Page 64 of One Dangerous Desire
“Then what my father accused you of was true?” May loathed that her father was right about Rex. That he would have any justification to resist accepting him as her husband. But she couldn’t blame Rex for what he’d done to survive.
“No, not when he accused me. I was living a decent life when you met me, if a poor one.”
When she grinned, remembering those early days they’d spent together, his eyes softened, and an answering grin flitted around the edges of his mouth.
“Why would your father do this to you? What does he want?” Despite how she attempted to ask the question gently, it destroyed the moment between them. Rex instantly tensed and sat up stiff and straight in his chair.
“Money. Violence.” The words escaped through clenched teeth. Then he turned toward her, his long legs pressed against hers. “Ugliness you should never know anything about. Brutality that I’ll never allow to touch you.”
May moved toward him, gathered up her skirts to kneel, and positioned herself between his legs. “If it touches you, then I must know about it. Soon we’ll be one. All that’s mine will be yours, and all that’s yours will be mine. The good and the bad.”
His lower lip trembled. She ached to kiss the tremor away, but when she tried to lift her face to his, he held her back with a hand on her shoulder. “No, love. I won’t bring danger into your life.”
Turning her head, May kissed his hand where it lay against her shoulder. She nipped at his thumb with the edge of her teeth, then flicked her tongue out to lick and soothe the spot. His hissed response emboldened her. Reaching up, she pulled his hand down, off of her shoulder and onto the exposed flesh of her chest. She pressed his palm over the spot where her heart was throbbing out a frantic beat. Then lower, over her bodice, down to fill his palm with her breast. Pushing against him, she prayed he could feel her body’s response. She wanted him to understand that only he affected her this way.
He bent over her, and she could taste his kiss before he touched her, needed it like she’d never needed anything in her life.
“Perhaps,” May whispered against his mouth, “I crave a bit of danger in my life.” She didn’t wait for his kiss but lifted enough to capture his lips. She nipped at his lush lower lip, and a pulse began low in her core, where he’d touched her, where she ached for him to touch her again.
He moaned and took her mouth. He needed no coaxing as he stroked her with his tongue and pulled her in closer. His hands were everywhere, gripping her waist, cupping her breast, then sliding into her hair, loosening pins, stroking through her curls.
She reached out for balance and gripped the hard width of his thigh. Then, she moved her hand higher, her fingers shaped around the hardened length of him. Feverish hot, just like her body. She wanted out of her dress, wanted him out of his clothes. Needed to see him, feel him, with no barriers between them, nothing hidden or held back.
He broke their kiss and rasped her name.
She took it as a plea and continued to touch him where he was both rigid and yielding, firm and tender.
“No, love.” Pressing his forehead to hers, he caressed her cheek. “If you keep touching me like that, there will be no going back.”
He clasped her hand and eased it from his body.
“I don’t want to go back. I want to be your wife.”
At her words, he untangled himself and stood. Leaning one hand on the fireplace mantel, he bowed his head and then began to shake it. “No, May.”
All the heat drained from her body. With two words, he’d chilled her to the bone. Her mouth, still swollen and tingling from his kisses, went numb. The hand she’d stroked down the heated length of him became cold and lifeless at her side. She couldn’t catch her breath, swallowed and then again, desperate to put air back in her lungs. Tears burned behind her eyes.
“What are you saying?” She knew, feared she understood every intention behind those two awful words, but she had to hear him say it. He couldn’t do this to her again. Could he?
Rex wouldn’t look at her. Just stared at the wall above the mantel and gripped the marble as if he wished to break it in two. “I will not curse you to a life of uncertainty.”
“Lifeisuncertain.” Her voice sounded as hollow as her chest. Though she knew it wasn’t hollow. Her heart was aching, tearing, squeezing at her insides, more agonizing than any tight-laced corset or even that posture contraption Mama had strapped her into for hours.
May looked around the room, desperate for anything to help her breathe again, to put her back together. She got to her feet and headed for a cart covered with crystal decanters. Amber liquids glowed in the firelight. Sloshing some into a glass was easy. Getting the rim of the tumbler to her lips proved harder. Somehow, she missed her mouth and ended up with a taste of fire on her lips and lukewarm liquid seeping down the front of her dress.
Before she could assess the mess she’d made, Rex was there, snatching the glass from her hand. “What the hell do you think you’re doing?”
“Having a drink.” May tried to move away from him, but he shot an arm out to hold her in place. “My mother seemed to think it a suitable salve for a broken heart.”
“You’re not your mother.” His eyes traced down her body, and he waved a hand to take in the damp fabric. “And you’ve ruined your gown.”
May reached up to pat her sodden bodice. She didn’t even remember putting that much liquor in her glass. The scent wasn’t unpleasant, just sharp and smoky, and a touch sweet. It made her want to try again and see if she could manage to get some of it down her throat. Perhaps it would warm her, fill her, take away the misery blurring everything around the edges of her vision.
She turned her back on Rex and began slipping the hooks on her bodice. “Do you have something I can put on instead?” When he offered no answer, May shrugged out of her bodice and turned to him, crossing her arms over her chest. “Your jacket, perhaps. Anything?”
Suddenly he was there, a blanket of heat against her body as he settled his jacket over her shoulders. “May.”
The tenderness in his tone made her throat burn. She bit her lip to fight the urge to melt against him. Swallowing hard, she lifted her gaze to the man who seemed determined to push her away and draw her at the same time. Would he always be on the cusp of pushing her away?
