“Why are you really here?”
“You know why.”
“I want to hear it from your own lips.”
He looked at the open valise on the chair. “It’s not to see what delights Mrs Flavell packed for you, though I am intrigued.”
“It’s not what you think. Merely practical things. No whip or shackles. No elixir to loosen a lady’s inhibitions.”
He stepped into the room, and the space closed in. “I don’t want to fasten you to the bed, Miss Harland. I don’t want you submissive.”
Her breath hitched. She could feel his gaze on her skin, like sunlight through a windowpane, warm and inescapable.
“What do you want, Mr Hawke?”
He advanced, a predatory gleam in his eyes. “To remindyou there’s nothing to fear from Irving, the Moseley brothers, or Templeton.”
“You make those assurances daily.” He was so near, her heart pounded. A strange tingling traced the length of her spine.
“I’m yet to mention the true danger.”
“If it’s to mind the apple garlands, Mr Beattie told me.”
“It’s not the apple garlands, though the same warning applies.” He reached for the tendril of hair brushing her cheek, stroking it and letting it slip through his fingers. “You should avoid the main staircase. You should avoid me, as one might a lone wolf on the plains.”
She could no more avoid him than a moth could a flame.
“Is that your way of saying you’re hungry?”
His tongue skimmed his lips. “Not hungry. Ravenous.”
She swallowed hard.
“But you know that,” he murmured.
“How could I, when you avoid me?”
His fingers trailed along her jaw. The pad of his thumb swept across her mouth. “Perhaps I don’t want you to regret the things we might do. I can’t have you without offering the protection of my name. And I’m the last man you should marry.”
Marry.
The word struck harder than his touch.
She had not asked for vows. Had not asked for protection. She wanted him as he was. Dangerous, unrepentant, hers for a stolen hour.
His hand drifted to the hollow of her throat.
The list slipped from her grasp and fell to the floor.
“I know what desire looks like on a woman, Miss Harland.” His palm skimmed the curve of her breast, asthough acquainting himself with its shape. “You want me. The question is … do you want a lesson in sin?”
She understood him well enough. He feared binding her to a future she might resent. Feared waking one day to find her gone and himself damned for it.
But she would not be pitied into safety. No man would decide her fate.
“We were never meant for vows and hearth fires,” she lied. She had imagined both more than once. “Still, there’s no pain in pleasure. And my troubles vanish when I lose myself in you.”
The slow curl of his mouth was pure satisfaction. “Do you need time to consider what comes next, or shall I show you?”
