“...I must acknowledge I have been.”
He lifted the back of her hand to his lips and closed his eyes. She was present. Right there beside him. But the flesh against his lips was cold.
He’d done that.
“...I apologize for reacting badly to your concern, for speaking coarsely, and for goading you into coarseness...”
He lowered their joined palms. He would have let her go, but her grip had tightened. “...You were correct, however. A part of me...”
The specter flailed again.
“...A part of me,” he started again, “very much wishes to be badwithyou.”
He steadied his breath, holding his focus on the single point of her fingers wrapped around his own as remnants of his anger and lust flamed up around him like burning ash, threating to spread a fire he was still struggling to snuff, a fire that hadn’t yet cooled.
“Even now, I am painting you in my mind—and no, my thoughts aren’t at all gentlemanly.”
“Hurtheven...”
She’d spoken his name like a plea wrapped in want and frustration that matched his own.
“I am about to be vulgar again.” His voice cracked. “Do you want to stop? Or do you wish me to tell you what I see?”
Her throat moved as she swallowed. “I don’t know.”
The hope and the beast struggled. This time, the beast won out. His eyes unfocused and his breath slowed. “Your hair is spread out against a pillow. Your”—he closed his eyes—“wetness surrounds my cock...”
Her breath caught.
“...your breasts, with stiffened nipples, brush against my chest. And you’re making that sound you made before—that soft, almost reluctant whimper—over and over while you quake with your release.”
She made that sound again. He stopped, unable to continue and unable to open his eyes. He wet his lips.
“So, yes,” he forced the words, “I want to be badwithyou. But I vow that I will notever”—the word came out as a growl—“be badtoyou again.”
“Hurtheven—”
“But,” he interrupted, “I could only be badforyou if I boreanyresemblance to the libertine you just described—a man who would take from you and give you nothing in return. Am I that man?”
He opened his eyes and gazed out into the darkened library. He’d posed the question, he realized, as much to himself as to her.
“No,” she whispered.
He turned his head, and, with his gaze, he caressed her face—the lips he’d tasted, the cheek he’d cradled, the eyes that had seen so deeply into his soul.
Her mouth was pinched, with signs she’d been incessantly worrying her lip since last they’d met. The usually pale angles of her face were wine-dark and radiating with heat. Her gaze was troubled and her eyes, wide.
She was...scared.
Whether or not her story had been trueof him, her story had been truth.
She’d been hurt. Badly.
Inwardly, he cursed. Winning her was not going to be easy. He might even fail.
He’d wondered, while he’d been waiting for her to arrive, what he’d do if she refused him. Now, he had his answer. Let her go, of course...if she truly did not wish to be with him.
But if she did?
