grave, the respectable, noble god. Hugh was the degenerate, scandalous sibling who ruined innocent women and broke families apart.
True or not, it was what everyone believed.
"I want you. With each breath that I breathe, I want you more, and yet I cannot have you." With each inhalation, her towel lifted, giving him a small glimpse of her ample bosom. Her skin was fragrant, smelled of sweet flowers, and his mouth watered with the want that thrummed through him. He wanted to kiss, taste his way over her skin, gorge on her until he was satisfied.
Which, he was starting to believe, would never be the case.
Her tongue came out, licking her lips at his words, and his cock hardened. He was acting as bad as his brother, wanting to deflower an innocent woman just to quell his wicked appetites.
"Why can we not be together? If we both choose to be so?" Molly asked him, her eyes, fathomless pools of need he could happily drown in as she stared at him, waited for him to answer.
The answer was as complicated as his emotions toward the woman standing before him. Tangled and caught up about them. If she only knew the truth, the answer to her question would be simple. He would never even have the opportunity to court her, for she would never have given him a second glance. "You're a virgin, an unmarried maid. I will not ruin you," he said instead.
"I'm also eight and twenty. I think I am old enough to choose my path. To determine what I want and when I want it. I want you too, Hugh." She sighed, stepping closer to him, the linen of her towel teasing his chest. "I do not understand what is happening to me, but when I'm around you, all I can think about is your touch. I ache in places for you that I did not know existed before we met. I—"
He kissed her. Hard. Took her mouth in a searing kiss that startled him in its intensity. To stand there, hearing her words, was torture he could not endure. Her tongue tangled with his, her arms wrapping about his neck, her towel forgotten.
He reached behind her, pulling it free from her body. His hands snaked across her skin and clasped her ass, picking her up to straddle him. She gasped against his lips, but did not shy away, kissed him with an abandon that left him reeling for purpose.
A voice, a drum in his mind told him to stop. That this was wrong, he was acting like his brother, but he could not. He could no sooner deny her needs than he could deny himself air.
This is not what he'd thought would occur between them when he'd first met her, but having grown to know her over the past week, he realized that it was inevitable they would come together. The attraction, the sizzling air that always circulated about them when they were together, was proof enough that they would become one.
She undulated against his cock, moaning through their kiss, and he walked them over to the bath. He set her down, ripping his shirt over his head and throwing it away somewhere over his back. The touch of her hands on the buttons of his breeches made his stomach quake. She made short work of them, ripping his pants open and assisting him in pulling them down. She stood back, staring at him, a wicked glint and admiration in her eyes as she took her fill.
Hugh stood before her, quiet and willing for her to enjoy what was hers. For it was true. He was hers, forever after this night. He would never look at another woman, not after bedding such a sweet, beautiful being such as his Molly.
Molly took his hand, leading him into the water. The bath was hot, the fragrant scent of flowers permeating from the steam. Hugh stood to the side of the bath, leaning up against it as he watched her float about in the water before him. Hell, she was beautiful, made his heart ache.
"You're too far away." The words reverberated about in his mind, forcing him to take into account that she only had three weeks left with him before leaving for England. He could not let her go. To remain in Rome without her left a hollow, gaping wound deep in his chest.
He'd been content before, went about his days busy with his estates, with his winery in Naples, but