It was a thousand lanterns being lit in unison.
It was a glimpse of heaven…with all the sinful delights of hell.
As she collapsed bonelessly against the back of her seat, Adam kissed her. A quick, forceful, claiming kiss that left no doubt as to what he wanted to communicate.You’re mine. This pleasure I gave you is mine. Don’t fucking forget it.
She caught a peek at his eyes–steel on fire–before his gaze shuttered and he straightened.
“The carriage is waiting,” he said brusquely, as if he hadn’t just been touching her in one of the most intimate ways a man could touch a woman. “We should go. Your family is expecting you.”
For once, Eloise didn’t have a sharp rebuttal poised on the tip of her tongue.
Her head was too overwhelmed to contain a single coherent thought.
“I’ll…I’ll get my shoes and stockings.” Stumbling past Adam on trembling limbs, she proceeded to do precisely that.
They traveled to theEdgemont Museum in silence. Adam sat on the far side of the coach and Eloise the near, with both of them looking out opposing windows. The tension was thick enough to cut with a knife…or his jaw.
Adam worked his lower mandible back and forth as he concentrated on the passing scenery; a blur of buildings and storefronts that barely registered. While his eyes were open and staring, he wasn’t seeing London in all her soot-covered beauty but rather the sheer ecstasy that had flashed across Eloise’s countenance as her tight little quim had clenched around his invading finger. The intensity of her orgasm, and his reaction to it, had left him shaken. He may not have been a virgin–far from it–but what he’d experienced with Eloise…what he’d experienced with Eloisewasnew to him.
The urgency to fulfill her wildest desires at the expense of his own without a regard to the consequences was completely foreign. Every action that he took, every contract that he signed, every deal that he created…it served a purpose. It met an end goal. And italwaysgave him the upper hand. But that had all ceased to exist with Eloise. When he saw her sitting in that chair, her calves scantily clad and her hair a ribbon of flame around her gorgeous face, he’d wanted her with a ferocity that had set him back on his heels…and then set him on a path straight towards her.
It was unnerving, the ability she had to make him lose control.
Unnerving and unacceptable.
On his lap, Adam’s knuckles bent inward to form matching fists of aggravation.
He required a wife, it was true.
It was also true that, ironically enough, Eloise’s name had been on the list of eligible young women provided to him by Argus. But as sure as his hair was black and his eyes were gray, Lady Eloise Rosewood wasnota suitable candidate for marriage. For his revenge plot to come to fruition, he needed a bride that was meek and mild.
But Eloise…Eloise was madness. And he didn’t have to understand the current social dynamics of thetonto know that if there was a premiere jewel, a diamond of the first water, as they said, it was not her. She may have been pure of blood, but that was where the advantages stopped…and thedisadvantages began.
Eloise was willful, contumacious, and had a stunning disregard for her reputation. He would no more court her than he would donate his entire fortune to the poor. Both decisions would be equally reprehensible, and both decisions would bring him no closer to his ultimate goal of destroying the Earl of Denbigh.
What he needed to do was find her exact opposite and marrythatchit. Whomever she happened to be. But in order to do that, first he had to squelch whatever…whateverthiswas between himself and Eloise.
“I should like to apologize for my behavior,” he said stiffly. “It was out of line, and inappropriate. It will not happen again.”
A drawn out pause, and then…
“You’re not very good at pretending, are you?” she asked without glancing away from the window.
His brow creased. “What are you talking about?”
“Pretending.” Now she did turn her head, and even though the interior of the carriage was dimly lit, her eyes glittered like sapphires above cheekbones sprinkled with freckles. Beauty and mischief, rolled into a delightfully infuriating package. “When I was child, I pretended all sorts of things. I pretended that I was a knight charging off to battle to slay a dragon. I pretended that I was a sailor setting off across the ocean in search of treasure. I even pretended that I found a genie to grant me three magical wishes. But allyouhad to do was pretend that you didn’t kiss me, and yet here we are.”
I am going to walk away, and pretend this was nothing more than a terrible nightmare.That was what he’d told her the last time they were together, and now she was using his own words against him.
Damned if he wasn’t a little impressed.
“What were they?” he asked. “Your wishes.”
“I only had one. Or at least one that I can remember.” She smiled crookedly. “I wanted the wings of a bird so that I could fly far, far away.”
“A knight, a sailor, a bird.” He crossed his arms and leaned back in his seat as his mouth twisted in derision. “What was so terrible about your upbringing,LadyEloise Rosewood, that you constantly dreamt of escaping it?”
“Even a pretty cage is still a cage,Mr.Adam St. Clair. What bird wouldn’t want the freedom to stretch its wings? If you were sent to collect me, then it was under my sister Lenora’s orders. Do we strike you as similar? My sister and I.”
