"What the hell is wrong with you?" Hugh demanded.

"Doona shove me again, brother, or I will put you down." Hugh was the only one who'd ever dared to challenge him like this. "Did you never think I just want to bed her?" Christ, he wanted to bed her, wanted her fiercely.Finally! his mind seemed to roar.

"Bed her?" Hugh got an uncomfortable look about him. "No, I dinna think that."

Ethan narrowed his eyes. So Hugh suspected or knew the truth about him. Ethan should have realized that the secret of his celibacy would have gotten out among the Network. The members gossiped worse than old matrons at the village well.

Ten years had passed since his face had been so horribly damaged. As he'd predicted, the only way he'd been able to bed women had been to pay them, and he'd done so for the first seven years. Yet there were only so many times a man could tolerate looking down at a woman he was using and seeing her thinly veiled revulsion—especially after he'd paid for her.

One unsatisfying encounter after another had taken their toll, and now his body couldn't seem to be bothered to desire, to ache, any longer. If he was attracted to a woman, it was tepid, like a shadow of what he used to feel. Though his manhood had been left intact that night, it might as well not have been. He hadn't had a woman beneath him in years.

And even more disquieting—he hadn't especially missed it.

Until now…

"She's a lady," Hugh insisted. "No' to be used by you."

"Then what is she doing here?" Ethan asked incredulously, waving his hand around the warehouse.

"The same thing Jane is—they're thrill seekers. Typical rich Londoners."

"In a place like this, even a lady is fair game."

"You doona know that she's no' an innocent." His expression severe, Hugh added, "Ethan, you're…you just canna be this bad."

Ethan raised his eyebrows.