But she could not love him. Could not trust him. Because even if she allowed herself to do both of those things, she could not erase who she was. Nor could she bear to take the chance that Drummond might try to harm Verity or Felix again.
“I do not hate you,” she said, doing her best to steel herself against him and to avoid falling into his verdant gaze. “I feel nothing for you.”
He closed the last step between them, and there was nowhere else she could go. Nowhere to run. She had to remain where she was as he loomed, near enough to touch. Even as every part of her screamed to throw herself into his arms.
But that was not where she belonged.
He touched her then. Nothing but his fingertips on her chin, holding her still and in his thrall. “Look me in the eye when you tell me you feel nothing at all for me, Johanna.”
He forgot she was an actress. And it did indeed require all the skills she had honed in her years on the stage to hold his gaze. “I care nothing for you, Your Grace.”
“Kiss me,” he said.
His demand had the opposite effect of what it should. Heat pooled low in her belly, an ache beginning in her core and radiating throughout her entire body.
“Why do you hesitate?” he asked. “Perhaps you are not as unaffected as you claim.”
“I am,” she insisted, but the words left her as little more than a whisper, and when he cupped her cheek, she closed her eyes and could not resist nuzzling his big, warm palm.
How right he still felt.
How beloved.
Damn him, and damn her heart too. Damn her foolish, traitorous body. Damn Theo Saville for allowing him into the theater. Damn her for not leaving the dressing room the moment she had turned around and seen him.
“Kiss me, Johanna,” he urged, his voice a decadent rumble pouring over her like warm honey. “Kiss me and show me how unmoved you are. Show me there was never anything between us, that everything we shared, the love I have for you, is meaningless.”
Her eyes flew open, and she cried out with all the misery teeming in the depths of her soul. Because she could not do it. Her skills as an actress could not carry her that far. And neither could she resist him for another moment more.
The towel she had been clutching as if it were a shield fell from her fingers, unheeded, to the floor. She stepped toward him, into him, and then her arms were wrapping around his neck, and he was holding her tighter than he had ever held her before, and his lips were hard and fast on hers. This kiss was bittersweet, their mouths clinging and melding as naturally as always.
But there was a desperation simmering beneath.
She forgot all the reasons why she should not be opening her mouth to his questing tongue. Why she should not taste him, kiss him back, why she should not hold him to her as if she feared the second she would have to let him go again. She forgot she was not supposed to love him.
In those wild, frenzied moments of unbridled passion, she was once more his, and he was hers. Nothing and no one could tear them apart. Or at least, that was what she fooled herself into believing.
Having Johanna backin his arms was like seeing the sun again after being trapped in a windowless dungeon all the days they had been apart. Her lips were soft and responsive beneath his, her fingers tunneling in his hair. He could taste the urgency in her kiss. Could feel her body’s response through the flimsy costume she had worn as Miranda.
Her curves melted into him. The soft, breathy sound she made deep in her throat told him she was every bit as starved for him as he was for her. Gratitude unfurled within him, alongside a bolt of desire so powerful, his cock went instantly erect and his ballocks drew up tight. The need to be inside her was overwhelming.
He had not intended any of this when he had sought her out this evening.
He had told himself, of course, he should stay away from her. Give her the distance she so obviously wanted. His missive to her had gone unanswered, and he had heard not a word from her in each of the days since. Six days. He had counted them.
Almost an entire week.
The only fate worse than six days without Johanna was the prospect of a lifetime without her, which seemed increasingly likely with each day that had passed. He would have waited longer. He would have kept his distance, he told himself now as he kissed down the smooth, creamy column of her throat. He found the hollow at the base where her pulse fluttered a rapid staccato against his lips.
She was as affected as he was, and he knew it.
She knew it too, even if she despised herself for her weakness.
But then Arden had come to him, earlier that day, with word that Drummond McKenna was believed to be in London. Double agents in New York had confirmed the news to the Special League, and though Felix had resigned his position, Arden was a loyal friend who knew what the possibility of her brother being in London would mean for Johanna.
Felix had gone to the Crown and Thorn immediately, only to find the production about to begin for the evening. And so, he had watched Johanna perform once more. The pleasure he took in her undeniable talent had distracted him from his purpose.
That was his excuse for the reaction he had to sitting in the audience and witnessing her grand command of the stage. He had been, once more, in awe of her. He had never seen another actress like her.
