Very significant. So significant, in fact, that the impulsemust touchpounded in his head. Prudent choices and self-control suddenly mattered far less when he’d found himself lying supine beside her (yet absolutelynot touching her,not even a little) on that damned piece of velvet furniture while she described pink petals and brush strokes and soft buds and verdant bloody creeping tendrils. The rasp of her raw, cracking voice dragged over his skin and snagged on parts that had never before been stirred by the sound of a woman’s voice. On and on she spoke while he quietly fell apart. The damned mural had been his only salvation, and he stared straight up—stared unblinking until his eyes watered—because it kept him from gazing into the open earnestness of her face.
But now they were up, and he had watched every feature as she’d soberly informed him how displeasing and not tempting she was, how she was routinely viewed as distasteful by men, and he could not, in good conscience,notcontradict her.
The more she’d proclaimed her lack of desirability, the more he’d found himself consumed with the need to prove her wrong. Her color had risen, her coiffure had drooped to her shoulders, her breath had quickened, and—God help him—everything about her expression and her words had said,Prove me wrong.
And so he had. Immediately, stridently, with actions rather than words. It killed two birds with one stone, illustrating his own decidedly male attraction to her in no uncertain terms, and finally, blessedly, sating his need to taste her. Just once. Before he left.
Except it hadn’t. He hadn’t been sated; instead, he had somehow been stoked, his desire multiplied—nay, it soared. The first kiss demanded the second. Her innocence awakened some previously unknown urge to possess. Their upright embrace felt insufficient, and the chaise behind them beckoned. More, more,more—he could barely recall the self-contained man he’d been when he’d arrived in Surrey, occupied with nothing more than making enough money to save his lands and family.
Thank God some ingrained, honor-bound restraint kept him from toppling down and taking her with him. Two passionate embraces would have to do; a final crescendo before he said good-bye, finally and forever.
But he could not seem to say good-bye. He kissed her mouth, he dragged his lips across her cheek and kissed her temple, he breathed the scent of her hair. Now her mouth again, and he dipped his head and kissed the crook of her neck. “You’re taking down the advertisements,” he growled when he grazed her ear.
Willow stiffened in his arms.
Cassin swore in his head. He had no right, of course, and (of course) she would not listen. She sucked in a breath and pulled back. Her resistance was an icy splash of water, but he was still loath to let her go. Letting go her go felt like giving up the one frivolous thing he’d allowed himself in years of prudence and planning.Cannot I be permitted this one thing, just for a moment more?
But then of course he did release her, and he took a painful step back. He forced his brain to churn back to functionality. He swallowed hard and ran a shaky hand through his hair.
She would be angry again, and perhaps that was best, although he could not, in that moment, reason why.
“I will not take down the advertisements,” she said. “As I believe you well know. I could not have been more thorough about my reasons why.”
Cassin gritted his teeth. This should not matter to him; thiscould notmatter.
Why, then, did it seem like all that mattered?
“You will invite other men to come here?” he asked. “You will marry a strange man to get what you want?”
“I will get what I want,” she corrected. “I will get my friends what they want. How it happens interests me less than that it actually occurs.”
Cassin nodded grimly and looked around. One part of his brain, the rational and responsible part, bade him to bolt for the door, to simply flee. Run away like a coward. A responsible, self-preserving coward.
Another part, a part he rarely invoked and barely recognized, asked him,What’s the worst that could happen?
And then,If I refuse, what is the worst that could happen toher?
He squinted out the windows into the hazy garden, wet and autumnal, resplendent in every dripping shade of orange, gold, and purple. Had he actually kissed her twice in a room that allowed unobstructed views from every direction, inside and out? He harrumphed. Was it any surprise he now considered the unthinkable?
He glanced at her. She’d crossed her hands over her chest. Her breathing came fast and labored. Her lips were swollen and red.
I did that, he thought, illogically, possessively.Me.
When he looked into her blue-green eyes, she raised an eyebrow.Now, he thought,she will slap me. God knew he deserved it. He held his breath. She sucked in a breath and . . . giggled.
He glared. “Don’t.” He pointed to her, daring her to laugh again.
Another giggle. Something in Cassin’s chest floated—the breath in his lungs? His heart?
He would’ve laughed, too, if he hadn’t felt so much like howling. He’d come to Surrey for the financing to save his family, and instead, he had . . . he was . . .
Instead, his priorities were in such a bloody shambles he could barely recognize himself.
“We’ve crushed your pin,” she said softly, gesturing to the cockade on his lapel.
He glared at the whorl of ribbon pinned to his jacket. “Yes,” he said.
“I noticed it yesterday. It’s striking, lovely, really. Is it significant?”
