“That was, admittedly, in poor–”
“Keeping me waiting at the tavern?”
“You’re right, I should have–”
“Insulting my pet?”
“When did I insult your pet?” he said blankly.
She crossed her arms as temper rippled across her countenance; the first true display of anger he’d ever seen out of her. “You called Sir Reginald, and I quote, ‘a rat with a furry tail’.”
Of all the ills he’d committed,that’swhat had upset her the most? Sterling started to laugh, saw how serious she was, and coughed into his elbow instead. “Rosemary–”
“Then youdoknow my name.”
“Of course I know it,” he said, vaguely irritated that she’d ever thought otherwise. “I am a drunk and a degenerate, not a bumbling imbecile. I just like the way your eyes flash when I call you Rebecca, or Ruth, or Renee.”
“You haven’t called me Renee yet.”
“It was next on my list.”
She gazed at him intently, as if she could somehow see past the façade he’d carefully erected around himself to the fractured shadow of a man beneath all the cavalier charisma and short, snappy quips. Which was impossible. No one, not Weston or Kincaid or even Sarah, knew how empty he really felt. How bleak and bitter he really was. If they did…if they did, they wouldn’t let him out of their sight. Why, then, did he have the uncomfortable feeling that Rosemary saw him for who he truly was?
Except she didn’t.
He was confident that she didn’t.
Because if she did…if she did, she’d run screaming.
“I accept your apology,” she said formally.
“Thank you–”
“On one condition.”
Wariness brought his brows together. “What’s that?”
“You kiss me again.”
Sterling was able to count on a single hand the number of times someone had caught him off guard over the past few years. When you were the worst sinner in the group, not much had the ability to surprise you. But this…this shocked him right down to his rotten core.
“Absolutely bloody not,” he said, incredulous.
Her frown deepened. “You did it before. Right here, as it so happens.”
“Iknowwhere I did it.” Of its own accord, his gaze went to the settee. It was a fine piece of furniture. The trim was rosewood polished with beeswax, the long cushions sumptuously upholstered in bronze velvet. Rosemary’s ivory skin would glow against the rich color as he laid her down upon it, his knees straddling her hips while his teeth nipped the freckle on the side of her neck, just below the delicate shell of her ear. He’d inhale the scent of her, clementine and a fresh spring breeze over the water, as his mouth wandered across the hills and valleys of her voluptuous frame. Lingering here. Nuzzling there. Enjoying the banquet of those soft, lush curves until she was begging him to bring her to sweet release and–
“Your Grace?” Rosemary said uncertainly, drawing his attention to the fact that he was staring with tender adoration at a sofa. Worse than that, he was on the verge of sportinganothercockstand. Over a bit of fluff and fantasy about an inexperienced wallflower.
How utterly humiliating.
“Another kiss is out of the question,” he snapped. “Terrible idea. Worst one I’ve ever heard.”
Hurt flickered in her eyes. “Then I do not accept your apology.”
“You can’t do that!”
“It’s my forgiveness. I can give and take it back as I please.”
