Her body tensed at those words. At the way he said them. It wanted things she should not desire, things she couldn’t have. She followed him from the room, knowing full well she had to get these desires under control. Because once he heard what she had to say, it was very unlikely he’d ever want to be alone with her again.
Matthew watched as Isabel entered the parlor and walked as far away from him as she could. He shut the door behind her and shuddered. They were alone. And the space was so small that she could run all she wanted, but it would only take a few steps to have her in his arms.
Which was where he wanted her when he was honest with himself. All his reactions to that ever more evident fact rose up in him. Guilt. Anger. Self-loathing. And desire more powerful and potent than he’d ever experienced before.
Even with Angelica.
And there it was. The truth that he didn’t want to face.
Isabel turned, and all those emotions faded to the background. Her expression was taut not with desire, but anxiety. She worried her hands before her, fear lining every part of her lovely face.
“What is it?” he asked, stepping toward her.
She jolted, and her cheeks filled with color. At least he was not alone in this madness. This need that should not be.
Somehow that offered little comfort.
“Has something happened?” he asked, gentling his tone slightly.
“Yes. No. I don’t know,” she gasped out. “My uncle…”
She trailed off and he stiffened. Fenton Winter. He tried not to think of him. Had avoided him for years. Isabel’s presence in his life forced him to bring the man back to the corners of his existence. Him and his accusations that cut so close to the bone.
“What about him?” he asked, sharp and harsh because he could be nothing else.
She lifted her gaze to his. “He is…he’s always hated you, Matthew. Blamed you for what happened to Angelica.”
He turned away and paced off to the window, where he looked out at the faint shadows of the garden beneath a sky that contained only a sliver of moon. “This is not news to me, Isabel. Certainly it is not something that requires we leave the ball and come here together.” He faced her, thinking of Hugh’s earlier suggestion that Isabel might be manipulating this situation. He didn’t want to believe that.
But…
“But he has been more driven the past little while, Matthew,” she said, unaware of the conflict in his mind. “I see a desperation in his eyes. A growing danger. He said that he wants to hurt you.”
Matthew shook his head. “He’s told me worse to my face, Isabel. It is bluster, pure hatred vomited out by a man deep in grief and loss.”
“No!” she snapped, that lilting voice finally going sharp as she closed the distance between them and caught his hands with both her own. “No, it’s more than that. I see him on a daily basis, Matthew. I see his deterioration, his descent into something ugly and cruel. At least when it comes to you. You must not take this lightly.”
He stared down into her face, lit with true concern and deep fear. For him. Forhim. His friends felt that way, certainly. His mother, yes. But Isabel was the first person outside of his inner circle who had looked at him with such true and deep connection since…
Since her cousin. And he realized how much he had missed the feeling that one soul cared so truly and completely about his own.
It was terrifying and compelling all at once. Something he wanted to recoil from and embrace in equal measure.
“Isabel,” he said softly, letting his gaze brush over her lips, meeting her gaze, feeling how she trembled, in part because she believed what she was saying. In part because she was practically in his arms.
“Don’t discount me,” she asked, her voice shaking.
“I’m not,” he said. “I’m certain you believe this is true. But—” He couldn’t help himself. He slid a hand along the curve of her jaw, brushed his thumb against her ear and felt her earring bob against the flesh. He watched as her eyes fluttered shut, and she let out a ragged sigh that spoke volumes about what she wanted.
It echoed what he wanted.
“But?” she asked.
He dropped his head down, closer and closer to hers. He felt her breath against his lips, and it drove him mad. “He can’t hurt me,” he whispered. Then he took her mouth.
She lifted into him at once, her arms coming around his neck as she opened herself to his kiss. And he took. Took like a man starved because he was. He had not kissed her since the ball almost a week before, and then it had been angry and out of control. A punishment rather than a pleasure.
Tonight it was pleasure. It was a memory of steamy nights in that forbidden club when he had lost himself in a stranger. But now she wasn’t a stranger, and if anything he wanted more. He wanted to see her whole face as he took her, wanted to feel her body flutter around him in release and whisper her true name against her skin.
