The Rogue Not Taken (Scandal & Scoundrel 1)

“A bit, yes,” she said, taking him in, his dark curls fallen haphazardly over his brow, his shirtsleeves rolled up to his elbow, boots off, feet bare. So desperately handsome, it was difficult to look at him.

He was too much for her.

She was not enough for him.

“You do know that the normal response to knocking is for one to open the door?” His casual teasing made her immediately more comfortable. She knew this man. She’d spent days on end with him.

She smirked. “You do know that most people don’t linger on one side of a door and wait for knocking?”

“Most people don’t share a door with you.” Her heart skipped a beat and he used her surprise to take her in, top to toe. “Christ. I know I’m not supposed to say it, Sophie, but you are beautiful.”

This time, she believed him. Somehow. She looked down at the dressing gown. “It’s Sesily’s.”

“I’m not talking about the gown.”

She didn’t know what to say, so she asked, “Were you waiting for me?”

“Hoping more than waiting.”

Her brow furrowed. For what could he be hoping? He’d said good-bye to her earlier in the day. He’d made it clear that they were not to be. “But this afternoon you said—”

“I know what I said.” He paused. “Why did you knock?”

There were a half-dozen reasons, and only one that mattered.

Tell him.

“I . . .” She couldn’t. “. . . am leaving tomorrow.”

He nodded. “I assumed your family was not planning to take up residence.”

“I don’t imagine your fat

her would like that.”

“The idea does have its charms.”

Silence stretched between them, the thought of his father reinforcing everything she knew about this man and their nonexistent future. He wouldn’t marry. He wouldn’t have children. The line ended with him.

Whether or not she loved him.

Tell him.

She took a deep breath. “I wished to say . . .”

Good Lord. It was difficult.

“What is it?” She couldn’t meet his eyes, her gaze falling to his hand, where it was fisted at his thigh, knuckles white, as though he was holding something tightly.

She spoke to that hand, beginning again. “I wished to say . . .”

I wished to say that I am not sure I can live without you.

I wished to say that I will always be yours.

I wished to say . . .

“Sophie . . .” Her name was more than a prompt and less than a question.

She looked up at him then, his green eyes utterly focused on her. “I wished to say that I love you.”

For a moment, the universe stilled. He did not speak. He did not move. He did not look away from her. Sophie’s heart stopped beating. Indeed, the only evidence that she’d spoken at all was the heat that flooded her cheeks in the aftermath of her confession.

When she could not bear the silence a moment longer, she added in a flood of words, “I’m leaving tomorrow. And I’m not going back to London. I’m going to find my freedom. And earlier . . . we agreed that tonight might be ours.” She paused. “I know I said I couldn’t bear to be with you any longer . . .” She looked down at that hand again. “But I changed my mind. I should like to be with you. Tonight. Just this once. I should like you to ruin me. Because you’ve ruined me anyway, really. For all others. You once asked me how all this ended. And I don’t know, honestly. I don’t know that happily is viable anymore. But I know that tonight . . . with you . . .” She trailed off, then whispered, “I could be happy tonight.”

He remained still, but when he spoke, the words came like gravel, pulled from somewhere deep and dark inside him. “Say it again.”

She shuffled her feet, feeling like a child on display, suddenly uncertain of her words.

“Please, Sophie,” he begged. “Again.”

As though she could resist him. “I love you,” she whispered.

And then that fist released, and he moved, reaching for her, tangling his hand in her hair, pulling her to him for a long, wicked, wonderful kiss, stealing her breath and her sanity until he pulled back and pressed his forehead to hers, his thumb raking over her jaw as he met her gaze. “Again.”

“I love you,” she said, the words lost in another wild kiss, this one accompanied by his hands stroking down her back, pulling her tight against him and lifting her high off the ground, encouraging her to wrap her legs around him as he backed away from the door and kicked it closed with one long, muscled leg.

He carried her to his bed, following her down, pressing her into the soft mattress, the weight of him welcome between her thighs. She gasped at the sensation, the pleasure of him there, where she’d wanted him for days. He rained kisses over her face and neck, speaking as he went. “Christ, Sophie . . . I shouldn’t want this . . . I shouldn’t take it . . . I can’t be what you desire.”

Except he was what she desired.

He was the only thing she’d ever desired in her life.

“I shouldn’t accept your love,” he said between soft, drugging kisses, his fingers working at the sash of her dressing gown, his lips on the soft skin of her neck. “I’ll never be good enough for it.” He paused, lifting his head, meeting her eyes. “But Christ, I want it.”

“It’s yours,” she said, leaning up and catching his bottom lip in her teeth, sucking at it until he groaned his pleasure and gave her the kiss she desired. “As am I.”

He cursed, the word a benediction in this, and released the belt of her dressing gown. “I’ve never seen you naked,” he said, working at the pearls of the nightgown beneath. “I want that. I want that before you leave. Before you go and find a life more perfect than what I can give you. I’ll spend an eternity in hell for it,” he vowed, “But I don’t care. I want to see you naked. I want to worship you until you remember nothing but my name. But my touch. But this place.

“I want to worship you until I can’t close my eyes without seeing you. I want the memory of you, Sophie. Forever. So when another man loves you and gives you the life you deserve, I can torture myself with it.”

Tears threatened at the words. There would be no other men. No other love, she wanted to scream at him—she was his alone. Forever.

She wanted it, too, and she loved the feel of the silk sliding off her, baring her skin to the candlelight and his gaze. He pulled back, lifting off her, sitting up, and she was instantly nervous at the loss of him, moving to sit up herself, to cover her nudity.

“No,” he said, pressing her back down to the bed flat against the crisp linen sheets, open to his gaze and his touch. His attention lingered on her shoulder. “How does it feel?”

She smiled at his care. “I barely notice it.”

“Liar,” he said. “Let’s see if we can make it truth.” His hands spread over her skin, down the sides of her torso, over the swell of her belly, down her thighs, and she forgot she even had a shoulder, let alone one that had been shot. “You’re so beautiful,” he said again. “So beautiful.”

His hands ran down her legs to her slippers, and he slid off the bed to kneel there, at her bare feet. He took one in his hands, running his thumbs over the sole, sending waves of unexpected pleasure through her. “I still think of you in slippers on that road,” he said softly, pressing a kiss to her ankle as he made her wild with decadent pleasure. “I hated that you mistreated yourself.”

He switched to her other foot and offered the same treatment as she shook her head. “They don’t hurt now.”

“No?” he asked, kissing at her ankle, his tongue slipping out to find the sensitive skin there.

She sighed her pleasure. “You feel wonderful.”

“Good,” he whispered. “I want you to always feel wonderful.”

She loved his touch, but she wanted him, too. Wanted to explore him as he had explored her. If tonight was all they would have, then she would take her pleasure as well. She sat up, her fingers finding his soft hair, urging him up, over her, until she could reach his long, muscled thighs, tracing up to the waist of his trousers, to work at his shirttails.

He grasped her wrists, and she resisted his touch. “No,” she whispered. “Tonight is for me, as well.”

He watched her for a long moment, his green eyes darkening with each passing second. “I’m not sure I can bear it.”

“You shall have to,” she replied. “I want my exploration.”

He released her, rising up on his knees over her, pulling the shirt out of his trousers and over his head, revealing his chest and torso, defined like a statue from a Renaissance master. She couldn’t stop herself from running her fingers over the muscle there, loving the catch of his breath. “You’re like Michelangelo’s David,” she marveled, exploring the dips and rises of hard muscle. “You’re perfect.”

He watched her as she touched him, his breath ragged and glorious. “I’m not at all perfect,” he said. “But Christ if you don’t make me feel so.”

She sat up then, wanting to get closer to him, to feel his warmth, to explore him. She flattened her palms against his chest, loving his heat and strength, and couldn’t resist leaning in and pressing a kiss there, glorying in the feel of crisp hair. At the caress, his hands threaded into her hair, tilting her face up to him. “I don’t think I can take much of this, love.”

She smiled, adoring the power that rioted through her at the words. “Surely you can, my lord. Need I remind you of your reputation?”

He gave a little huff of laughter that turned into a groan as she sought out the falls of his trousers. “I thought w

e discussed the fact that my reputation is more tale than truth?” Her fingers fumbled at his buttons, betraying her own inexperience, and he cursed, stopping her movement. “Sophie. I don’t think it’s a good idea for us to—”

“I do,” she said, surprising herself with her bravery. “I think it’s my turn.”

He raised a brow, watching her. “More mine than yours, it seems.”

She smiled. “We’ll see.”

He leaned down and took her lips in a wild kiss, releasing her after a long moment to whisper, “You are unbearably perfect.”

She blushed, then found her courage. “Trousers, please,” she whispered. “I’ve wanted them off since I saw you that first night—in leather breeches, standing tall on your curricle.”

“You liked those?” He laughed, and lifted himself from the bed to remove them.

She remembered the way the leather of his breeches had revealed the thick muscles of his thighs. “Very much.” The grey wool slid to the floor, revealing long, muscled legs, and she realized that the leather had not done him justice.

And then she saw the scar.

Long and thick and brutal, white with years of healing, it ran nearly the full length of his left thigh. She couldn’t help but gasp at it, at the pain it must have caused him. She reached for it, and he stepped back. “I forget that it is there,” he said.

It was a lie, of course. No one could forget such a thing. “What happened?”

“The carriage accident.”

The one that killed his love.

No. Not his love. The one that killed the woman who betrayed him.

The woman who made him swear off love. The woman who made it impossible for Sophie to have the only thing she desired.

She reached for him, eager to will away the pain from the accident. But she knew without asking that he would take any more attention to the scar as pity. And he would deny her the rest. Instead, she moved toward him, coming to the edge of the bed, where he stood, one hand covering the most critical part of him, and she let her gaze fall to that mysterious place. “I wish to see you.”

He watched her for a long moment, and then moved his hand, revealing the hard length of himself, throbbing high against his stomach. Her gaze did not waver, not even when she said the only thing that came to mind. “In this, you do not look like David.”