She let out a soft, incredulous sound. “Ye think ye are scaring me away?”
“I think I am telling ye to go.”
Her chin tipped up. “Ye are nae frightening, Maxwell.”
His mouth thinned. “That is nae what I —”
“Ye never did,” she said. “Nae when ye stepped out of the shadows and caught me trying to flee. Nae when ye glowered at me over contracts and rules. Ye daenae frighten me now.”
Her voice was different. Roughened at the edges. Far too aware of how close they were standing, of how his hand still hovered in the space where her wrist had been.
Frustration flared, hot and sharp.
“Ye should listen to yer husband,” he said, the word coming out like a challenge.
Her breath eased out of her in a quick, shaky laugh. “Ye are fond of that word when it suits ye.”
“It is a fact,” he said.
She looked at his mouth again, then back to his eyes, lashes lowering slightly. “Ye are nae me husband.”
His pulse thudded once, hard.
“I stood before a priest with ye,” he said. “Ye bear me name.”
“On parchment,” she said softly. “In vows.”
He stepped closer without meaning to, crowding the space she had left herself. “What do ye think is missing?”
She swallowed. When she spoke, her tone was a breath against the room. “Ye have not claimed me.”
Heat crashed through him.
The word hung there, bright and raw and honest.
Claimed.
Her cheeks flushed, but she did not snatch it back. Her hands curled at her sides, empty. Waiting.
He felt the last, thin threads of his restraint strain.
He should take a breath. He should send her away. He should do all the sensible things a man with ghosts and regrets ought to do.
Instead he heard his own voice, low and rough.
“Enough.”
He reached for her.
His hand closed at her waist, fingers spanning the curve, pulling her in until her knees brushed the chair between his. The contact jolted them both. Her hands flew to his shoulders, gripping hard to steady herself.
“Maxwell,” she started.
He kissed her to stop the rest.
Her protest died in a small gasp against his mouth.
This was not the careful testing of the first time, nor the surprised, stolen heat of the modiste’s shop. This was something else entirely, years of discipline fraying at the edges.
