Maddy’s heart pounded,drumming in her ears. She told herself she wanted this—oh, how she wanted it. When he lay her down and moved away, she tried to pull him back with grim resolve. She could do this, but if he held himself away, the ugliness would flow in again. She needed him close.
He laughed and pulled his shirt over his head, his inconvenient nobility gone. “Easy, Maddy. We can take our time and do this slowly.”
She wanted none of that. She tore at the fastenings to his trousers until he pulled her hands away and did it himself, sliding them off in one fluid motion, before placing his knee on the bed in preparation for climbing in next to her.
The sight of his jutting manhood, larger—surely larger—than the weapon Randolph had used to batter her, made her mouth go dry. She tore her eyes away and pulled him down on top of her.
His kisses and the tender exploration of his hands sent her into oblivion then. When his hand smoothed over her belly, tender circles making her heat soar, she moaned and swayed into his hand, and she felt him smile against her mouth. He kissed his way down her chin to her neck, and his hand roamed lower, tugging at her nightgown and coming to rest on her thigh.
The panic set in then, but she swallowed it.You can do this, Maddy. You want his touch. Courage.
When his warm hand slid upward and his fingers caressed her folds, panic increased. When his gentle finger penetrated her, she went rigid with remembered pain, well-learned humiliation.
His hand stilled. “Maddy, you are moist and open for me. Isn’t this what you want?”
“Yes,” she said, her voice weak and shaken.
He removed his hand, pulled her gown to her knees, and stared down at her. In the flickering candlelight, his jaw was taut. “You don’t sound certain.”
“I am,” she said, choking on the words.
He frowned down at her.
“I was,” she said, a thread of a whisper, as she rolled away. “I wanted—”
“But now you don’t,” he said, sitting up against the back of the bed.
Maddy slipped off the bed, grabbed her wrapper, and belted it tightly around her, swallowing tears and keeping her back to him. “I’m sorry, Brynn. I thought I could do it.” She reached the door before he spoke.
“Oh no. You can’t run off now. We need to talk,” he said, still sitting on the bed.
“Talk?” She darted her eyes around the room frantically, as if searching for a way out.
“This isn’t a conversation for the drawing room and certainly not one to have in front of your family. Come and sit next to me. I’ll keep my hands to myself.”
She froze in place. He wanted her to sit next to him while he was as naked as his mother had delivered him? She couldn’t. She sat on the chair. “What is there to say?”
“Tell me what you want. What you really want and why you came. What am I to you? A diversion? What was the taradiddle about feeling safe?”
“No, never! I do feel safe when you hold me, but then all this, thisotherbegins, and I can’t.”
“Can’t? You drive me mad with desire and then you expect me to stop? Do you have any idea what that does to me?”
“Randolph never stopped. It hurts, and he didn’t care. He told me I’m cold as marble. That I had no proper sense of my duty.”
“I am not Randolph Tavernash,” he roared. “I’m not marble either, Your Grace.”
She felt the title like a slap, probably what he’d intended. She felt bullied and battered.
“You get me aroused, drive me insane, and then go cold. What do you want from me?” he demanded.
She went rigid. “Nothing. Not one thing, Colonel Morgan. I found out what I needed to know.” She was out the door before he could respond.
*
Brynn cursed atthe ceiling.You bungled that, you damned fool.
She wanted him. He hadn’t been wrong about that. But as it had become more intimate, she’d panicked. The expression on her face at his erect penis hadn’t been desire. It had been fear, and he’d been too stupid to see it.
