What a liar he was. Last night had changed everything.Shehad changed everything. But he couldn’t let her know it.
Her sultry lips flattened into the line of disapproval he’d come to know so well. “You’re being deliberately unkind.”
Theo told himself this was what he had to do. She was not for him, and nor was he for her.
“I’m not a kind man,” he told her harshly, anger at himself lending a sharp edge to his voice.
“That’s not true.” She shook her head, curls bobbing in her agitation. “You are a man of great compassion and kindness. I know because you have shown me both.”
Damn it.She brought out parts of himself he’d thought long gone, and now she sought to use them against him. But he would bury them again. Mercilessly suppress them. Destroy them if he must. It was for the best.
“Is that how you see me?” he asked. “Is that what makes my touch palatable to you, that you believe I’m kind? Because if so, allow me to disabuse you of that notion. I’ve done things that would shock your fine sensibilities. I’m a mercenary, my lady, capable of doing anything for a price. Why do you suppose they call me Beast?”
“I…” she faltered, her brow furrowing. “I don’t know.”
“Because Iama beast, my lady, and you’d do best to remember it. Now say your piece, so I can return to my duty.”
And he had never felt more like one than this moment, with naked hurt on her lovely face.
“What has happened since last night?” she asked, her gaze searching.
What had happened was that he had rediscovered his sense of reason. Last night, he’d been stripped bare of every defense, his guard lowered. And when he’d seen her standing at the threshold of her chamber, he hadn’t been able to resist. But the sun had risen on a new day, and there was nothing like slipping from her bed in the darkest depths of the night to remind him that there was no future for them.
He gave her a careless shrug. “Perhaps I’m the one who has had my fill, and now that I’ve had your quim, the fever in my blood has been cured.”
She went pale, and he wished he could withdraw his words. But Gustavson’s men could already be in London, searching for him. And he had no doubt that they would harm anyone close to him. They would stop at nothing in their quest to destroy Theo. He’d be damned before he allowed anything to happen to Pamela because of him.
“You would reduce what happened to mere lust?” she asked, a tremble in her voice that almost broke him.
Damn it, how was he to remain unyielding? How could he keep his distance when the yearning to touch her was clawing him apart inside?
“Yes, lust,” he bit out dismissively. “What else is there between a man and woman?”
“Tender feelings. Emotions. There is love.”
Of course, she must have been in love with her husband. A sudden, painful stab of envy hit Theo then.
But he couldn’t allow himself to dwell on the way she made him feel. Moving nearer to Pamela, he intentionally crowded her with his body, clinging to the dynamic that had existed between them before last night.
The one in which she viewed him with icy distaste and he toyed with her like a cat batting at a mouse. Because that was far safer than what they had become. Lovers who possessed tender feelings for each other. No, better to return to what they had been: enemies at daggers drawn.
“Do you know what I think, Marchioness?” he asked.
“No, and nor do I care to know what you think,” Pamela said, some of her flagging hauteur returning as she tipped up her chin in defiance. “You, sir, are a brute.”
Hewasa brute. He felt like one, and he hated himself for it. Hated that his past had chosen now to return. Hated that he couldn’t have this woman the way he wanted her. That they had been reduced to one night of secrets instead of something more.
“A brute whose mouth you fully enjoy,” he told her cruelly anyway, unable to keep from reminding her just how responsive she was to him.
It was foolish and reckless, he knew. They were nearly pressed together now, and the scent of her, sweet temptation and jasmine laced with hyacinth, filled his senses. She reached for him first, her arms curling around his neck as her breasts crushed into his chest. He banded an arm around her waist, holding her tight, loving the way her curves molded to his hardness. Suddenly, all his intentions to drive her away were swallowed by a flood of desire.
“You are vile,” she said, but there was more desperation and hurt in her voice than true bite, “to taunt and tempt me so.”
The last few words were whispered so quietly he scarcely heard them. But it hardly mattered, for she tugged his head down to hers, and then her mouth was on his, and all the reasons why he should keep her at a distance fell completely away. There was nothing but the softness of her lips, the sweet demand of her kiss, and the driving need to be inside her again.
CHAPTER12
Pamela had been correct early that morning when Theo had left her bed. The tender man who had made love to her so passionately had again been banished behind the impenetrable mask of the brooding stranger. The harsh man who had faced her in this guest chamber and in the hall had been cold and indifferent, fashioned of stone instead of warm flesh and bone.
