“I know they are not mistakes to be prevented because a man fears feeling anything he cannot command.”
His face darkened.
She stepped closer before the fear could stop her.
The movement brought her within the heat of him, and all at once the argument shifted. The air between them filled with awareness so thick it nearly drowned the anger. She saw the way his gaze dropped again, this time to the loosened neckline of her nightgown, to the small bow resting at the top of her breasts.
His control strained so visibly that her pulse leapt.
“Do not come closer,” he said, yet it sounded like a warning to himself.
Emmeline’s breath caught. Something reckless stirred inside her, a need to know whether his refusal was truly stronger than the hunger darkening his eyes.
“Why?” she asked.
His gaze lifted to hers. “Because I am trying to be honorable.”
“Honorable?” The word trembled with disbelief. “You think it honorable to reject your wife on her wedding night without tenderness?”
His hands curled slowly into fists at his sides. “You are angry.”
“I am humiliated.”
His face tightened. “I did not intend that.”
“But you did it.”
His throat moved. “Yes.”
The single admission struck her strangely. It was the first honest thing he had given her since she entered the room.
Emmeline swallowed hard, and because she was hurt, because she was angry, because she had never learned how to stop wanting impossible things, she stepped closer still.
Now only a hand’s breadth separated them.
Rowan went utterly still.
She could see the pulse beating in his throat. She could see the way his breath had changed, slower and deeper, each inhale dragging against the linen of his shirt. He looked as if touching her would destroy some vital part of his discipline, and the sight sent a hot, dangerous thrill through her body even as her heart remained bruised.
“You speak of honor,” she whispered, “but you looked at me in the dining room as though you had already imagined this door opening.”
His eyes flared. “Yes.”
Emmeline’s breath caught.
Rowan’s jaw tightened, but he did not look away. “Yes, I want you. I have wanted you for longer than is wise, and that is precisely the problem.”
Heat rushed through her so quickly that she nearly swayed.
Her fingers tightened in her skirts, but it did nothing to steady her. He was still looking at her with those hard, hungry eyes, and now she knew what it meant.
He wanted her.
The knowledge found the softest, most foolish part of her, the part that had wanted to be chosen even when she knew better. For one breath, she hated him for giving that part of her something to cling to.
“Why is it a problem?” she asked, stepping closer.
Rowan’s gaze dropped to her mouth.
