Claiming the Courtesan

But when dawn came, he must say good-bye to Verity.

God, let the night never end.

It was well past midnight when Kylemore heard the latch rattle. He rolled over and watched as slowly the door swung open.

Flickering, golden light illuminated the darkness. Dazzled, disbelieving, he looked up to see Verity on the threshold. Her candle made her eyes glow dark and mysterious in her pale face. A silk robe was loosely belted at her slender waist, and her glorious hair tumbled loose around her.

Being strong was difficult enough when he had only his regrets for company. With the focus of his every desire hovering so close, resolution was well nigh impossible.

Then he realized only an emergency would force her to seek him out. In an instant, concern had him shoving himself up against the headboard.

“Verity, are you all right?” he asked, his voice edged with urgency. Had she taken a fever?

“Perfectly, thank you.”

He couldn’t doubt she meant it. Her voice was calm, even carried a hint of amusement, and her face was grave but strangely untroubled. She held the candle so steadily that the flame hardly wavered in the still air.

His astonishment mounted. If she wasn’t ill, what in the Devil’s name was she up to?

Surprise and confusion pinned him to the bed as the door clicked shut behind her. She set the candle on the plain deal dresser. When

she moved, he caught the shadowy outline of breast and thigh through her thin robe. His ferocious need ratcheted higher.

His conscience insisted he had no right to touch her. His body most emphatically disagreed. To confirm this, his cock rose, eager, ready, unruly. Thank God the bedclothes hid his arousal. He was more than a brute animal, he told himself without conviction.

She drifted toward him in a rustle of silk. The uncertain light revealed a smile that was pure Soraya. Seductive. Knowing. Confident. In another woman, he’d have interpreted the gleam in her eyes as desire.

But this was Verity, and he knew better.

“What the hell do you want?” he asked sharply, summoning anger as his only defense.

Had she come here to make him suffer? If so, she succeeded, damn her.

“I want you,” she said huskily.

He closed his eyes in anguish. How he’d longed to hear her say those words. But circumstances had changed—he had changed—in the last few days.

“I don’t believe you,” he snapped, resentful because he wished so desperately that what she said was true.

“You will.”

Her voice rang with sincerity as she padded nearer. Her slim, elegant feet brushed across the floorboards. The night wasn’t cold, but still he fought the impulse to pick her up and carry her back to her bed. His control was so frail that if he touched her, he was lost.

“You don’t have to do this,” he bit out while his wanton blood beat out the command to take her, take her, take her.

“Yes, I do,” she said without a hint of faltering.

God, why did she stand so close? Her damned evocative scent wrapped around him and lured him to sin.

God, why didn’t she stand closer still so he could tear off that concealing robe and tug her under him?

“You owe me nothing. You were right to call me a thief.” His tone grated as he made the difficult confession. He looked away into the shadowy corner and spoke in a voice that was dull with hard-held self-restraint. “I’ve given up revenge. I’ve given up forcing you. I’ve given up asking anything of you at all.”

She leaned over him, releasing another tantalizing eddy of scent, subtle rose soap and woman. “You talk too much,” she whispered. “Where’s my ferocious lover gone? Where’s the demon Duke of Kylemore?”

What?

He whipped his head around. Unbelievably, she still smiled. His hands fisted in the sheets as he battled the urge to grab her.