He swallowed, his expression becoming pained. “I heard you scream. I had returned to find Beauchamps badly wounded, and I knew I had to find you and the lad as soon as I could. I made certain the lad was safe. You screamed. I ran. I was…Jesus, Ara, I was afraid the bastard would reach you before I could.”
She stared at him, reading the emotion in his countenance, hearing it in his voice. Her foolish heart longed to believe that a part of him could still care for her, at least in some small measure. Because she realized in that moment, shock still making her weak, part of her had never stopped caring for him.
That her heart still beat for him.
When he was in a chamber, he was all she saw.
When he was gone, he was all she thought of.
He had been back in her life for scarcely any time at all, and she was as weak for him as she had ever been. Young, foolish Ara had believed this man her destiny. She had thought they could never be torn apart. Older, harsher Ara could still fall prey to the same fanciful notions, it would seem.
“Clay,” she began, but there was no opportunity for her to complete her thought, for he was upon her.
He caught her waist, guiding her with sudden force, not stopping until her back met the door. There was no gentleness. No lover’s finesse in his touch. It was pure and wild. Raw need. Hunger and desperation, fear and life and death and the frantic desire to celebrate taking a breath.
And she felt the same. Felt the furiousness of her emotions. Felt it all return to her in a flash, if indeed it had ever truly been gone. There was nothing and no one but Ara and Clay. No past. No present. No future.
There was the moment, and then there was his mouth.
Hard and firm, insistent and demanding, his lips crashed into hers. She wanted it. Welcomed it. Needed the mercilessness of his claiming. Her hands sank into his hair, her body arching into his. Her breasts crushed against his chest. She opened for him, sucked his tongue into her mouth. He tasted of whisky and bitterness and sin.
He tasted of life and raw emotion and the sweetest passion.
He tasted of the past she had never truly left behind.
She grabbed fistfuls of his hair, tugging, angling his mouth to hers, struggling to control him. They savaged each other. Ara bit his lower lip. He nipped her back with a growl. His long fingers sank into the braid pinned to her crown, pulling with just enough force to move her mouth back to where he wanted it. His subtle domination—on the verge of painful pleasure—made her knees go weak.
She moaned, kissing him back with ruthless abandon. His other hand slid from her waist to her breast, cupping her through her bodice and corset, making her ache. This was not the touch of the young man she had once loved but the bold, commanding caress of a man. He had changed. So had she. And yet this—the conflagration between them—remained the same.
Or perhaps, it was more.
She had never burned for him the way she did now. Her cunny was slippery with need, aching and pulsing and yearning. She wanted him to lift her skirts, find the slit in her drawers, and slide home.
It was wrong, and she knew it.
There were so many reasons why they could not. Why she could not. Should not.
As if he sensed the tumultuous nature of her thoughts, he tore his mouth from hers, breathing heavily. His dark gaze burned into hers. She could not look away from him. He was glorious, his mouth swollen from their kisses, ruby-red where she had bitten into his sensual lower lip. His face was all harsh lines and angles, his expression inscrutable.
She fought to regain her breath, the madness receding proportionally to the distance between their hungry mouths. Her first thought was of Edward. Though Clay had reassured her he was safe and Farleigh had reiterated the same, she would not be satisfied until she could be certain herself. “I need to see my son now, Clay. Please.”
He stiffened, his eyes darkening, his mouth taking on a harsh flatness. “Ourson, Ara. He is mine as well, and you must accustom yourself to it. I’ll not press the matter with him now, but in time I will want him to know who I am.”
Of course he would want Edward to know he was his father. She had expected and feared as much. “He is a boy, Clay, and he has just lost the only father he has ever known. I do not know when, if ever, he will be ready for such a revelation.”
A muscle ticked in his jaw. “He will know who I am.”
“When the time is right,” she agreed quietly.
“When I decide the time is right,” he snarled. “You have kept him from me long enough.”
“Out of necessity alone,” she defended. “I gave him a father and a home when he would have had neither.”
“You gave him what you wanted, and the one thing I could never have given you—a bloody title.” His lips twisted, and he released her, moving away as if he could not bear to be in such proximity to her now that he had regained his senses.
“No,” she said, shaking her head. “How very wrong you are.”
He could have given Edward far more than any title. And if he thought that marrying Freddie had given her everything she’d ever wanted, he was sorely mistaken. She had loved her husband, but as a friend. No man before or after Clayton Ludlow had ever made her feel the way he did, as though he was the other half of her she had never known was missing. Until he had left her behind with nary a goodbye.
