Unbreak My Hart (The Notorious Harts 4)

This I hadn’t expected. I thought she’d be like the Harts. I thought she’d look like one of them, that something about her would remind me of them. I didn’t expect to feel this zing of attraction, this aching need to possess her, yet it’s running rampant through me, out of control, impossible to ignore.

But I do ignore it because Avery Maxwell is definitely off-limits. Isn’t she?

* * *

‘So you have a fancy title?’ I murmur, leaning a little closer, pressing a hand to his shoulder. I’m kind of interested—the aristocracy is such a foreign concept to me—but at the same time this conversation is really just a means to an end. I know that in the morning I won’t think of this guy again. I won’t remember his name, his title, nor the colour of his eyes—even though they are a particularly striking shade of brown, as though someone’s taken the top off a just poured espresso, that beautiful golden crema, and filled his irises up with that perfect pigment. They’re surrounded by thick black lashes that give them the appearance of having been framed. Men always have the best eyelashes. Bastards.

‘I do.’

‘And it is?’

‘I thought you were guessing?’

A smile lifts inside me. ‘And what do I get if I guess it right?’

For a moment he hesitates, something flashes in his eyes that makes me wonder if I’m intimidating him. I’m used to that. I’m what men of a certain age would call ‘forward’. How’s that for a double standard? Do you have any idea how many men try to pick me up? And they’re just ‘men being men’. But a woman who knows what she wants and isn’t afraid to go after it? Forward. A slut. Amoral. Take your pick, I’ve heard them all at one point or another.

‘Earl of Castlewick?’ I grin, lifting my mojito and savouring the flavour as it hits my mouth.

‘Not even close.’ His laugh is the last word in hot. Deep and rumbly, and somehow even that small sound has an English accent so my stomach twists. A familiar reassuring heat forms low in my abdomen, and I know exactly what to do with it.

I lean a little closer, catching a hint of the cologne he wears. It’s woody and spiced and when I press a hand to his shoulder he’s warm in a way that pulls me even closer.

‘Give me a clue.’

He reaches for his Scotch, putting it between us as he lifts it to his lips, and again I have that feeling that he’s trying to put the brakes on this—on me. And yet this isn’t my first rodeo. I know desire when I see it and that’s exactly what this man and I are feeling for one another.

Human, biological instinct. Desire, need, sex. I don’t know why we as a society have overcomplicated this with all the emotional bullshit people try to layer over what is, essentially, a very animalistic act. Do you think any other animal bothers to dress sex up as something more than it is?

‘Earl of McHotness?’ Okay, that’s totally sleazy but I don’t care. It’s worth it to see the instant flash of speculation that deepens his eyes from gold to burnt butter brown.

‘I’ll tell you mine if you tell me yours.’

I shake my head, enjoying myself despite the duality I sense in him. ‘You don’t want to even try to guess?’

He lifts a brow and shakes his head. ‘I’ve never been any good at guessing games.’

I pout for a moment. ‘What are you good at then?’

Another hint of resistance, like he’s not saying the first thing he wants to. ‘What do you think?’

‘Hmm.’ I move my hand from his shoulder to his arm, squeezing biceps that are well-shaped. ‘You’re fit. So you either work out a lot or have a job doing manual labour.’ I move my gaze downwards, intending to look at his shoes, but instead my gaze lingers on his crotch. He’s wearing a dark grey suit. If it were black or navy blue it might do a better job of hiding the fact his cock is either hard or getting that way but, as it is, I can see the evidence of his desire and it brings a smile to my face.

Emboldened, I move even closer, my hips brush against his inner thighs. If he were to shift forward on his seat—even a little—his dick would press against me, and you don’t even want to know how badly I need to feel that.

‘But, going by your suit and shoes, I’d say that’s not it at all.’

‘What’s wrong with my suit and shoes?’

‘They don’t exactly scream carpenter.’

‘No?’

‘Not any carpenter I’ve ever met.’

‘And you know a lot of carpenters?’

He’s quick. We bounce off each other in a way that heightens my attraction to him. ‘I’ve known a few.’