“What did I do?” Quillon asked, affronted.
Anguish nearly cleaved Arran in two.
He hadn’t slept a single moment last night.
“…what did you do, brother…?”
Guilt should have robbed him of his sleep. Hell, it should rob him of everything.
“What did you do? Really, you need to ask that?”
Except he was so rotten to the core that it hadn’t been guilt—though there had been plenty of that. But that honorable emotion came second to the all-consuming hunger for Lucy.
She had lived inside his head. She’d taken up residence in his blood, in his bones, in the very air he breathed.
“…I didn’t find anything strange about it,” Aragon was saying.
Their embrace had been unlike any he’d ever had in his thirty-three years of life.
Not a single mistress did he remember.
“…You wouldn’t, my love…”
Not a single lover’s kiss or touch. Every exchange before Lucy had been animal-like.
Mindless lust.
The countess chastened someone in the background, but Arran barely registered it.
Because what had passed between him and Lucy had been more than heat—more than desire. It had been a claiming. His. Hers. A lock he’d never be free of, even if she begged him to set her loose.
To even think of it as lust felt a sin.
Only when she sat across from him at breakfast did Arran feel the guilt he should.
Even then, it hadn’t been because of Campbell. It had been because of her.
Her eyes ravaged. Her spirit defeated. Her usual loquaciousness gone silent. He had done that to Lucy. He had madeLucy LeBeaufeel shame when Arran alone was deserving of that guilt.
She was a respectable young woman.
He should’ve controlled himself.
He should’ve kept his damned hands to himself.
Should’ve walked away instead of backing her against that table like a starved brute.
Should’ve never tasted her the way he did—like a man who’d die without another breath of her.
The guilt kept coming.
“…Father is ferreting out whoever made the biscuits and made Lucy feel uncomfortable…”
The idea of her off alone, flagellating herself…
Even now, she could be running.
Accusations turned swiftly to worry.
