He stopped. No woman except Genevieve reduced him to incoherence.
Her gentle expression pierced his heart. “So will you kiss me?”
He faltered back. “After tonight, you should hate every man alive.”
“What happened tonight made me feel… sullied.” Her voice emerged low and fervent. “When you touch me, I never feel like that. When you touch me, I feel… beautiful.”
Astonishment and guilt struck him speechless. After all his deceit, he didn’t deserve her longing. Or her agonized honesty. He fought against taking her into his arms. So difficult to do what was right when she offered everything he wanted.
He couldn’t give in to her. Once she returned to her senses, she’d hate him forever. Hell, he’d hate himself. “Genevieve, let me take you home.”
Her jaw set in a stubborn line. “Kiss me first.”
His fist clenched so hard over the lantern handle that metal bit painfully into his palm. “You can’t want this.”
Her eyes settled on him with an unreadable expression. “You have no idea what I want.”
Well, that was true enough. He’d imagined that she’d jump a hundred feet if he approached within a whisper. After what she’d been through, she deserved his indulgence. The problem was that he wasn’t sure he could stop at kissing. Even now.
Wanting Genevieve was selfish and destructive, unworthy of her and increasingly unworthy of him. This whole bloody scheme to retrieve the jewel had been ill-conceived from the first.
Cam was right. Cam, blast him, was always right.
The abduction had jolted Richard into admitting that he wasn’t much better than Fairbrother. He too sought to bend Genevieve to his purposes without care for end results.
“We have to go.” Feeling like he scraped out his kidneys with a spoon, he t
urned away from the pond and its passionate memories.
“I’m not going until you kiss me.”
“I could carry you home.” Against his better judgment, he chanced a glance back.
A faint smile hovered around her lips. “You could, but you won’t.”
Hell, no, she was right. He couldn’t play the barbarian after what she’d undergone tonight.
He bit back a groan. To think he’d once wanted her to beg for his kisses. This was torment worthy of the Spanish Inquisition. One thing he did know—if he didn’t kiss her, she’d stand there studying him with that assessing expression until Kingdom Come.
Gathering every ounce of will, Richard placed the lantern on the ground. The forest was silent as it had been silent when he’d first kissed her. Again there was that curious tension, as though the world held its breath to see what happened next.
Well, much as he hated to disappoint the dryads and demigods inhabiting these woodlands, what happened next was that he and Genevieve would share a quick kiss then he’d consign her to Dorcas’s care. He’d then leave the vicarage so nobody said he and the vicar’s daughter had slept unchaperoned under the same roof. Somewhere a demigod with an ironic sense of humor snickered at Richard Harmsworth’s sudden concern for proprieties.
Still, it was only with the utmost reluctance that Richard stepped toward Genevieve. He scooped his coat from the ground and draped it across her shoulders in a futile attempt to create another barrier between them.
She linked her hands at her waist and studied him with a trace of uncertainty invisible from farther away. The vulnerability disarmed him as he tilted her face until starlight illuminated her loveliness. Need darkened her eyes before her lashes fluttered down.
He pressed his lips between arched brows. He tasted her skin, cool, satiny, sweet. The need to linger was sharper than a sword to his guts, but he stepped away, releasing her.
Her inhalation swelled her bosom against the tattered bodice. He tried not to notice. He really tried. This close, her shaky breathing was audible.
She opened eyes flashing with indignation. “What was that?”
“Good God, I must be losing my touch,” he said huskily. The need to grab her and kiss her properly beat in his blood like thunder. “I’d call that a kiss.”
She made a moue of disgust. “I wouldn’t.”
“Genevieve—”