Her blush deepened, and her dimples surfaced. It was more satisfying than trouncing thecapoat baccarat.
She rested her hand over his. “Do you remember when you came to visit us in Bristol, the summer after your mother died?”
“Of course. It was the first time I hadn’t been miserable in months.” His lips twitched. “You’d had a huge strop with your mother. She banned you from dessert for the entire week.”
“A month in total.” She winced. “Mama caught me eavesdropping on you and your father. I was listening in the servants’ hallway while you were dressing for dinner. Your father asked you if you minded coming to Bristol with him.”
An ache rose beneath Ian’s ribs, and when he simply stared at her beautiful face, Diana wound her arms around him and tucked her head beneath his chin.
“You said visiting us felt like having a family,” she said.
Against her hair, he murmured, “I meant being with you.”
“I know.”
He held her quietly until the hammering of his heart slowed. “You know now I’m pledged to dangerous people. It will be next to impossible to extricate myself. Anyone close to me is a fair target. And the idea of you or—” He didn’t have the courage to saychildren. “If my choices and actions resulted in you getting hurt, it would destroy me.”
Her arms tightened around him. “The possibility of anything happening to you is so unimaginable, I won’t allow myself to think of it. That’s why we’re going to end this. We will cut the Tarka, and the otherfamiglieandIl Gioco,out of our lives.”
She raised her head. “It’s possible if you stake theEver Hart.”
When Sunderland had let it slip Ian would need a personal stake in the game, he’d known Diana would suggest it. It didn’t make refusing her any easier. “And if I lose?”
“I have a big fortune, Ian.”
“When the Tarka win, they’ll think they’ll have a claim to it, if you’re with me.”
“They can only take it from us if we let them.” She caressed his cheek. “I’d risk everything if it meant taking back control of our lives. You’ve staked too much for me too many times.”
He grasped for something to prop up his fragile psyche, because her words were undoing him. “It’s my job to fix problems.”
“While I adore how clever you are at it, it’s what youdo. The way you work so hard at it, for the people you protect, that’s who youare, and why I’ve spent every minute since we met completely enamored with you.”
“I’ve never been able to hide how much I want you. God knows I tried.” He pressed a kiss into her hand. “Exiling myself to the shadows, becoming the Devil of the Docklands. It was a cover for the target on my back, an easier way to convince everyone—especially myself—that I could never be part of your world. Despite how much I desperately wanted to be with you.”
“All I’ve ever wanted was you, Ian Holt. Not for a night. Or to win some contest.” She drew him closer. “For forever.”
His mouth met hers eagerly, and her fingers threaded through his hair. The gentle way she tugged at his scalp made him growl nonsensical things as his lips scraped against her neck. “You don’t know what you’re asking, Diana.”
“I’m asking you to let me love you. All the ways I know how.”
With a groan, his lips sought hers. She responded enthusiastically and deepened the kiss; they were both heated and moaning in the space of a minute.
He caught a gulping breath. He ransacked his brain for some argument that would shake sense into her, but he couldn’t believe any of his own excuses.
There would be no more lies between them.
She brushed a thumb over his mouth. “The way you look at me. Can you forgive me for all of my scheming to lure you along, keep you close?”
“Diana, I don’t recall a time when I wasn’t completely in love with you. I’d live every excruciating moment again, if it meant I could finally be with you like this.”
His mouth crashed against hers, and they exhaled against each other. Her hands hastily extricated him from his shirt, button by button.
When it fell to the ground, she gave a satisfied hum as her fingers explored his skin. They dove along his sternum and caressed his ribs, before arriving back tostroke the ink stamped over his heart. Her lips followed the path of her fingers. As she pressed hot kisses against his chest, everything south of his waist grew hard.
His fear that he would spend in his trousers again resurrected a modicum of his restraint.
“Wait.” He clasped her face between both hands. “If we continue like this—”
