“Release me, Clay,” she whispered against his chest, her breath warm. “You said yourself I should not have come here, and you were right. It was wrong. You and I are all wrong.”
Of course they were. Chasing after her, holding her, wanting her still, it was as wrong as a snow squall in the summer. He was not meant for her, nor was she meant for him. He should release her. Let her go—not just for tonight but forever.
And yet, his arms only held her tighter. His foolish mouth opened. “We were not always wrong.”
Her arms slid slowly around his waist, as if she was at war with herself over whether or not she ought to, as if she could not resist. “No,” she surprised him by softly agreeing. “We were not.”
Bloody hell.
A sudden rush of longing splintered inside him. He felt bloody and raw, like his innards were comprised of nothing but jagged shards. How was it possible for this tiny slip of a woman to tear him apart?
“Stay with me,” he breathed into her hair. It was his turn to beg, and he didn’t know where the inclination had emerged from or why. But something in him said he could not allow her to walk back through the door. Some part of him, long buried, had been resurrected, and it could not bear to watch her go, to close the door, to give this madness between them the finality it deserved.
“Why?” she asked quietly, her hands moving on his back, caressing him in an echo of the way his traveled up and down hers. “You detest me, Clay. Why would you want me here when you just told me to go?”
“I never told you to go.” He pressed another kiss to her hair before rubbing his bristly cheek against its silkiness. “I told you that you should not have come here, and I was right.”
She stiffened in his embrace.
“Because I cannot be near you, Ara, without wanting more,” he continued. “Because you make me weak.”
“Nothing could make you weak.” Her fine-boned hands continued their exploration of his bare skin, trailing over his muscles. “You are so strong.”
Not when it came to her, he wasn’t.
“There are different kinds of strengths, different kinds of weaknesses.” He swept his hand up her spine, sinking beneath the heavy, soft waves of her tresses to find her bare nape. Here, his fingers gently worked her flesh. The cords beneath her skin were taut and strained. “My body is no match for you. You could bring me to my knees with the ease of an avenging army.”
A quiet sound came from her then. Not an exhalation, nor a sigh, but…he listened closer. His ears were not mistaken. She was laughing.
It occurred to him that he had not heard Ara laugh since the carefree days of their youth. Hell, she scarcely even smiled unless it was for the lad’s benefit. Was her sadness all the result of Burghly’s murder? He did not want to think of her dead husband now, not in this moment of uneasy truce. Not when she was a warm and soft blessing in his arms. Not when he could hold her and touch her, kiss her and soothe her as he pleased.
Not when he could hear the sweet, tinkling strains of her levity cutting into the heaviness that seemed to forever follow them. He did not know what to do with a laughing Ara. Was she delirious? Was she laughing at him? Had she imbibed too much wine at dinner?
Hell.Even if shewaslaughing at him, he didn’t give a proper goddamn. Her laughter was beautiful. Always had been, and his cock twitched to life in answer. He was still naked, after all, and Ara wore a thin scrap of a gown.
He looked down at her, tilting her chin up with a gentle touch so he could see her face. So he could bask in the undeniable brilliance of her smile. The ever-elusive dimple in her left cheek was a charming divot in her smooth, creamy skin. He wanted to kiss it.
Instead, he raised his brows. “What is so bloody amusing, Duchess?”
“The notion of me bringing you to your knees,” she said, her laughter subsiding as quickly as it had burst forth. The shadows in her eyes returned, dimming their sparkle. “You are so big and strong, and I am weak and slight. You do not even like me.”
He liked her,damn it all to hell. He liked her far, far too much. Always had. Always would. Time, distance, betrayals—nothing had squelched the burning need inside him to claim her. To make her his. To keep her.
Clay stared down into her upturned face. “You are stronger than you think, Ara, and I…I do not dislike you.”
Her delicate brows furrowed into a frown. “Such a heartwarming confession, Mr. Ludlow.”
“It was not meant to be one, Duchess.” It was all he dared reveal to her. All he dared admit to himself, for if he were to hold a candle to the darkness inside, bathe it in light, he was afraid of what he would see. Terrified he would discover his love for her had never fled him at all, but that it had simply been buried beneath the twin weights of grief and hurt.
“Thank you for bringing me to your home,” she said suddenly. “I did not feel safe at Burghly House. Not after…” A tremor shook her. She swallowed.
Rage burned inside him still for the man who had chased her through the garden with a knife after savaging Beauchamps. If he could slay him again, he would. Her scream had filled him with an inhuman surge of strength, and he had torn down the path, determined to find her and keep her safe. The day still haunted him, for he hated knowing he had been the one to fail her.
“I am sorry, Ara,” he said, caressing her smooth cheek once, twice. “If I had not left that day, none of it would have happened.”
Her lips quirked into another ghost of a smile, but this time it was sad. “It would have happened regardless of where you were. You are not at fault. The men who murdered my husband are. It is as you said, they will do anything, commit any sin, to further their cause.”
My husband.
