Griffin had just shown her the only person she needed to defend her was…
Herself.
And that realization made her feel strong. Stronger than she had ever felt before.
“May I shoot again?” she asked.
He grinned at her. “Hell yes.”
Chapter Sixteen
She made himweak.
God, how she made him weak.
He was seated in Ludlow’s study in Harlton Hall, joined by the two most brilliant and dangerous former members of the Special League, and Cullen O’Malley, and he was supposed to be formulating a battle plan that would save him from prison and imminent ruin.
But all he could think about was Violet.
All he could smell was roses.
All he could hear was her husky cries of surrender, the way she moaned his name when she came, her cunny milking his cock of every drop. All he could see was the sight of her standing in brilliant defiance, learning how to shoot a revolver and excelling at it. She had been glorious and breathtaking, like some warrior goddess before him.
He had known, somehow, she would be his undoing. From the moment he had fallen into her lap, felled by her crocheting, and their gazes had locked, he had been drawn to her. It had been why he kissed her that first day. She had been babbling about the damnable seed pouch, and he had been consumed by the most beguiling woman he had ever seen.
And now she was his. He had been inside her. He knew how she tasted on his tongue. He knew her nipples were the precise shade of the underbelly of a pink rose. He knew how she went wild when he sucked them, wilder still when he used his teeth.
“Strathmore?” Carlisle’s questioning voice interrupted his musings.
Damnation.
He blinked and shifted in his chair, willing the erection that had begun to swell against his trousers to abate. Never before had he been a slave to his cock, and now was certainly not the time to allow one head to rule the other. He inhaled sharply, forcing himself to scrub all thoughts of her from his mind.
He had become too attached to her. He had bedded other women in his past. Surely he could bed this one without turning into a lovesick fool.
Could he not?
He could. He needed to be stern. Unflinching. He would think about her and speak about her as if she did not have the capacity to tear his world apart.
“Strathmore?” Carlisle prodded again. “Are you with us?”
Beginning now. From this moment forward. He could purge her from his soul. He could and he would because he must, or risk losing himself.
Griffin blinked. “Of course I am. Forgive me. I have a great deal weighing on my mind at present.”
“I understand completely, Your Grace,” Cullen O’Malley said then, his brogue tingeing his words. “I have been in your position, staring at the grim prospect of my future imprisonment for a crime I did not commit. Some nights I still wake, convinced I’m back at Kilmainham, even though I have had my freedom for the last few weeks. I’ll be praying for you to keep your freedom, and if there is any way I can be of service in aiding you, I will.”
The mere thought of imprisonment made him sweat, effectively killing any ardor still surging through him for his wife. He had been held against his will before, and he had vowed it would never happen again.
He found his voice through the bile rising in his throat. “Thank you, O’Malley. Anything you know about John Mahoney and his connections within the League can potentially aid me. Any crumb of information you can recall, however infinitesimal, could prove the key to bringing the Duke of Arsehole to his knees and establishing my innocence at last.”
“Speaking of the Duke,” Ludlow said, studying him with an intense regard, “are you prepared for Arden’s arrival? My sources tell me his arrival today is imminent.”
He winced, thinking of the confrontation that would ensue when Arden came to Harlton Hall. He had not yet broached the subject with Violet, and he knew it would not be easy, using her against her brother in such fashion, and nor would she be pleased when she discovered his intention to discredit Arden. Spiriting her away had been one thing, but facing an angry Arden and expecting her not only to defend him over her brother, but cleave to his side when all his cards were laid upon the table, was another.
Their days together had been easy—too easy—and he had been reluctant to relinquish the strange but wonderful camaraderie that had fallen between them. He could not shake the feeling she knew him better than anyone ever had.
Perhaps better than he even knew himself.
