Page 5 of Only Earl in the World (Taming of the Dukes)

As Briar herself had emphatically stated to him more than once, work of a sexual or sensual nature was work , and women’s bodies belonged to the women who fed, cared for, and nourished them. Not a man.

Jasper didn’t disagree—in his mind, a woman could do what she wanted with her own person, provided it was her decision and not someone else’s.

Too bad most of their society didn’t think the same.

However, despite the social restrictions placed on women in general, Jasper deeply admired what Briar was doing at Lethe.

An avid supporter of women’s rights, she fought fiercely for the disadvantaged and downtrodden any chance she got.

When she’d first approached him with the audacious idea of hiring the women she saved from destitution by offering them jobs and paying them fair wages at his club, he’d laughed in her face.

He wasn’t running a brothel—it was a boxing and social club.

But in the end, Briar had worn him down with her unassailable logic: give her a chance and she would garnish their wages out of her own pin money.

An entire year later and Jasper had an army of cooks, maids, performers, clerks, messengers, and even an on-site team of seamstresses working at Lethe.

And true to her word, Briar had compensated them out of her own funds.

Where she had the substantial income to do so, Jasper hadn’t known.

He’d assumed she had received them from her father .

But perhaps her writing endeavors had done well for her.

Damn, what he wouldn’t do to get his hands on one of those stories…or at least find out where she published and under what name. He would bet anything that it was a nom de plume. Society would shred her alive if she were open about her identity as an author.

Were her erotic publications the source of all her so-called sensual knowledge? She wouldn’t deign to respond if he asked, Jasper knew. She was an impenetrable vault when she wanted to be. No, getting answers from Briar meant goading her into responding.

“So, do you have proof of this supposedly carnal knowledge?” he drawled.

Her eyes launched daggers in his direction as Jasper folded his arms and leaned against the carriage door, blocking it from being opened.

Luckily, her coachman, who was always armed, knew him well.

Olsen had been privy to several of their explosive exchanges and understood when to look the other way.

“Proof?” Oh, the scathing vitriol in that one word had his cock rock-hard.

Perhaps he was a glutton for punishment…

her brand of punishment. A scandalized but amused gaze slid slowly down his torso as she took a step closer instead of pulling away, bridging the small gap between them.

“Do you mean to shock me, my lord? Or perhaps you only intend to provoke with such an unseemly demand. Do you truly wish for a demonstration of my understanding of connubial matters?”

Jasper should have recognized that dangerous glint in her eyes—the one that forewarned she was going to do something unexpected and usually controversial—but he was too hypnotized by the suddenly sultry tenor of her voice.

It sounded like thickened honey, velvet over whetted steel.

Light fingertips danced up his chest, leaving spots of fire in their wake, and suddenly, he wished he could take back the challenge he’d issued.

This was a terrible fucking idea.

“Bri—”

A torrid gaze full of promise peered up through that thick fringe of lashes as her fingers wound into the hair over his collar, suffocating the second part of her name when she tugged him down, so her breath feathered over his chin.

“Should I whisper it in your ear then, my lord? Describe what it feels like when undressed bodies collide in a feverish explosion of luscious heat and whispered nothings. When a man’s hard phallus slides home into a glistening sheath that’s so welcoming and silky and wet , there’s no end or beginning to where they’ve joined, only the sweetest of friction, punctuated by indelicate moans of rapture. ”

“Christ, Briar—” he choked, his cock swelling to full mast without any provocation but the lush decadence of her words. Good God, were his fucking ears on fire? Was the rest of him? He could have sworn the minx had licked his lobe there at the end.

He wrenched at his cravat, sweat beading over his skin.

“What’s the matter, Lord Lushing? Are my words bothering you?

A bit hot under the collar?” Her melting gaze hardened to ice as her fingers curled into the strands at his nape and yanked hard.

“Well, you should bloody know better than to challenge me, you bottle-headed, maggot-pated, jingle brains!” She stomped on his instep for good measure .

“Ouch!” he groaned and rubbed his sore scalp, even as his excruciatingly swollen groin ached for more.

He hoped she wouldn’t look down. In fact, he was surprised his cock wasn’t punching through the obscenely tented fabric.

A bit of goading was one thing; sporting an enormous erection when she’d practically wiped the floor with him with her visceral imaginings, was another. “What the hell was that for?”

“That’s for being a prick!” She glared, lurching forward, her knee in a much too precarious position, and Jasper covered his distended, vulnerable crotch with both hands. Her cheeks flared brighter as her hands fisted, a pulse hammering in her neck.

“ You made the boast,” he shot back and reached up to his smarting nape. Fuck, she had ripped out a good handful of his hair. “Therefore, the burden of proof was on you, was it not?”

“You were being vulgar, and you know it.”

He stared pointedly at her gentlemen’s garb and arched his brows with a mocking grin. “We’re not in a London drawing room. In fact, we are in a very vulgar part of the city. You cannot have your cake and eat your cake.”

“You are unendurable!”

Chuckling, Jasper reared back when she bared her teeth and growled at him.

The question bubbled to his lips with no thought to his personal safety as she shoved him rudely out of the way and climbed into her coach.

“Tell me, Poison Ivy, was that from one of the special stories that we are pretending not to talk about?”

Briar went still and then shook her head, muttering a slew of smothered curses .

“Olsen, go,” she ordered the coachman with a rap to the roof, her gorgeous face flushed. “Before I commit murder right here in the street.”

“Such violence for someone so tiny,” Jasper teased, holding the coach door open with one palm. Thankfully, Olsen did not drive off as directed; the dependable coachman was much too familiar with this song and dance.

Her stare melted into a glower as she rose and braced on the other side of the door, the height of the coach allowing her to meet him eye-to-eye. “Devil take it, Lushing, do you practice daily to be this aggravating?”

“Only for you,” Jasper said, as she rammed his hand away with surprising strength and slammed the door. “Good thing you idolize me.”

“You must be confused,” she said, glaring at him through the small open window. “Because I emphatically, unequivocally, and will forever despise the air you breathe!”

“Stop lying to yourself, Prickles,” he teased in a sing-song voice loudly, knowing it would irritate the spit out of her. Sure enough, the sound of her snarl was music to his ears.

“Argh, go…go sit on a pile of…knitting needles!”

He laughed. “That’s oddly specific, Sweetbriar.”

Loud grumbling and thumping sounds reached him when a small ankle boot came flying out of the window right at his head, and he dodged it, even as she continued fuming. Retrieving the shoe, he nodded to Olsen, who rolled his eyes at their antics as the carriage finally pulled away.

“Give me back my boot, you princock!” Briar bellowed.

Wagging a single finger, Jasper shook his head. “He that finds, keeps, and he that loses weeps.”

“You are the worst!”

“I’m not the one throwing footwear out of carriages like an uncivilized ruffian.”

Holding the small black-and-tan leather boot with its delicate button hooks and embroidered edging, he half expected its pair to come hurtling out of the coach window as well. But to his everlasting disappointment, it did not.

His mouth quirked. There was always tomorrow.