It was a mutual siege. At once swift and hard and ruthlessly, searchingly erotic, frank and drugging. A kiss they broke only to drag in hot, swift, rough breaths so the next and deeper kiss could begin. Her arms went around his waist; his muscles, taut as iron, contracted when she touched him, and he pulled her closer still. He was everywhere in her senses. Velvety and hot against her tongue, his cock hard at her groin, his fingers delicate at her nape, his other hand sliding stealthily down to the curve of her arse to squeeze, to stroke in a coarseclaiming. Bolt after bolt of lust shivered through her, and she could hear her own breath coming in short sobs. She hadn’t known that desire had a taste. It burned like whiskey in her throat.
But she had known he would be like this.
He ended the kiss abruptly, with a soft oath.
He didn’t release her. She clung to him, and he held her close. His hand was soft on her back now.
For a second or two, she held on to him. Her eyes remained closed. His breath gusted against her temple. His chest rose and fell hard against hers. His lips were against her brow. He brushed the gentlest of kisses there. Her hand remained over the hard thud of his heart.
She’d felt his words forming; they’d rumbled in his chest before he murmured them.
“Forgive me.”
She supposed he meant for everything.
For the liberty taken, because he wasn’t a man who simply took things, even though he was a duke, and even though he could.
For hurting her with his words. But they both knew why he’d done it. He flailed for any weapon to hand when pulled by forces he could not command. She understood it. She didn’t like it, either. She would fight dirty, too, to save herself. And that’s what he’d been trying to do.
For ruining every other man for her, precisely as he’d said he would. He was indeed a man of his word.
For leaving her with an impossible choice.
Although she supposed he had one, too.
He loosed his arms, and they eased away from each other.
Stepped back and assessed.
His face was now a veritable chessboard of shadows.
But she felt rather than saw his watchful wonder, the near fury, the desire that, even from that distance, made her shiver.
All for her.
She felt powerful and frightened. Dizzy from kisses and from an elation she ought to thoroughly stamp out before it killed her. Surely, no matter what, devastation would be the end result.
But oh. The bliss between this moment and then.
She couldn’t find her voice to answer him. But she did forgive him, and he likely knew. Because she would have given him anything in that moment, except she could not give him what he likely wanted most, which was to not want her.
Well, that was mutual.
Then the war hero gracefully bowed to the harlot as if she were a queen.
Once upright, his mouth tipped at the corner in another wry salute.
He turned and departed, patting his hat back into place.
Just as he disappeared out the door, his hand rose. And wonderingly, he touched his fingers to his lips.
Lady Beatrice Galworthy had clearly been told that her eyes were beautiful. And they were—sablecolored and doe-limpid, her lashes so luxuriant they bent against her cheekbones when she was seen in profile. Which wasn’t often, as she had clearly been instructed to aim them unrelentingly at the Duke of Valkirk. The hope was no doubt to mesmerize him into falling in love.
And this took courage, he thought, blackly amused. She was half his age and clearly frightened of him. But her mute awe at his presence was offset by a self-congratulatory gleam in those doe-eyes. Very few of the other young ladies of thetonwould be able to say they had watched the duke take another helping of peas in sauce. He suspected she knew about everything he owned and its value, to the penny. Her mama would have made certain.
All in all she was very pretty, a veritable replica of her mother, who watched over the dinner like a sparrow hawk in green satin. He liked her father; he’d been a good soldier and was an intelligent man. Of course he was going to try to get his daughter a triumphant match.
Valkirk was so bored he did not feel as though he fully occupied his body.
