“I suppose they soon discover that she doesn’t.”
Reaching out, he tucked a few loose strands behind her ear. A warm shiver flowed through her, but she kept her gaze focused on the street. It might prove very dangerous to look at him just then, with other rooms—bedchambers—nearby.
“She doesn’t exist. She’s merely a figment of some poor fool’s imagination. Do you know the worst thing that can happen to a man the first time he visits a gambling hell?”
“He loses everything?”
“He wins.”
She snapped her gaze over to him. He was watching her intently, but she was coming to realize that he always studied her as though he wished to decipher every aspect, every nuance, of her. She had journeyed through life paying little attention to anything of importance, while he allowed nothing to escape his scrutiny. He survived while she stuttered along, striving to find her way. She could learn from him.
“It’s the winning that causes the obsession,” he said. “That momentary exhilaration as though you’re on top of the world, unbeatable, invincible. You experience it once and you never forget it. No matter how often you lose after that, you keep seeking that elusive thrill that for a time made you forget all the troubles in your life.”
“So which was I, that night at Geoffrey’s? Something to possess because you could? Or something to win for the momentary delight it would bring?”
He moved nearer, took the strands that had again worked themselves free, and sifted them through his fingers as though he’d never seen them before. “Some day some gent will win your heart, and the elation will far exceed anything he will experience with the turn of a card or the roll of the dice. He won’t care that you’re ruined or that your father never married your mother.” His knuckles grazed her cheek before he slid his hand around to cup her chin. With the roughened pad of his thumb, he painted sensations over her lower lip.
She realized that he’d neatly avoided answering her question by filling her with hope that she might still possess all for which she yearned. “Will you ever marry?”
The words came out on a whisper of air. She didn’t know why it mattered if he took a wife, but suddenly it did. Would he bring his lady here, teach her how to defend herself, show her his apartments? Would he allow her to put up draperies?
He shifted his gaze up to her eyes, and she saw the resignation and the truth there before he spoke.
“No.”
A simple word that left no doubt, that allowed no space for the unexpected.
“What if she wins your heart?”
“She would first have to find it.”
His mouth covered hers, with purpose, his tongue impatient to dance with hers. The intensity had her swaying, reaching up to wrap her arms around him for balance, to keep her knees from buckling and carrying her to the floor.
He grabbed her wrists before her hands grazed his shoulders, brought her arms back, shackled them in one firm grip, all the while continuing to plunder her mouth, to somehow keep her near even as he sought to put some distance between them.
Why would a man as sensual as he was, with such voracious kisses that threatened to devour her, have such an aversion to her holding him? How could he remain so aware of every small movement she made when she was lost in the frenzy of his coercing her to respond in kind, to deepen, to explore, to savor?
In the farthest recesses of her mind, she remembered that she was standing in front of an uncurtained window and that surely they must be providing entertainment for those arriving and leaving, but she didn’t care. She. Did. Not. Care.
The realization slammed into her with frightening resolve. She wanted this kiss. His kiss. She wanted his mouth on hers. She wanted the taste of him, the rasp of his bristled jaw against her soft skin, the echo of his groans surrounding her.
Or was she the one moaning and sighing?
When had she begun to anticipate his kissing her? When had she begun to anticipate being in his presence? When had she decided that she desperately wanted to unravel the mystery of him?
He had no heart. He was not kind. He would never marry.
He was the absolute worst person for whom she should develop any sort of feelings, and yet there they were. Only seedlings now, but they would grow, and then where would she be? A woman broken in body and spirit.
Only she didn’t think he’d break her. He was taking too much care not to, not rushing her, not forcing her before she was ready.
He tore his mouth from hers and, breathing harshly, he studied her as though she confounded him. Slowly, so very slowly, he released his hold on her, one finger unfurling at a time. His gaze slid over to the hallway, and he looked as though he were measuring how many steps it might take to get her there and beyond—to his bedchamber.
“Not here,” she said quietly. She didn’t know why it mattered, but it did. She didn’t want him to take her in a place of sin and vice and debauchery.
His gaze came back and landed softly on her, the icy blue not quite so frigid. “No, not here.”
They left then, with him escorting her down the stairs and along the corridors until they reached the back door, the one through which they’d entered what seemed an eternity ago.
