No Ordinary Gentleman

“That makes no sense.” I retort, but the heat has died from my words. “You say you want me with you, but you don’t want me with you at all?”

“My life is not my own, Holland. I’m pulled from left to right, from above and below. I put the needs of this family, our properties, and this estate above everything, and the one time I let my guard down, the one evening I allowed myself to carve out something for myself, it was with you.” He inhales long and deep, his eyes closing for a moment, almost as though to gather the courage to carry on. “It was my birthday that night. And you were the gift I could never have expected.”

He lifts my left wrist to his mouth, pressing it to the pale underside. His lips feel hot, or maybe it’s my blood. I wonder if he can feel my pulse galloping. My anger might’ve drained, but I don’t feel calm because at the brush of his mouth, everything inside me contracts.

“I’ve thought of you so much since that night.” There’s such an intensity to his words, and he shakes his head as though he can’t believe it himself. Or maybe it’s that he’d like those thoughts of me to go away. “And then, at the townhouse, there you were.”

“But you were angry,” I whisper, confused. That cold night in London, his anger was well restrained, but I could see it shimmering under the surface. Just like I can see it now.

“Yes, I was angry at myself. I wanted you so much, but if I’d given in that night, done what I wanted to do . . .”

“What you wanted?” I prompt when it seems like he won’t finish. Suddenly, I want to hear what he has to say more than I want my next breath. A breath that seems lodged high in my chest.

“Holland.” My name sounds like an ache, sweet and poignant. “I have very little time for myself, and I’m tied to this fucking dukedom above everything else. But God help me, when I look at you, I can only think of myself. Of my own needs. Of what I want. And that’s why I wanted you at dinner. I didn’t think about you, of how being there would make you feel. I’m no good for you, darling, because I can’t see beyond the want of you. Every time your eyes find mine, every time I touch you, I want to damn the world to hell just to be inside you.”

The hunger in his eyes, in his fingertips, is echoed by a sudden, solitary pulse somewhere deep inside.

You are a gift, he’d said once. Beautiful and unpredictable, just as life is.

I close my eyes, blocking out his expression, but it only serves to heighten my senses. His breath on my face and the want in his fingertips. The cool wall at my back is like a memory turned real. The strength in his hands as he’d pinned my wrists to the bed. The clawing ache between my legs sends my mind spinning.

I hadn’t imagined how powerful the experience was with him because it’s still twisting me in knots to this day.

My eyes open on a slow blink, though it takes me a moment to grasp our bodies separating by stages. His thigh slides from between mine, his hands unfurling from my wrists to lie by his sides. One last soft brush of his breath again my hairline.

“I’m sorry,” he murmurs, cool air filling the space between us. “I can see you don’t feel the same. This was a mistake.”

But mistakes are spilt milk, bad haircuts, and mixing green pesto to the pan instead of Thai green curry paste. Regrets, however, are for tomorrow.

My arms rise before me, my hands splaying across his chest like starfish. The light overhead glints like a wink from the ring on my thumb as my fingers wrap around the lapels of his jacket.

“You don’t want this.” His voice isn’t at all uncertain but rather dark and velvety as I begin to tug him closer.

“Don’t tell me what I want.” Give me what I need instead, I think as I curl my hand against his nape and pull his mouth to mine.

The initiation might be mine, but the kiss is all his. His lips crash against mine, hot and furious, his tongue demanding entrance as his hands tighten on my waist. As he presses his thigh against me and a flare of heat presses through me. His fingers begin to unfurl, a harsh breath at my cheek turning to a press of lips. “Darling, I don’t want you to regret this.”

But my mind has already shut down, my animal self responding to a need so powerful, it feels dangerous not to give in to it.