She looked up at him, still frowning. “He’s deliberately making himself look guilty?”
“That’s the way it…feels.” Instinct more than fact had informed his and Tristan’s opinions.
Her frown deepened. “But…why?” Swinging away, she flung out her hands. “Why do such a senseless thing?”
He had one very good idea, but it wasn’t wise to suggest it, given her still fraught state. His supposition was all but guaranteed to send her into another bout of histrionics, albeit aimed at her brother, not him.
She suddenly swung around and strode back to him. “We have to find Justin. We have to locate him wherever he is, and bring him back and exonerate him in the eyes of the authorities and the world.” Halting before him, even closer this time, eyes locked on his, she jabbed a finger into his chest. “You have to do something!”
He caught her finger.
She frowned, tugged, but he didn’t let go. Lifting her gaze to his eyes, she narrowed hers in a glittering, dangerous glare.
Which had entirely the opposite effect on him than she intended.
Through his hold on her hand, he could feel the tension thrumming through her. Her temper was another form of passion; her earlier outburst had opened the floodgates, leaving her passionate, sensual self very close to her surface.
It had been twelve long years since they’d been this close. He looked into her eyes, and saw desire and heat well even as her lips firmed.
“I think,” he said, refusing to let her hand go even when she tugged again, “that it’s time to discuss a down payment.”
He was playing with fire and he knew it.
Knew her fire all too well.
Had never forgotten it.
“Just for getting a sighting?”
He smiled intently. “Consider it an incentive to learn more.”
Her eyes couldn’t get any narrower; they gleamed like molten gold. With her hand trapped in his, no more than an inch separated them, separated the black bombazine covering her breasts from his chest.
“What, then?”
Her voice had lowered, her tone provocative, challenging, demanding. A tone that, despite all, certainly despite her intention, racked his arousal one notch higher.
She held his gaze. “What do you want?”
The answer was obvious. “A kiss.”
“A kiss?”
Her expression was, to him, transparent; she’d guessed his direction regarding payment correctly. She wasn’t surprised by his choice; instead, she was…
Angry all over again. He saw the flash of temper in her eyes in the instant before she wrenched her hand from his slackened grasp, snapped, “Very well,” reached up with both hands, framed his face, moved into him—and kissed him.
With all the passion her temper had stirred.
With all the heat, all the fire pent up inside her.
It was a relief to let it go. Letitia let every reservation, every barrier she had, all the walls she’d erected over the long years to bank her passion, fall. Simply fall to the ground.
Let all the yearning in her passionate soul free.
He wanted a kiss? Very well. She would give him one, one he wouldn’t soon forget, and gain as much as she gave—for one long moment revel as the woman she used to be.
His.