Talia looked up at him and noticed the struggle in his eyes, but she did not want to leave. Did not want to run away from whatever this was. Not when he was the confusing one.Hewas adamant about finding her a husband, and when she found someone she liked, he got angry and left.
She was still lost in the haze of their kiss and the confusion about how a simple request for a workroom could have turned into the heated conversation they had.
That heat had now simmered into an unpleasant warmth that made her feel ashamed, but she wanted clarification.
“I am nae being stubborn. I just want a clarification,” she answered. “I believe it is me right to understand?—”
“What more do ye want to understand, Talia?” he interrupted with a huff. “There are mistakes that cannae be explained. Yer childish desire for clarification shows that ye have yet to?—”
“‘Tis me right to make sense of what has happened between us. Try as ye might to forget, but I am nae so inclined to do the same, nae when?—”
He let out an angry growl and stormed out of the study, slamming the door shut with a force that rattled her.
Angry tears fell from her eyes, and she wrapped her arms around her middle in a bid to soothe herself.
The confusing cad didn’t deserve her tears or the ache she felt in her heart every time he called their kiss a mistake. Shame made her tears flow more freely at the fact that she had enjoyed the kiss.
Devils.
She should never have come to his study. Should never have been alone with him, not when everything he did made her interest in him grow.
Her tears flowed freely down her cheeks but she didn’t stop them, allowing herself the privacy to grieve before returning to her chambers, where Amber or her maid would no doubt be waiting for her.
“Devils!” Darragh cursed, stepping into his chambers. “Shite!”
He slammed the door shut with more force than he had intended, and the sound rattled through him, but it wasn’t enough to rid him of the guilt he felt at having misbehaved earlier.
He hadn’t meant to kiss Talia, even if he had wanted to from the moment he had first seen her, but he had believed common sense would keep him from making such a mistake.
When he had seen Hayden put his hand on hers and the broad smile on her face, he had been filled with an unreasonable rage at her and himself. At her because she had never once smiled at him so brightly, and at himself for letting it happen. And while he had asked his mother to watch her, he had been haunted by even darker thoughts of what would happen if she agreed to marry Hayden.
The fact that the man would do more than hold her hand had nearly sent him into a fit of rage, but he had quelled it.
If she hadn’t come into his study, he would never have looked at her lips longer than he should have, and he wouldn’t have teased her the way he had, and he wouldn’t have been brought to the edge of a maddening need to taste the flush on her creamy skin.
What had she even come to ask him for? A room for her to practice in?
Why had the sight of her so unruffled pushed him to want to tease her so?
Devils!
His blood sang with heat and lust, his cock straining against his breeches with the need for release. It had been so long since he had been with a woman, and with just one taste of Talia’s lips, desire like nothing he had ever felt had him wanting to stroke himself for release. He couldn’t bring himself to disrespect her by fisting his straining cock to the image of him buried in her warm sheath. He wouldn’t allow himself to think of her in that manner, not when he had been tasked with finding her a husband whose right was to experience such desire with her.
He rushed out of his chambers, into the hall, out of the castle, and down towards the loch, which would be as cold as death in the night. But he didn’t care. The heat in his blood was driving him insane, and only the frigid waters would shock sense back into him.
The wind by the loch grew violent, as though warning him against the idea, but he was determined. He quickly divested himself of his clothes and jumped in before he could change his mind.
“God above!” he yelled as he surfaced from the icy depths.
The water was colder than he had imagined, and his muscles protested such brutal treatment by sending pangs of pain through his body.
The pain turned from blindingly sharp to a dangerous numbness that warned against a prolonged stay in the water, but he stayed a bit longer.
He didn’t trust his body just yet to release him from his punishment. Just the memory of the moans she had made as he kissed her had his cock stiffening again.
He hadn’t expected her to be responsive or passionate, and he certainly hadn’t expected it to be so difficult for him to end the kiss, but the more he tasted her lips, the more he wanted to explore, to savor the sweetness of her mouth.
She was better than any dream he had ever had, and now that he had failed to rein in his emotions, he doubted he could be around her without making the same mistake again.
