“I didn’t. He never came. But there were other men in that ring, and I found that when I was in it, the noise in my head went quiet.” His eyes came to hers, steady and terrible. “I have gone back every week since. Under another name. For over half a decade.”
Isadora stared at him, trying to make sense of it. Except that it already made a dreadful kind of sense—why he stole from the house at the hours he did, why he went where he went, why his knuckles were forever ruined beneath those gloves he had worn even to her wedding.
“You’re… you’re a pugilist?” she said finally.
He nodded, his eyes on hers. “It was the one thing that was mine. A way of keeping hold of myself.”
“Through violence.” As though in a dream, she rose and crossed to him, and pressed her hand flat against his chest. “And… and all this while, it has been killing you.”
“The pain is”—he licked his lips, looking as though the words hurt him more than any bruises could—”good.”
“I hate that you are hurt,” she whispered. “I can’t stand thinking about all the ways you could be wounded. Youhavebeen wounded, Nicholas. And Sophia knows it, too.”
His eyes shuttered. “This has nothing to do with her.”
“It haseverythingto do with her. You are her father. She knows when you leave at night, she sees what you carry home, and one day she’ll be old enough to understand it.” Her palm stayed planted over his heart. Beneath it, she felt him gather the courage to step back, to put distance between them before her words found some vulnerable place inside him. Except… he stayed.
That decided her.
She reached behind her neck and slipped the first clasp of her gown.
“Isadora,” he muttered raspingly, “you don’t have to—”
“I know.” Her fingers found the next hook. “I want to.”
One by one, the fastenings yielded, loosening the silk along her spine. She watched him watch her. The change in his expression came slowly, like winter breaking upon a frozen river. The cold receded from his pale eyes, and something reckless, famished, and achingly human rose in its place.
She stepped free and waited for him to unlace her stays. Once they, too, fell to the floor, she turned her back to him and drew her chemise over her head.
When she faced him again, his brows drew together, as though he meant to fight what he felt. But lust burned openly across his face.
Good.
This was what she needed—she needed him to feel it. More than that, she needed him to understand that wanting her was neither weakness nor sin.
“I am here.”
She took his hand and placed it over her breast.
“And I will not leave. The greatest harm you can do is make Sophia and me live without you. Everything else can be faced.”
She held him there, forcing him to feel the beat of her heart beneath his palm.
“If you are grieving, confide in me. If you are furious, argue with me. If you want me, then take me. And after it all, we will confront whatever remains.” She held his gaze pleadingly. “No more slipping away into the night, Nicholas. No more punishing us because you are afraid of what you want.” Curling her fingers over his hand, she whispered, “I happen towant,too.”
His gaze dipped to her breasts, and she felt its passage as keenly as if he had tipped a candle and let one slow ribbon of wax travel over her skin.
“What doyouwant, Isadora?”
“You.” The answer came breathless and without hesitation. “I want you constantly. I want your mouth on mine. I want your hands everywhere. I want you to make me feel the way you did last time. And”— his eyes finally lifted to hers, and she refused to look away—”I want you to allow yourself to want these things, too. I don’t want you to hold back anymore.”
He growled, or perhaps it was a curse, and then his hands were around hers.
She fumbled with his breeches, and he helped her undo them. Then, wrapped together in an embrace neither could have escaped even if they’d wanted to, they sank to the carpet.
Isadora glided her palms over the carved terrain of his torso. Her fingers dipped into the furrows between hard muscle. She touched the livid bruises upon his ribs and kissed each one. Tasted his scars. Suckled his jaw, his neck, his shoulders. All thewhile, he squeezed her curves tight enough to leave fingerprints. Her breasts, her hips, the long sweep of her legs. When he reached the apex of her thighs, she allowed them to fall open, exposing herself to him.
If he noticed or cared that they were on the floor of the drawing room, he certainly said nothing about it. And the idea that they were being carnal in a place that wasn’t a bed—at a time when it was not generally expected that couples gave in to their desires—merely made her blood singe hotter.
