“I apologize.” My throat felt scratchy, and I cleared it. “It wasn’t ideal, but...” I stopped, unwilling to offer her pathetic excuses. “I’ll do my best to avoid physical intimacy in the future if it’s repugnant to you.”
The shouts of the hunters grated on my ears. Couldn’t those dumbasses shoot the stag already? The hunt was going to drag on all night at this rate. I wanted to go home and sleep—except even that wouldn’t give me a respite from shame and despair, because Emmeline would be in bed beside me. She’d remain at my side for over a month, so close yet completely out of reach, a torturous prison of my own making.
“It’s not repugnant to me. I never said that.”
I felt like a criminal offered an escape from the gallows. I tried to keep the shameless hope from showing on my face, but she wasn’t looking at me. She stared at the flower in her hand. Then she tossed it to the ground.
“I didn’t like getting used as a distraction,” she said. “And you didn’t even ask if you could kiss me.”
I scrutinized those words from every angle. I could have spent hours analyzing what she hadn’t said, but each passing moment took me closer to a missed opportunity. It seemed she objected to the circumstances, not the act itself.
She was angled toward me, not shying away from our closeness. She hadn’t flinched from me for a long time now. Her hands fiddled with the clover on the ground, but that indicated nerves, not revulsion.
I could study her all night and still not learn her true feelings. There was only one way to know for certain.
“May I kiss you?” I asked.
Her gaze shot to mine, her lips parting. Time seemed to stand still between us, and the wait both captivated and tormented me. Then her eyes darted sideways as if searching for someone.
“No one’s watching,” I said. “I’m asking genuinely.”
Her brow furrowed as she searched for something in my face.
“Your answer doesn’t affect our other business,” I said.
“Doesn’t it?”
I smiled with a carefree confidence I didn’t feel. “I can still work with you if you say no. I’m a professional.”
“And if I say yes?”
I leaned closer to her. “Well, then things get interesting.”
Her chest rose and fell with unsteady breaths, and I struggled not to stare. I kept my gaze on her face, searching for a sign of her answer. Those eyes… The longer I looked into them, the more intimate it felt. My skin tightened, a wave of prickles running down my back. Stars, I wanted to touch her. I yearned for it, though I knew I shouldn’t. The heist didn’t need any complications.
But it was already complicated. Feelings for her had taken root inside me and grown without my realizing. The only question was whether she—
“Yes,” she said.
Chapter 21
Valen
My breath caught. We came together like two celestial bodies caught in each other’s gravity. Our lips collided, and I seized her waist, pulling her closer. I devoured her greedily, reveling in her taste. I felt like she could never hide from me, that whatever disguise she shapeshifted into, I would know her by the taste of those lips.
She clung to me, her kiss fierce and demanding. All traces of her nerves had vanished, and my doubts about her feelings fell away. I’d kissed enough women who were only after my wealth and title to know when one was faking her attraction. Emmeline wasn’t faking. She dove into the kiss like she did everything else: without restraint, without worry for decorum, full of recklessness and passion.
I pulled away, leaving her gasping, and let my mouth roam down her neck and over that delicious décolletage I’d been eyeing earlier. Her silky skin tasted heavenly, and her body quivered in my arms.
“Valen,” she breathed.
Oh, stars. I gripped her possessively, fingers digging into soft flesh. My cock hardened, and I wanted to take her right here and now.
Easy, I told myself. This thing between us was too fragile and new. Push too fast, and I would break it.
“May I kiss you more?” I whispered.
“Yes.” She tugged at my shirt. “Oh, yes.”
