“You won’t hurt me.”
“I’m trying like hell not to.”
“I won’t break.”
After seeing her with Fairbrother, he wasn’t so certain. Sighing, he caught her by the shoulders. She quivered under his hands and his touch became a caress.
He read no fear in her face, only yearning. Heroically he struggled not to glance at the sagging cream bodice. She didn’t make it easy for him to become a better man.
His lips brushed across hers. He heard her tiny intake of breath, a soft gasp of excitement. Her lips parted as he withdrew. Her taste filled his head like wine. He itched to slake his thirst, but couldn’t grant himself the freedom.
“I kissed you.” His voice was choked. “Let’s go.”
Her hands curled in his shirt. “Please make me forget what happened tonight.”
Oh, God, God, God. She sounded so hurt, so wretched. So bereft.
He stared blindly above her and hoped darkness hid the bulge in his trousers. “No.”
“Oh.”
He struggled to ignore the sad little syllable. He released her and waited for her to unhook her grip on his shirt. But she didn’t. Instead she searched his features as if seeking proof that he was a liar.
The problem was that he was a liar. A liar had no right to lay his filthy liar’s hands on Genevieve Barrett’s pure body. Which didn’t mean he wasn’t frantic to touch her. He wanted her so much, he was likely to explode into a million pieces.
He strove to sound like the man he’d pretended to be, the careless rake Sir Richard Harmsworth, who never lacked an appropriate response. He’d always been so easy with his amours because he’d never cared. Not caring made his nonchalant manner a doddle. With Genevieve he cared to his bones, and he had no idea how to make this right.
Still, he must try. “A man needs his rest after he’s battled villains like Fairbrother.”
She flinched at his tone as much as at what he said, he knew. Still she didn’t unhand him. She swallowed as if speaking proved difficult. He wished to hell she wouldn’t speak. He wished to hell he was in Cathay. Or the East Indies. Anywhere but here with paradise inches away, yet completely beyond reach.
“Then sleep with me.”
What the hell? His heart slammed to a stop. He caught her hands and managed to liberate his shirt. He should release her, but some things exceeded his powers. “Genevieve, this is wrong.”
“You didn’t think it was wrong in Oxford.”
When she raised eyes glittering with tears, he felt like she punched him in the gut. Much as he loathed acknowledging it, he recognized how his rebuff had wounded her. He wasn’t a fool. He knew what that offer had cost her. And she’d sought neither assurances for the future nor promises of love.
The irony was that for the first time, he could honestly tell a woman he loved her. Yet the vow stuck in his throat. Not just because he quailed from saying it, but because he couldn’t declare his affections after so many lies.
“I’ve seen the light since Oxford,” he said wryly. If he could, he’d laugh at himself. Sending Genevieve home as innocent as the day she was born was more excruciating than having a tooth drawn. She should be grateful. Hell, she should be lauding his chivalry to the skies.
Contrary like a woman, she lost her temper.
“I can’t believe you’re saying no. You’ve spent days trying to seduce me. Here I am, ready and willing.” Her voice cracked into silence. Revealing a luscious expanse of bosom, she spread her arms.
His cock, already hard and aching, swelled against his trousers. By all that was holy, at this rate he’d lose himself like an impulsive boy. Then what would she make of his denials? Luckily she was too furious to note his physical discomfort.
“Time to go, Genevieve,” he said gently, burning to gather her into his arms and comfort her. But too afraid of the devil inside to chance even that much contact. Those two chaste kisses had whittled his control to a sliver.
Abruptly she turned away and he felt another phantom blow to the belly when he realized that she wept. What an excruciating night she’d had. Fairbrother’s assault. Now this rejection.
How he wished he could explain. But his lies divided them like a dank, foul canal. Too deep and wide to cross. He stood on one bank; she stood on the other. He could never cross the stinking mire to tell her how much he loved her.
Without looking, she extended a shaking hand toward him.
Damn it, he couldn’t touch her. It was too risky.