“Dev? What happened? Why are you in the dark?”
He almost growled at Liv’s soft, concerned whisper in the darkness. Rain lashed the windows so hard he could barely hear her, but a wave of irritation rose up inside him. Bloody woman. Why couldn’t she just leave him alone?
He straightened, and her head snapped toward him, and whatever expression she glimpsed on his face in the next flicker of lightning made her gasp.
“I’m sorry. I heard a crash and I . . . I thought you’d fallen. Hurt yourself.” She took a step closer, and he backed away, deeper into the shadows next to his bed. She followed.
“I’m fine. Go away.”
God, she’d taken her dress off, ready for bed. All she had on was the ivory silk dressing gown he’d sent to her, belted at the waist, and, presumably, the matching nightgown underneath. She looked as ethereal as a ghost, except for the tantalizing scent of her perfume that teased his nose.
She stopped a few feet away from him, as if she were dealing with a wild animal. “Dev, are you . . . afraid of the storm?”
A shiver ran through his body, a mix of fear and self-loathing. “I’m not afraid of storms,” he managed scornfully. “I hate what they do to me.”
She tilted her head at that humiliating piece of information, clearly trying to make sense of it, and he almost begged her to go.
“Well, I must admit, I’m a little scared too,” she finally admitted with a wry little laugh. “I’m glad we’re in here and not out there. Storms like this make my stomach all fluttery, like I’m nervous, or excited, but don’t you?—”
He stepped forward, impatient, desperate to make her understand. “They make me into amadman, Liv.” He held up his shaking hands in front of her face, savagely determined to force the truth onto her. “Lookat me. Look.”
He knew his eyes were wild, his lips drawn back in a savage snarl, but he didn’t care. “When I hear the thunder, I’m not here. I’m in the mud at Waterloo, with the smoke in my nose, almost pissing my pants in terror.” He thumped his fist on his chest. “And my heart is beating like I’m going to die, as if it has ten thousand heartbeats left, and only minutes left in which to beat them.”
He dropped his hands to his sides and backed up again, forcing his shoulders to relax with a harsh exhale. “Most of the time I can control it, if I think of other things, but it’s not easy and . . . I need you to go. I don’t want to hurt you.”
She was already shaking her head. “Let me help you. There must be something I can do.”
Her naïve optimism only fueled his frustration. “You can’t help.”
She gave a soft snort. “Oh, come on. What do you normally do? Read? Play cards?”
Dev’s patience finally snapped. He had to get her out of there, had to save her from himself. He grabbed her face between bothhis hands, hardening his heart against her soft gasp of surprise. This was for her own good. He had to be brutal to be kind.
“I don’tread,” he whispered, injecting as much scorn and condescension into his tone as he could muster. “I don’t play cards, or embroider, or drink to distract myself.” He leaned closer to stare into her eyes. “Ifuck, Olivia.”
Her eyes widened at his unexpectedly crude language, and he forced himself to go on, to crush whatever sweet, heroic image she had of him under the brutal truth.
“I fuck until I can’t think about anything else, until I’m so lost in giving and receiving pleasure that I don’t notice the storm at all.”
In the agonizing silence that followed he could hear his own heart pounding. Bloody Hell. Why hadn’t he kept his stupid mouth shut?
“Oh,” she breathed.
A sneer curled his lip, even though his heart was shriveling inside at the loss of what might have been. She’d never marry him now. “Yes,Oh.”
Her gaze found his and he forced himself not to flinch or look away. Let her see the broken ruin that he was.
“Is there someone you’d normally . . . ask? To help?” Her eyes were wide, serious.
Mortification swamped him and he shook his head, furious with himself, with the whole bloody situation. He couldn’t believe they were discussing this.God.
“In town, yes. Sometimes. But not here. There’s no-one I—” he shook his head and released her jaw. Let his hands drop, already regretting the loss of contact. “Just?—”
“I’ll distract you,” she said, so urgently it was as if the words had burst from her.
His brows snapped together. “What?”
“Let me help. Askme. I want you, Devlin.” She put her own hands up to his face.
