington. She was one of those thin old women with grim faces, so Chastity looked back at Lord Hawk. Her heart beat quickly, like that of a small dainty bird or a gerbil.

“N-n-n-no,” she managed to stammer petitely. “D-d-don’t go on my account. I’m all right now. I’ll just have some tea.”

She made her way to the table where Lady Theodora was cheerfully eating a plate of Little-Debbie-like cakelets. But then, Chastity suddenly felt a searing heat come upon her and settle into a tumultuous vortex somewhere in the vicinity of her virgin womb. Realizing it was from Lord Hawksley’s eyes, she suddenly lost her appetite.

Lady Theodora winked at the dowager duchess and said, “Mayhap some fresh air would do you good, Chastity. That is, if young Lord Hawk here would be so gracious as to offer you a ride in his curricle.” Chastity started in alarm. What could her great-aunt be thinking? Unless it was a plan to get Chastity and Lord Hawk out of the house so Lady Theodora could have more cakes and biscuits for herself . . .

What was it about this man that tied her stomach in knots and made her mouth so dry that she had to lick her lips with her delicate pink tongue whenever he looked her way? Why, he was odious and a rascal and he took liberties with the persons of proper young misses! He disgusted her! That was it, wasn’t it?

Or was it that the sight of him in his velvets and laces, combined with his heady smell of leather, snuff, pomade, and rugged un-washed skin, that made her want to tear off her clothes and roll with him in the mud behind the stables, taking whatever it was he had to give her over and over again until he caused her to cry out, “Oh, my Lord!”

No, of course not. That wasn’t it at all. Perish the thought. Chastity blushed as she took Lord Hawk’s arm and allowed him lead her out the door.

Chapter 4

As her delicate bottom roughly bounced against the creamy leather of the curricle seat, Chastity found herself reaching for his lordship’s arm with which to steady herself. He flashed a malevolent yet boyish grin at her that made her realize that he must have been driving over the pock-marked and manure-strewn roads for just that purpose.
The devil!
she thought to herself.
The handsome, demonic devil!

As they made their way to the famous Row, all the various nobles stared at them. They did make a handsome couple. Had Chastity but glanced around, she could have seen that she was the only woman over fifteen with a full set of natural teeth. But she had eyes only for the space two inches from Lord Hawk’s face. She was too shy, and maybe a little afraid, even, to look right
at
his face. The satanically handsome devil!

“My dear, you seem preoccupied,” her companion offered in a voice that was sumptuous and sensual yet facetious and nonchalant.

“Perhaps it is because I’m not used to being so quickly swept away by a personage who, only that morning, had mistaken a lady for a
high flyer
,” she retorted pointedly, with a saucy toss of her curls.

“But, my dear, we all make mistakes. Especially when the personage in question has no memory of any other lady so delectably
high-flyable
,” he rejoined, his eyebrow teasingly raised.

“That may be, but that doesn’t excuse the fact that a
real gentleman
would have offered an immediate apology,” flared Chastity, her nostrils flaring as well in fiery challenge.

“Can it be that the lady of which we are speaking has charms which would cause any gentleman to forget all about being gentlemanly?” Lord Hook fired back, his ears wiggling defiantly.

“Could it be that no gentleman would speak to a lady in such a way as you are speaking to me now? Sirrah, I demand recompense!” Her forehead creasing and her lymph nodes pulsing in a way that brooked no defeat, she glared at him as she spoke this last.

“Then you shall have it.”

Before Chastity could gather her wits and utilize any more facial tics, she realized that their curricle was parked on a deserted street, away from the crowds. That was all she saw before her lips were descended upon by the brutal force that was Lord Hawk’s kiss. His lips only touched hers gently, but they crushed her will to his with the strength of a thousand draft animals.

What new rudeness was this? Oh, and what new unforeseen pleasure? Really, this was nothing like the kisses she had practiced on the scarecrows at home. True, there was the same vague itchiness and smell, but something different, as well. Something wonderfully different. Without even slipping her his tongue, Lord Hawk had managed to send her spinning on a brightly-colored carousel of pleasure around which there was no gate or exit sign, on which there were none of those ugly horses with the chipped paint . . . but all too soon, it was over.

“Oh, my, how divine . . .”

Lord Hawk smiled.

“That is, how divinely rude!” With that, she slapped him roundly on the cheek.

Then,
what have I done?
she wondered. She, an unchaperoned young miss, had just struck this large, strong man in his own curricle, on a deserted road. There was no telling how he might retaliate—in what sordid ways he might seek his revenge. Just for good measure, she slapped him again.

“I beg your pardon, madam. I don’t know what came over me. I will, of course, escort you to your aunt’s now.” And so saying, Lord Hawk signaled his stallions into a U turn and slowly drove them back into the fashionable crowd.

“Thank you, my lord,” Chastity whispered. And then she sighed with relief. Or was it? Was it relief, after all?

Chapter 12

As the storm-tossed sea tossed in its own tormentuous wake, Chastity’s heart mimicked it with great skill.
Oh, where is he?
she fretted to herself, in her mind.
Where could that rascal Lord Hawk be?
And had he won her father’s fortune back? Or was he being brutally murdered by the villains in the captain’s quarters even now?

Her nightgown dewy and semi-sheer with the evidence of her emotional tumult, Chastity’s hand strayed below the rough linen of the cabin bunk and up under her negligee to find her comfort. Ah, yes. That was it. That was the spot. Her finger caressed the bright, hard nub of her jewel as she sighed with relief. Yes . . . Lord Hawk’s grandmother’s famed ruby pendant was still lodged in the top of her woolen stocking.

Just then, his lordship burst into the room.

“Chastity!” he cried. “What are you doing here? I thought I’d seen you safely away on the rowboat!”

“Oh, my lord, please don’t be angry with me!” she cried in return, her voice like that of a beautiful young cockatoo. “I simply couldn’t leave you here all alone to face your stepbrother, the wicked Duke of Lancome, and all his henchmen! Why, if anything had happened to you . . . I . . . I . . .”

“Oh, my silly Chastity. My silly, ridiculous, stupid, darling girl!” Lord Hawk rushed over to her on the bunk and crushed her in his darkly masculine embrace. Before she could protest, his lips found hers and urgently, hungrily, wetly met hers in a kiss that burned like the sinful, sulfurous depths of Hades itself. All gone were the words, the questions that had started to pour forth from her milky rosebud lips. All gone were the thoughts that had, moments ago, filled her tiny glistening head. Oh, to be kissed by such a man on the high seas in a ship full of swarthy, hairy pirates! She was suffused and overwhelmed with the heady wine that was the experience. Again and again he thrust his strong tongue within her gentle mouth as his hard chest pressed against her soft one, the peaks of which were beaten into stiffness by his touch. His hair, his jacket, his watch fob filled her hands as she grasped, grasped . . . grasped at him sightless like a blind beggar after a dropped coin.

“Oh, my darling . . .” she moaned.

“Yes, my sweet creature,” he murmured against her ear, sending shock waves exploding like a thunderdome through her spine.

“My darling Lord Hawk . . . Did you win the money back?” she managed to gasp.

He pulled away.

“Actually . . .” he began, “Actually, well, no, I didn’t.”

There was a moment of silence, and then he began again. “My dyslexia, you know . . . Awfully blasted difficult to call the cards, don’t you know . . .”

“Oh, Lord Hawk!” Chastity crestfallenly cried. Whatever will we do now? Without my father’s money, here under the duke’s power . . . What will become of us?”

Slowly, meticulously, the smile which Chastity had come to know all too well spread itself across Lord Hawk’s mouth. When it had finished spreading and his incisors twinkled like lamps freshly lit by a servant, he looked down at her and said, “My darling Chastity, there’s no need to worry about that now. For I have a much better idea.”

So saying, his hand roughly drew back the scratchy coverlet, exposing Chastity’s creamy pearl thighs to his gaze.

“My lord!” Chastity gaspingly cried, her cheeks and eyes ablaze with new flames. “How dare you . . . and she fumbled for the words of indignance, regretting her wanton behavior of a moment ago and the shameful degradation to which it would now undoubtedly—surely, how could it not?—lead. She moistened her lips and arched her back in a delicate show of maidenly modesty.

“Ah, yes,” whispered his lordship, slowly lifting the hem of her gown. “This is what I wanted. . . . ”

And as Chastity’s eyes closed and rolled up in her head in a near-swoon, Lord Hawk plucked the ruby from her garter and sprung from the bed.

“Come, Chastity! We have no time to lose!”

Middle of Chapter 18

, with a kiss that fell on her drenched mouth like a rain of fire.

She ran her hands across his cravat and made noises like a wounded kitten. His gigantic hands stroked her firmly, surely, up and down the bodice of her gown in the back and on the sides. And then his fingers brushed almost within an inch below the most womanly part of the bodice, and she felt herself flush and blush hot and cold with electricity which hadn’t yet been discovered unless you counted its sudden appearance on Chastity’s flesh.