nbsp; He couldn’t help recalling her at their first meeting. He’d turned her from that pure, beautiful creature into this temptress. And God forgive him, she was even more beautiful now. No matter how he chastised himself, he couldn’t help wanting her still. He’d want her until the day he died.
Every time he looked at her, he saw more to aggravate his guilt. A red mark on her neck revealed where he’d bitten her. He wanted to ask if she was all right. But he quailed from inquiring after her well-being when he’d destroyed it.
He straightened without shifting his gaze. “No apology can redress my behavior.” Because his emotions swam too close to the surface, his voice emerged hard and clipped as if he was still angry with her. When all his disgust was leveled at himself. “I never touched your sister, but you have every right to hate me for what I just did. I treated you appallingly, despite my respect for you. Do whatever you must. I won’t bother you again.”
“What about the scandal?” Her brows drew together. “Don’t you care if I make the letters public?”
Her voice was thready. Her throat moved when she swallowed, as if even those few words tested her. A pox on his damned impetuosity. Until he’d met Eleanor Trim, he’d had no idea that a beast lurked inside him. He supposed until he’d met Eleanor Trim, nothing had been important enough to awaken his inner savage.
“Right now I don’t give a tinker’s damn about the letters.” He reminded himself that however heartsick he felt, he had responsibilities. “If… if there are consequences from what we just did, let me know.”
Good God, she had him stuttering. How low she’d brought him.
Her eyes widened and she swallowed again. Abhorring him as she did, the prospect of bearing his child must be anathema. But it was too late to take back what they’d done.
Too late. Too late. Too late altogether.
He cursed himself for taking all the sweetness they’d shared and turning it into this nightmare of lust and anger. Unable to bear looking at her when everything between them had foundered, he faced the door. “Good-bye, Eleanor. And God bless you.”
“Don’t I get to say anything?” she asked unsteadily.
Wearily he turned back. “I know you loathe me. You don’t need to go into details.”
Her chin tilted upward. “Stop telling me what to do.”
“Very well, I’ll listen.” He planted himself with grim stoicism. “I owe you that much.”
She studied him, expression enigmatic. To his relief, she tugged her bodice over her breasts. Her disarray inevitably made him want to tumble her again, despite the weight of self-hatred. Leath had always despised men at the mercy of their baser urges. What a smug prig he’d been.
He noticed her faint stumble as she stepped away from the wall. Another pang of guilt. Another twinge of satisfaction to remember pounding into her as if the world ended any minute.
When she left him, his world would end.
Unexpectedly she approached. After that unceremonious mating, he thought that she’d want to get as far away as she could. “When you touch me, you drive everything else from my mind.”
What the hell? Astonished, he stared at Eleanor and the confession tumbled from his lips, although surely she already knew the truth. “You drive me mad too.”
His shock rose when for the first time tonight, her mouth curved in a faint smile. “That’s good.”
“It is.” Then he realized what she’d said and frowned. “Is it?”
Bewildered, he watched her step even closer. Soon, she’d be near enough to touch. Whatever his good intentions, if she ventured within reach, he’d haul her into his arms. And then he’d prove himself a brute indeed.
She bit her lip and her eyes fluttered down with the first sign of shyness. She’d been too busy hating him to be shy. “I hope so.”
He was accounted a brave man, noted for his dash in the boxing ring, and with a pistol and blade. But her next step forward drove him into retreat. “What do you want?”
For a long moment, the stark question lay between them, as tangible and deadly as a sword.
She licked her lips again and he bit back a groan. After that mighty release when he’d filled her with every drop of his anguish, he shouldn’t be ready for a woman for at least a week. But as he caught a drift of rich female scent, he wanted to kiss her until she yielded again.
“God help me, Leath,” she said in a low voice that lifted every hair on his body. “God help me, but despite everything that’s happened between us, I want you.”
He didn’t move.
Uncertainty darkened her eyes to brandy. “Don’t you care?”
In frustration, he ran his hand through his hair. “Of course I bloody care. But you don’t trust me. You accuse me of unspeakable things.”