He shook his head. “Let me take you home.”
“I don’t want to go home,” she said, and pushed him away to sit up.
He let her go, watching her from his position sprawled on the big bed. His hair was mussed from her grip and his lips were shining from her pleasure. He looked so wicked and yet he refused, over and over, to be fully wicked withher.
She saw him grit his teeth, saw his frustration with her. But also saw his desire. Good, if she was going to be frustrated, she wanted him to be too. He deserved it.
“Emotions are high,” he said softly. “And in those moments, bad decisions can be made.”
She stared at him. Was he talking about himself? About what they had just shared in that bed where he still lay, looking like a king who had plundered a land he didn’t even want now. It took all the air out of her in that moment. He’d been right on the edge of surrender, of pleasure, of passion and he could just…stop. It wasn’t good for the ego. And he wasn’t wrong that in this state, she could easily make a mistake.
“Please let me take you home,” he repeated, this time gentler.
She let out her breath in a harsh sigh and grabbed her mask, sliding it back over her face. “Fine. Have it your way.”
She didn’t wait for his response, she just smoothed her hands over her skirt to make sure she was back in place and then headed for the door. But she had no idea how she would ever regroup after this deeply pleasurable and somehow catastrophic night.
She just hoped it wouldn’t be her only chance to feel the high he had gifted her just before he dashed her on the rocks once again.
* * *
Theo sat across from Bernadette in her carriage, watching her in the dim light. She was angry, that much was clear from the way she folded her arms across her chest and refused to look at him except to occasionally glare in his general direction. The anger he could have dealt with, truth be told.
It was the fact that under the anger, he could feel her hurt that struck him mute and made his hands shake. That and the fact that he could still taste her on his tongue, still feel the clench of her against his fingers.
He had to get himself together so he could figure out what to do next. Especially since the carriage was pulling into the drive and came to a stop in front of her home on Kent’s Row. Servants began to appear from the stable, but she held up a hand at the window and they all stepped back.
Once again, she looked at him, but the heat was gone from her gaze. She sighed. “I know you think I’m…I’m foolish. Stupid even.”
He sat up straighter at that. “Never!”
“Don’t lie to me. You’re playing some game, trying to trick me out of what I want because…I can’t even imagine why. I assume some misguided sense of protection because you think I’m made of glass and incapable of deciding to do anything on my own.”
She shook her head and once again he felt the pain beneath the surface of all this. He couldn’t help but think about her all those years ago, when they’d stood together in a gazebo and she’d reminded him that she would never have freedom. That she would always be under some man’s thumb. He had made sure she would be, hadn’t he? By refusing her then, even though she didn’t know that he had done it.
Perhaps by refusing her now.
“You’re not alone in that,” she continued. “My father felt the same way, My husband did, as well. You are another in a long line of men who would deny me what I feel. And now you’ve brought me home, done your duty. So good night, Your Grace.”
She pivoted to leave, but he caught her arm and held her there. “No. Not like this. We’re not finished.”
He flinched when he heard those words from his own mouth. Why had he said them? She’d given him the perfect out, the perfect way to cut this off. He could have apologized, released her, sent her some sad flowers later and let it be. She might not even go to the Donville Masquerade again if he’d somehow ruined that place for her.
But he didn’twantto ruin things. He didn’t want to hurt her to make his point or guide her actions.
“No?” she said, shaking his hand away. “You want to finish now like you wouldn’t back in the hell?”
He clenched his jaw at the taunt. She had no idea how close he’d been to doing exactly what she’d wanted. To losing control. To forgetting himself and her and just taking what he wanted.
“I want totalkto you,” he managed to grind out.
She laughed, though there was no humor to the sound. “Wonderful. More talk. Talk, talk, talk.” She pushed open the door. “The duke will be joining me,” she called up to her butler. “He wants totalk.”
She left him behind in the carriage as she strode into the house with every male servant staring after her in slack-jawed awe. Theo couldn’t blame them. There was something in the fire of her anger that made him want to…stoke it. To make her hotter and sharper and more and more passionate, whether it was in his bed or any other place.
He blinked to clear that thought and slowly followed her into the house and down the hall into her parlor. She had crossed to the sideboard ahead of him and sloshed bourbon into two glasses, one of which she waved vaguely toward him without actually taking the other herself.
“So talk,” she snapped, and paced away.
