How sad.
He’d never live that way again. He would find another way.
He ran his knuckle down her cheek. “Katherine, my love, I promise I will be a better man.”
…
Impossible to reconcile this being with the man who’d nearly ravaged her on top of her brother’s billiards table. That man was no gentle soul. He was forged of fire, hard and fierce. This man called her an angel, but that man was seraphim—a warrior angel who kindled flames that could either purify or consume.
This man was flesh, and he held her as if she were something infinitely dear.
Thisis what she wanted—had wanted for longer than she could recall. But whatthiswas, she dared not explore. For now, it was enough to be ensconced in the marquess’s arms.
It was as if she’d been a lamp wick burning low and he, the enclosing glass. Light that had been dim, wasteful even, was now brilliant incandescence. Her ears were alive to sound and each inhale was suffused with scent. He took her face back into his hands and stared into her eyes with a raw mix of longing, struggle, and awe.
“Is this my brute?” she asked.
As he shook his head no, the muscle in his back rippled under her hand. Temptation overwhelmed. She kissed the flesh of his shoulder.
“Mercy,” he breathed.
She caressed his spine to the narrowVof his waist. He trembled under her touch.
“I won’t,” he said haltingly, “dishonor you.”
“Mmm,” she hummed noncommittally as his chest hair tickled her cheek. “Is it your office to decide?”
“Yes.” A solemn vow.
So solemn, in fact, she had to suppress a laugh.
Men.
They fancied themselves the only ones capable of interpreting and defending the moral order. And although she balked at authority, had she not been complicit in their scheme whenever she’d looked to Septimus to define what was good and right?
The question gave her pause. She reconsidered her past with new eyes.
Septimus had relished the false mantle of his superiority and had lashed out when they had both fallen short of his ideal. But Septimus had been as much to blame as she. How could she have been solely responsible? She’d had no experience, only a desire that matched his own.
Her grief and shame—once impenetrable—cracked.
Giles had never pretended to have answers. In fact, he’d challenged her for being so very sure of her own. They were just two beings—flawed, imperfect—struggling to master this thing between them that had seized control the moment he’d touched her hand.
“So,” she queried, “are you telling me my honor, and yours, are safe?”
“Yes.” Another vow.
“Thank you,” she said sincerely. She entwined her fingers in his hair. His locks were soft and damp. “Not that I would have seduced you, sheets to the wind as you are.”
“Seduced me?” His brows furrowed. Adorably.
“I’ve a terrible history,” she explained.
He growled and tightened his hold.There you are, my brute. The flutter in her heart stilled. For the first time ever, she felt entirely safe. Let the whole world spin around them with words like “sin” and “shame” and “failure”; she and Giles would form the unmoving heart of the storm.
“If only there were another way.” The side of her lip turned up. “A way your virtue could be preserv—”
Her sentence disappeared into his kiss, raw, hungry, and only slightly gin-tainted. She returned his fervor with an intensity that made the shriveled need inside her something lasting and whole.
