Looking up at him, I tried to smile back, but couldn’t quite manage. “Thanks, but it wouldn’t help.” I looked down at my hands. “Not when the person I want to escape from is myself.”
Reaching out, Edward tilted up my chin, forcing me to meet his gaze. His dark blue eyes gleamed with silver and sapphire light, like the half-bright sky at dawn. “I understand,” he said quietly. “Better than you might think.”
“You do?” I whispered. Of its own will, my hand reached up to stroke his tousled black hair. It was so thick, and soft, just as I’d thought it would be. Five o’clock shadow traced the sharp edges of his jaw. Everything about him was masculine and foreign to me. I didn’t understand him at all. “Why are you being so nice to me?”
He gave a sudden crooked smile. “Maybe it’s just to lure you in my bed.” His hand moved gently from my hair to my cheek. “Did you ever think of that?”
I gave a tearful, hiccupping laugh. “You don’t have to try this hard for me.”
“I don’t?”
I looked up at him.
“No,” I whispered.
His hand froze on my cheek. His expression changed as he looked down at me.
Cupping my face in his large, strong hands, Edward lowered his mouth to mine, slowly, deliberately. I could have pulled back from his embrace at any time. But I didn’t move. I held my breath in anticipation as time suspended.
Then his lips finally touched mine, and I exhaled with a sigh. My breath comingled and joined with his. His lips were tantalizingly soft at first, sweet and warm. He lured me in, made me lean forward against his chest, reaching up to wrap my arms around his shoulders. Then he shifted me in his grip. As he held me more tightly, the world started to whirl around us.
He’d seen me at my worst, but he still wanted me....
His kiss deepened, became hungrier, more demanding. I clutched his hard, powerful body to my own, like a woman seeking shelter in a storm. Edward was solid, like a fortress in my arms. And if somewhere in the back of my mind, a voice shouted at me to stop, telling me this would destroy me, I pushed it away. I clutched Edward to me, kissing him with every cell in my body, my skin hot with need.
I was tired of being safe.
With a low growl, Edward lifted me up into his arms. Leaving the great hall, he carried me up the sweeping stairs.
Held against his chest, I looked up at him, dazed, lost in desire. I watched the play of shadows against his hard, handsome face as he carried me up the stairs. He carried my weight like a feather.
Edward St. Cyr was taking me to his bed. In just moments, my virginity would irrevocably be taken by this cold playboy, this breaker of hearts.
But he was so much more than that.
Lifting my hand to his cheek in wonder, I felt the roughness of his skin, the dark bristles along the hard edge of his jaw. He was so powerful. So masculine. So different from me in every way.
And yet somehow, tonight, I felt we were not so different. Out of anyone on earth, Edward understood me. He’d seen the scared girl I’d been, and the bold woman I wanted to be. He knew me....
Using his shoulder, Edward pushed open his bedroom door. I’d never been inside it before. The room was dark with shadows. Dark, Spartan furniture lined the edges of the walls.
A large white bed was at the center of the black-lacquered floor, illuminated by a pool of moonlight from the window like a spotlight.
Kicking the door closed behind us, Edward gently set me down on the moonswept, king-size bed. He hadn’t said a word since we’d left the great hall. I looked up at him, shivering in my headband and simple skirt and blouse. I was twenty-eight years old, but felt as innocent as a schoolgirl.
Never taking his eyes off me, Edward slowly pulled off his tie. He dropped it to the lacquered floor. He moved toward the bed.