As if she needed care.
As if he knew how to care for anything.
“Markham”—she turned her face away—“already delivered your apology.”
“As asked. I didn’t want to address you directly.” Then, after he’d seen her, he realized he had no choice.
She snorted. “Not surprising.”
There.Right there. Sarcasm.
Instinctively, he searched for the pain. “What, exactly, did Markham tell you?”
“He said you acknowledged the wrong of”—her breath skipped—“toyingwith an innocent.”
Toying. He’d set out to use her, yes, but she’d been anything but a toy. She’d been a danger to him then. She was a danger to him now.
She ignited something shadowy—perverse, inner directives that felt essential. And, from the moment they’d met, she’d known exactly how she affected him.
She may not have guessed the exact nature of his thoughts, but she’d sure as hell recognized his desire. Her certainty had infused her with power and sensuality beyond her experience.
Yet now, she doubted.
If he could heal nothing else, at least he could return her pride.
“Julia, whatever you believe, understand I was…” He searched for the right word. “Taken with you.”
Taken. Stolen.Thieved.Stripped of all protective illusions. Left wanting things he didn’t understand.
Kissing her, teasing her, tempting her with decadent dissolution had been wrong, but his desire had been real. Destructively real.
“That doesn’t change the fact that knowing how innocent you were”—knowing he had nothing to offer her but corrupted want, the shell of a home, and a family history of callous indifference—“I should never have allowed—”
“Allowed?” Her eyes flashed. “I was not a child, Rayne.”
God, he was aware.
“And I’mnotinnocent.” She covered his stubbled cheek, softly running the tips of her fingers through his beard. “Not anymore.”
Her eyes were pools of fury muddied with carnal craving. Again, she became an impossible combination of banshee and seductress. A combination he longed to bind…and then languidly unravel.
“Rayne,” she whispered, her voice raw with hunger.
He recognized her tone, her expression.
I know you want what I want.
Her words from long ago echoed in his mind. Then, as now, she’d been so alive, so exquisitely determined, ripe fruit dripping with readiness to be plucked.
Kiss me, Rayne.
Same lips, softly parted. Same breath, short but warm. Again, so close, so easily claimed.
His heart thumped in demand, so he forced his mind to another memory.
“You will go, because you know you are in the wrong,” Bromton said.
“I am in the wrong? All I did was allow a relentless minx to hound me into one kiss, after which I sent her directly to bed, virtue intact. Which, by the way, I did nothaveto do. I wager she would have let me lift her skirts right there on the landing, and I am sure I would have found her wet and—”
