Claiming the Courtesan

She was so close that he felt her warmth. But his sins against her exiled him forever to an icy hell.

“Stop it,” he snarled. “Listen to me! I’ve set you free.”

Her presence was sheerest torment.

He thought he’d die if she left him alone.

He spoke on a surge of self-hatred. “I should never have started this cruel nonsense in the first place.”

“It’s too late for regrets,” she said softly.

“Yes.”

Too late to redeem himself and become worthy of her, certainly. There was a universe of sorrow in the thought.

His mind rehearsed the endless litany. He should never have hunted her down at Whitby. He should never have forced her into his carriage—at gunpoint, he recalled with corrosive shame. He should never have bullied her into his bed.

Although without the abduction, he’d never have really known her. He’d go through hellfire itself before he forsook that privilege.

But she, not you, went through hellfire. She almost lost her life yesterday.

“I’m letting you go.” His voice shook with desperation.

“Are you?” she asked idly.

After her long struggle to escape him, he’d have expected her to sound more than merely interested when he granted her freedom. Baffled, he stared into the exquisite face that had haunted him for so many years.

“Don’t torment me.”

“You deserve it,” she said without heat.

And without moving away, damn her.

“Yes, I do. But the Devil if I’ll lie here and let you sink your damned claws into me, little cat.”

Her luscious mouth curled upward. “I think you might.”

His screaming tension tightened to breaking point as he strove to banish the sensual images her words sent rocketing through his mind. She played a dangerous game to tease him like this. He shifted higher up against the pillows until his eyes were level with hers.

“Go away, Verity,” he said with difficulty.

Stay, Verity, his heart pleaded.

“That’s not what you want,” she whispered.

He couldn’t take much more of this. “It’s what you want that matters.”

She bent closer, and he heard her shaky inhalation before she spoke. “I think…” She hesitated, then continued in a rush. “I think that’s why I can be here with you now.”

Then impossibly, she kissed him.

It was a kiss unlike anything he’d ever known. Her mouth was soft, coaxing, inviting. She summoned the arts Soraya had so carefully cultivated, yet beneath hovered the poignant innocence he’d always recognize as Verity’s.

He was helpless to stop himself from kissing her back with all the fiery yearning in his heart. He plunged his hand into her silky mass of hair. It slid cool and fragrant against his fingers as her mouth branded his with heat. She slid down so she lay across his bare chest, and she twined her arms around his neck, bringing him closer.

Before he drowned in dark ravishment, he tore his mouth from hers.

“For God’s sake, I’m trying to do what’s right,” he panted, staring down into her flushed face. He clung to his scruples by only the thinnest thread.