He shook his head and said, “I don’t have your ability to shed such things so easily. And no gin tonight.”
“Balderdash!” Jamie replied, swigging the liquor as if it was mother’s milk, not ruin. “You’re tougher than Oi by far. You’re a right cold tosser. You’re crueler, and you’re more calculating.”
Heath wanted to deny it, but he couldn’t.
It was a few years into their childhood when it became clear that Heath was the one who would do the planning and Jamie the muscling, and it had worked well for quite a long time until he realized he would never truly be able to control Jamie’s urges or his impulses.
Jamie was like a man who, one day, could be in perfectly good humor and the next, break every chair in the room and smile doing it, but Heath did owe Jamie his life, and he wasn’t about to forget it.
“All right, then,” Heath said, raising his hands and forcing a smile. “Enough.”
“Never, ever enough. You know that, Heath,” Jamie said with a quirk of his lips. “Come tell your troubles.”
Heath stared, damned if he was going to discuss Mary.
And then Jamie lean forward, eyes widening, and he guffawed. “It’s a woman, isn’t it?”
Heath was tempted to deny it.
He didn’t really wish Jamie to know the secrets of his heart.
Heath wasn’t supposed to have a heart.
“It is a woman,” he gritted, hoping that would shut his brother’s pie hole.
“Aw, she turned ye down, did she?” Jamie tsked. “Ah, bless. Well, there are ways to get around that.”
“No, not in this case,” Heath all but barked. Not wanting to give his brother ideas. Jamie might go round and kidnap Mary and bring her as a present if he wasn’t careful.
“There’s always a way around it,” Jamie said. “Don’t be maudlin. When you want something, you get it. You take it. Just take her somewhere. Take the girl. That’s how it used to be done. She from the wrong family, a good family? She doesn’t want you?” Jamie gave a nod of his head. “A fine, handsome lad like ye? Ye can make her want you.”
Heath shuddered at the thought.
It was true.
Many a girl had been stolen away.
They still were, sometimes, and there were men who pretended to marry girls and then pimped them out.
He’d seen it all happen, and it was one of the reasons why he did not allow prostitution in his place or within his realms of power.
“No, thank you,” Heath said.
Jamie cocked his head to the side. “I could help ye, ye know?”
“You will not,” Heath warned. “And if you do, I swear to God, Jamie, I’ll be the one to kill you first.”
Jamie lifted his hands, acquiescing. “Oh, fine, then. I shan’t continue to inquire about your lady love. You’re most delicate about it, aren’t you?”
“Just a bit,” Heath said before he swiped the gin bottle from his brother. . . Knowing it was the best way to stop the discourse about Mary. . . To stop it all. . . Perhaps he wasn’t as in control as he thought. . .
Perhaps. . .
Chapter 12
Mary’s dark hair fell about her face as she slid her hands up his chest.
He gasped. “Mary?”
She lifted her fingers to her lips, urging him to silence. A playful smile tugged at her mouth.
Slowly, she slipped her gown down her shoulders. All he could see was her face. Her exquisite beauty as she then climbed up over him as he laid back in his bed.
She bit her lip in that way she had before her free hand worked its way down to his naked hips. She traced his body like someone who knew every part of him. Every hill. Every valley. Every shadow.
Her fingers grasped him, her hand sure as she took his cock.
Wonder filled him as she caressed him, stroking up and down. Up and down.
My God, he was going to go mad with her.
She threw her head back then, guiding him to her hot, wet entrance.
As he thrust into her core, the entire world spun.
“Heath!” she cried.
With a jolt, his eyes opened to his dark chamber.
His heart beat so fast behind his ribs, he was terrified he was dying.
The pleasure that had wrung through him left him completely drained, and with horror, he realized he had come in the linen sheets.
Sweat beaded his body. Swiftly, he swept back the covers and swung his legs over the side of the bed.
He stared at the fire, trying to grapple with the most vivid and lustful