Kitty’s breath hitched, her fury faltering for a moment. “You cannot lay that on me.”
His gaze struck through hers. “Can I not?”
The air was heavy with silence—tense, oppressive, endless. Then, finally, she spoke, her tone soft but cutting like fragments of shattered glass. “The same way you ruined mine?”
Something in the atmosphere shifted. The space between them reduced until she felt the warmth of his body, his scent?—
His broad palm on the door beside her head pinned her, his other hand against the wood inches from her waist. Her breathing stopped, her heart racing.
Norman leaned in close, his mouth against her ear as he exhaled, “I am not through with ruining you, yet.”
Flames curled in her stomach, enraged and unstoppable. Her hands trembled at her sides, but she refused to let him see. He receded far enough so their gazes met, and the look he gave back was full of shiver-inducing possessiveness, hunger, threat. A challenge.
Kitty’s lips parted, whether in shock or in some unspoken retort, she wasn’t sure. But no words came.
Norman didn’t move. He simply stood there, his breath fanning across her cheek, his presence entirely too solid, too real. Kitty could feel her pulse in her throat, in her fingertips, in the back of her knees. His nearness unsettled something buried deep within her.
Her pride screamed at her to shove him away. To tell him he had no right. But her body—the traitorous thing—was as still as stone, her skin alight with awareness.
His eyes drifted to her mouth.
Kitty saw it before he even moved. The intent. The hesitation. The final decision.
And then he kissed her.
It wasn’t gentle.
It wasn’t even particularly graceful.
It was everything he was—commanding, heated...
His lips crushed hers, stealing the breath from her lungs, and for one terrible, blinding moment, Kitty kissed him back.
She hated how natural it felt—how she tilted her chin, how her mouth opened beneath his with a soft gasp. How easily her fingers curled into the front of his coat for balance, or maybe to anchor herself in the dizzying swirl of sensation.
Norman growled softly at the contact, a deep sound that vibrated through her. His hand slid up to cup her jaw, the rough pad of his thumb tracing the corner of her lips as if memorizing the shape of them.
It should not have felt this good.
Kitty tore her mouth away with a sharp breath, her eyes wide and stunned and furious all at once.
“Back away from my rooms, Miss McGowan,” he panted, his voice as soft as velvet but cut with steel. “Unless you are absolutely certain that this is what you desire.”
Kitty gasped, her breath catching in her throat.
He halted, his electric blue eyes clinging to hers for a heartbeat longer before he turned on his heel and strode back to his chair. He grabbed the glass of brandy, his gaze still fixed on her, challenging her to make a move.
But Kitty did not linger. With a swift, determined motion, she turned, opened the door, and glided into the hall. She did not glance back, her footsteps light and resolute as she walked to her own room, her heart pounding with every step.
Once she stepped inside and shut the door behind her, she jammed her hands into the chilly wood, her chest shaking with harsh breaths.
She ordered herself to shut up, and get back under control, but her body refused to obey. Fury, anger, and something deeper—something stark and primitive—stirred within her.
To hell with him.
Damn him for making her feel this way.
Nine
