Page 48 of A Rogue's Rules for Seduction
“The honor’s mine.” He reached across the chessboard, clasping her wrist. His gaze shot to where he grasped her—her pulse hammering against his fingers—and then to her face. His breath came quickly, just as quickly as hers. His thumb stroked over her sensitive skin.
She half prayed, half feared that he’d give her the slightest tug to pull her toward him, so that their lips could meet and she’d finally give in to the hunger that had been building inside her with each moment she spent near him.
But she couldn’t. Sheshouldn’t. Not if she wanted to protect herself.
Slowly, she pulled free from his grasp, and sat back in her chair. She rubbed at the place where he’d held her, aflame with awareness, as she stared at him.
He shifted. With a slight wince, he subtly adjusted himself in his breeches, and it was then that she realized that they had both gone too far to return to any semblance of sanity, any hope of landing on a stable shore, and the thought was both terrifying—and enticing.
Chapter 15
Luckily, Willa left the library before Dom did. He waited several minutes, mentally reviewing the different sizes of cargo ships, until his cock stopped standing at attention.
What thefuckhad he been thinking, touching Willa like that while they’d been completely alone? Thinking he wouldn’t want to drag her into his lap and show her all the ways he could give her pleasure? He’d seen the way she’d eyed him before that, heat in her gaze as if she’d thought the very same thing, and goddamnit if he didn’t hunger for it, too.
When he could finally get to his feet without showing the whole house his erection, he headed straight to his room. He took a hot bath and downed a healthy glass of whisky—and yet after slipping into bed, sleep stayed away.
Edgy energy surged in him as he lay in bed. He tried to hold still so he might hear the creak of the floorboards in Willa’s room next door. But therewas silence. All the guests had gone to bed, so likely she was fast asleep.
Heshould try to rest, too, but no matter how many times he fluffed his pillow or turned onto a different side, all he saw when he closed his eyes was her: beaming at him as she held on to the kite string, her earnest face as she’d insisted that he had the brains to learn chess, the heated way she’d stared at him when he’d been stupid enough to touch her. Even worse, he was tormented by vivid imaginings of things that had never happened, including her hitching up her skirts to reveal the silken flesh of her thighs. Thighs that, thanks to the shuttlecock game, he now knew the feel of.
“Fuck,” he groaned, sitting up as he flung back the covers. He swung his legs around to sit at the side of the bed and dragged his fingers through his hair. It wasn’t getting easier, being on this island with her. It was, in fact, getting worse.
Tension crackled through him all the time, which he would have relieved with a good old-fashioned frigging, but with her steps away, and her being the main source of his torment, taking himself in hand was out of the question.
He stood and pulled on his discarded clothing. There was no point in bothering with a waistcoat or neckcloth, so he donned only a shirt, breeches, boots, and greatcoat. Somewhat dressed, he decided to forgo taking a candle with him—no point in alerting anyone to the fact that he was suffering frominsomnia brought about by pure erotic frustration—then opened his door and went out into the hallway.
A light appeared at one end of the corridor, so he ducked into an alcove and pressed himself against the wall. A banyan-clad Baron Hunsdon tiptoed past before sliding into Longbridge’s room.
Before Dom could step out of the alcove, another light appeared. This time, Mrs. McDaniel glided down the hallway before she, too, eased her way into Longbridge’s room.
A moment passed. And then another. No one left Longbridge’s bedchamber.
When Dom was sure that no oneelsewas going to join the party in their host’s bedroom, he stepped out of the alcove and hurried as noiselessly as possible to the stairs. He descended the steps quickly, though it wasn’t easy given the darkness, before crossing the entryway and sliding out the front door.
Moonlight gleamed down like a sidelong glance, which gave him enough illumination to stride to the wooden stairs leading to the beach. Slight unease crept along his neck to be out of doors at this hour—he was used to being out after dark in London, yet it was still a bit unsettling to be on his own in the middle of nature. He held tightly to the railing as he went down the stairs, keeping his focus on his feet so that he didn’t go toppling down and break his neck.
When his boots hit the sand, he breathed out inrelief. The beach stretched out in a pale crescent, and waves tumbled to the shore in endless arcs, running to the sand, and then retreating to leave shining ribbons in their wake.
He strode along the beach. Slogging across the uneven surface would tire him out, and if it didn’t, at least he had something to look at besides the wooden panels of his bedchamber.
“Dom?”
He drew up short. She stood a few feet from him, a figure in a long, pale coat, her dark hair like a streaming banner in the breeze coming in off the ocean.
“Willa?” He needn’t have asked—even in the hazy light of the moon, he knew her shape, and felt the vitality that was only hers.
“You want to be alone,” he said at once. “I’ll go.”
“There’s only so much solitary, moody beachside haunting I can do,” she answered. “But if it’stwopeople moodily haunting a beach, that’s much more tolerable.”
In silent agreement, they began to walk, her strides matching his. A wild, reckless happiness rose up in him. But he’d no right to it. No right toher, no matter how much his body and heart insisted that she was his.
If someone had told Willa a year ago that she and Dom would be walking side by side down this moonlit beach—withouther attempting to drownhim—she would have very sincerely told that someone to piss off.
Taking a nighttime stroll with the same man who had devastated her? Impossible. Ludicrous. She wouldn’t have ever permitted him to be that near her, or believed that she’d be able to tolerate his presence for more than the time it took to pull her hand back and slap him across his rugged, almost handsome face.
Yet here they were, strolling next to each other, though it wasn’t exactly peaceable, the silence between them. Having him so close by, dark and rumpled and dangerous-looking, she was afire with awareness of him. His size. The smoldering life force that vibrated from him. As well as the fact that they were completely alone on this dark beach, as if everyone in the world had vanished, and she and Dom could do whatever they pleased with no fear of reprisal or judgment.
