“There’s a perfectly serviceable sofa downstairs. I assure you, I’ve slept on worse.”
“With a broken arm?”
“It barely hurts any more. I’d be perfectly comfortable.”
“Are youtryingto convince me to send you away?”
“Of course I’d rather stay.” His grin turned lopsided and charming. “I wouldratherkiss you right here on this very comfortable bed, but I’ll settle for sleeping elsewhere if that’s what you’d prefer.”
“You,” she said as severely as she could, “are a terrible flirt.”
“And here I thought I was rather good at it.”
She gave in and laughed, one hand covering her face. How he achieved this, she didn’t know; how could he make her laugh with suchease? When so much of her life had felt like darkness, he came along with the light.
His smile faded as she looked back at him, and her stomach tumbled at the expression in his eyes. Deep, dark, the colour of midnight.
“What do you want, Emily?” he asked, and heaven help her, she was tempted. There was nothing but the light of a candle between them, no one to witness them but God himself, and she suspected He had already forsaken her.
Could she be selfish?
She was beginning to think she could. Just for today.
As though sensing her amenability to the proposal, he brought his thumb to her mouth once again, the rough pad scraping across her bottom lip. It oughtn’t to have been so appealing, and yet she was instantly burning, too hot even in the cool of the room.
“I won’t do anything until you tell me I can,” he said. “You have the control.”
Victor Marlbury, the man who had broken her heart and taken her virtue, had never asked for her permission in this way. He had taken her capitulation as consent, and she had thought that was love, that overbearing need.
But she saw the same need in Oliver even as he waited for her response.
How could she have denied him?
The control was in her hands, and she would take the reins.
“You can have your kiss, and more,” she said, her heart pounding with the thrill of finally giving in to the inevitable. This was objectively a terrible decision, but it was hers in a waythat very little else in her lonely life had been, and she was determined to hold on to it.
Isabella would never know that for one night, Emily craved the man she’d intended to marry.
Later, she knew, Emily would feel guilty, but she refused to allow guilt space in her mind for now. For once, excitement tingled to her fingertips. She was really going to do this. No one had coerced her into it; she had decided of her own volition.
If she was careful, she could have both. Pleasure and control.
“But,” she said, “there must be rules.”
Chapter Eighteen
OliverstaredupatEmily’s downturned face. Rules. Of course she wanted rules—she was a woman for whom very few things had been within her control. This, if she was to engage in this, must also be.
Understanding that in a logical, intellectual way was very different from the reality, however.
His heart gave a kick in his chest—nerves, anticipation—and he nodded. He would give her whatever she needed, and he would take whatever she offered; there was no other way for this to go.
“Very well,” he said, retreating to his bed to put distance between them. As far as was possible, they should both have clear heads. “Tell me your rules. I warn you now, there’s very little you can tell me that would make me not want you, but I assure you, if I’m not comfortable, then I’ll say.”
She nodded, lacing her fingers together. “My first rule is that there is nothing between us but mutual pleasure and satisfaction.”
“Understood.”
