She shook her head and reached for her horse’s reins. She was besotted by him; she was upset with herself.
“Caroline.” Mr. Yorke took her by the hand.
She stopped and stared down at their hands, suppressing the desire to tighten her hold on his.
“What is it?” he asked.
She took a moment to breathe, then met his gaze. “May I be frank?”
His gaze grew more alert, and he released her hand, facing her squarely, as though preparing for the worst. “Please.”
She released a slow breath. “I do not know how to trust you—or myself, for that matter.”
His gaze flickered, and for a moment, she thought he might try to persuade her—to profess his feelings again and again until she believed him, until she lost her senses in a puddle of the bliss he had mentioned.
Instead, he simply nodded. “I understand.”
The simplicity of it startled her. No arguments or defense. Simple acknowledgment.
“I should not have kissed you,” she admitted.
“Well, you cannot possibly expect me to agree with you on that,” he said with a roguish smile, though his eyes watched her.
“It was rash.”
“Not on my part,” he said.
She took in a breath and let it out slowly, trying to control thedesire to give in to her desires again, to make promises she could not keep. If she permitted her feelings and selfish desires to dictate her actions, she was no better than men like Brightmoor.
She was getting ahead of herself, and she needed time to breathe. To consider.
“If you must leave,” he said, “allow me to accompany you home. It is not safe.”
“I have made this ride alone dozens of times.”
“And what of me?” he said. “Will you leave me to my own devices in such a rugged and unfamiliar place?”
“I have no doubt you will manage,” she said with a half-smile. She was fairly certain Frederick Yorke could manage anything. She turned away, only for him to catch her hand.
“Forgive me,” he said, letting it drop again, a rueful smile on his lips. “I am…finding it difficult to let you go. You make it seem so easy.”
Her heart twinged. “It is far from that. But I think a bit of distance is in our best interests.”
He took another step toward her.
Her heart knocked against her ribs as she met his gaze, her own slipping to his lips. She could almost taste them, and yet with every moment, their exact feel and the way his hands had wrapped around her…it all seemed to slip further from memory.
“Do you?” he whispered, his eyes glowing dark with all the things Caroline most wanted him to do.
No.
Distance from Frederick Yorke was the very last thing in the world she wanted. She wanted to be lost entirely in his kiss, to let the wind take her thoughts and lift them away on the breeze, to allow herself to be carried on the tide of desire.
A tide that might swallow her entirely and irrevocably.
Their lips hovered an inch apart, their warm breath mixing in the space.
“Yes,” she said, her voice traitorously weak, even as every other part of her begged to be let free again.
