She arched a brow. “Would you stay in a Society that openly shuns you?”
His breath came rougher now. She could feel it more than see it.
He was upset.
And she—she was unraveling.
She had prepared for this conversation. Had thought herself ready to say the words and mean them. To walk away from him without looking back.
But the way he was looking at her now—like he wanted to consume her, like he wanted to stop time itself just to keep her here—made something inside her crack.
His voice was a quiet plea. “Come upstairs with me.”
She should say no.
She should leave, flee into the night, never look back.
But his voice was in her blood, his hands already whispers against her skin, and against all sense, all reason, all the careful plans she had spent years making?—
“Yes,” she whispered.
And then his hand was in hers, pulling her toward ruin.
CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE
Ash had waited for this moment. Dreamed of it. Driven himself mad with the memory of her—her taste, her body beneath his, the way she had come apart in his arms.
And now, she was here again.
The door to room ten closed behind them with a quiet click. It might as well have been a thunderclap. Because the second they were alone, the second there was nothing between them but air and everything unsaid, Ash moved.
He caught her around the waist, pulling her against him, his mouth finding hers in a kiss that was all heat and hunger and, damn it, desperation.
Her fingers curled into his coat, but then—she pressed her hands against his chest, pushing him back.
He blinked, breathing hard, frowning.
“If we are to continue this, we must establish some rules first,” she said, her voice low, measured. But her pupils were wide, her breath unsteady. She wanted him as badly as he wanted her. He could see it.
“Rules?” he echoed, shaking his head. “I don’t understand.”
“This—” She gestured between them, at the room, at the wicked anticipation thrumming in the air. “It can be nothing more than a distraction. A moment of pleasure. That is all.”
He stepped forward, crowding her against the door, dragging his lips along her jaw, down her throat. She shivered.
“I thought that’s exactly what it is,” he murmured against her skin.
A breathless sigh escaped her lips, but she caught herself, tilting her chin up. “I’m serious, Ash,” she said, though her voice had lost its edge. “You must promise me. No feelings. No entanglements.”
“No feelings?” he repeated, catching her hand and guiding it downward, pressing her palm to the hard length of him beneath his breeches. “This is how I feel. Do you object?”
She made a strangled sound as he kissed the sensitive spot just below her ear.
But then… She forced herself to pull away.
Her eyes burned into his, her next words like a shot to the chest.
“No falling in love.”
