"No." Not until she agreed to marry him.
"I thought not."
He blinked, and scowled at her. "What's that supposed to mean?" Her cryptic utterances were driving him crazy.
"It means," Flick enunciated, her accents as clipped as his, "that it's become increasingly clear that you want me merely as an ornament, a suitable, acceptable wife to parade on your arm at all the family gatherings. You don't want me powerfully at all! That doesn't impress me-and I've been even less impressed by your recent behavior."
"Oh?"
The single, quietly uttered syllable was a portent of danger; she ignored her reactive shiver. "You're never there-never about! You don't deign to waltz with me-you've driven me in the park precisely once!" Looking into his face, fists clenched, she let loose her pent-up frustrations. "You were the one who insisted on bringing me to London-if you thought this was the way to get me to marry you, you've seriously miscalculated!"
Her eyes narrowed as she looked into his. "Indeed, coming to London has opened my eyes."
"You mean it's shown you how many puppies and fortune hunters you can have at your beck and call."
His growl was a grating rumble she had to concentrate to hear; her reply was a sweet smile. "No," she said, her tone that of one explaining a simple matter to a simpleton. "I don't want puppies or fortune hunters-that wasn't what I meant. I meant I've seen the light about you!"
Eyes mere slits, he raised one brow. "Indeed?"
"Oh, indeed!" Buoyed on an outrush of pure release, Flick gestured wildly. "Your women-ladies, I'm sure. Particularly Celeste."
He stiffened. "Celeste?"
There was demand in his tone, along with a clear warning. Flick heeded the first but not the second. "You must remember her-dark hair, dark eyes. Enormous-"
"I know who Celeste is." The steely words cut her off. "What I want to know is what you know of her."
"Oh, nothing more than anyone with eyes knows." Her own eyes, filled with fury, told him precisely how much that was. "But Celeste is by the way. At least, if we're ever to marry, she will certainly have to be 'by the way.' My principal point, however, is this."
Halting directly in front of him, she looked into his face, and hissed, "I am not your cousin, to be watched over in this dog-in-the-manger way!"
He opened his mouth-quick as a flash, she pointed a finger at his nose. "Don't you dare interrupt-just listen!"
He shut his mouth; the way his jaw set, she felt reasonably sure he wouldn't open it again soon. She drew in a deep breath. "As you well know, I am not some eighteen-year-old innocent." With her eyes, she dared him to contradict her; his lips thinned ominously, but he remained silent.
"I want to talk, walk, waltz and drive-and if you wish to marry me, you'd better see it's with you!"
She waited, but he remained preternaturally still. A sense of being too close to something dangerous, something barely controlled, tickled her spine. Hauling in a breath, she kept her eyes steady on his, unusually dark in the weak candlelight. "And I will not be marrying you unless I'm convinced it's the right thing for me. I will not be browbeaten, or pressured in any way."
Demon heard her words through a smothering fog of seething rage. Muscles in his shoulders flickered, twitched-his palms itched. The injustice in her words whipped him. He'd done nothing for any reason other than to protect her. His body was about to explode, held still purely by the force of his will, which was steadily eroding.
She'd paused, searching his face; now she drew herself up and coolly stated, "I will not be managed by you."
Their gazes locked; for one long moment, absolute silence held sway. Neither moved-they barely breathed. The conflagration within him swelled; he locked his jaw, and endured.
"I refuse-"
He reached out and pulled her into his arms, cutting the statement off with his lips, drawing whatever repudiation she'd thought to make from her mouth, then he plundered, searched, took all she had and demanded, commanded, more.
He drew her against him, hard against the unforgiving rock his body had become. His mind was a seething cauldron of emotions-rage colliding hotly with passion and other, more elemental needs. He was coming apart-a volcano slowly cracking, outer walls crumbling, blown asunder by a force too long compressed. Only dimly did he recall that he'd wanted to shut her up, wanted to punish her-that wasn't what he wanted now.
Now, he simply wanted.
With a desire so primitive, so primally powerful he literally shook. For one instant, he stood on the cusp, quivering, the last shreds of restraint sliding through his grasp-in that moment of blinding clarity he saw, understood, that he'd asked too much of himself, too much of who he really was. Remington had provided the last straw, piling it on top of more amorphous fears-such as what he would do if she fell in love with someone else. How he would cope if she did.
He'd assumed he could control the thing that was inside him-the emotion she and only she evoked. In that quivering, evanescent instant, he knew he'd assume
d wrong.