Page 76 of One Dangerous Desire
Rex glanced at Sullivan. Good God, had they both decided to rebel against him when he was in the foulest mood of his life?
“Thank you, Mrs. Hark.” May’s voice sounded from the hallway behind his housekeeper. “Let me take it from here.”
In the most obedient act Rex had ever seen Mrs. Hark perform, she retreated and offered May a half bow. An actual bow.
As soon as May swept into the room, his lungs started working. He could breathe again. Not in the pained, shallow gasps he’d been suffering for days, but long drams of air filtering into his blood. Rose-scented air.
And how she looked. Mercy. She’d come to conquer, wearing an elaborate cream-colored gown with so many beads sewn into the bodice and skirt she rustled when she walked and glinted in the morning light. Large teardrop pearls bobbed on hooks at her ears, and her glossy hair was pinned up in an elaborate style, with diamond-crusted pins holding ebony curls in place.
“Good morning, Mr. Sullivan. Forgive me for interrupting, but might I have Mr. Leighton to myself for a bit?”
Sullivan ducked his head. “By all means, Miss Sedgwick.”
The two exchanged an odd, fleeting look as he strode from the room.
When he and May were alone, Rex had to resist the temptation to bow to her too. To get on his knees and ask her to forgive him for being an unmitigated ass. For ignoring her for two days after what must have been one of the most frightening experiences of her life.
“I’ve brought a Mr. Witherspoon from down the road with me. He was guarding the wrong house, it seems.”
She referred to the guard Sullivan had hired to stand watch over Rex’s townhouse when he’d anticipated more trouble from his father. He’d sent the man to keep post outside the Sedgwick house. Knowing the man was there kept Rex from lurking outside her townhouse overnight himself.
He nodded. If he spoke, he’d be apt to start babbling, and the rush of emotion coursing through him would no doubt emerge in a cloud of nonsense.
Rather than falling on her like a starved beast, as everything in him wished to do, he reached a hand out to her, like a man sinking in quicksand might strain for a lifeline.
May didn’t step forward, but she lifted her hand too, just touching her fingertips to his.
The contact, just the slide of her skin across his, ignited shivers up his arm, a spike of heat through his chest. He hooked her fingers, then grasped her wrist. Lifting off his desk, bending over her arm, he kissed the bare flesh at the edge of her sleeve.
One taste and his blood was on fire. One taste and all his hours of futile debate fell away. This was May. She’d been the first woman he’d ever desired, the only woman whose nearness he’d ever craved.
“I take it you missed me, then?”
In answer, he stepped toward her and settled his hands around her waist. They fit there so perfectly. “Forgive me.”
“For keeping me waiting or for torturing yourself?” She reached a hand up as she spoke, feathering it over the lingering bruise on his cheek.
“For exposing you to danger when I vowed to keep it away from you.”
May eased against him, stroking along his arms before entwining her hands behind his nape. “And then you vowed to keep yourself away from me? Unfortunately, you asked me a question which prevents our separation.” She pressed her body closer. “I prefer another vow. An exchange of vows. Yours and mine.”
Why had he wasted two days? She was lush and warm in his arms and looked at him without a hint of resentment or well-deserved anger. She looked at him as if he and this moment mattered more than all the rest. May had a gift for that. For embracing each and every moment, rather than being hindered by the past.
“Shall I name the day?” she asked as she threaded her fingers through the hair that brushed his collar.
He kissed her, thinking it the best answer he could offer. She responded by lifting onto her toes, teasing him with tenderness before letting him deepen the kiss, taste her as he had ached to do for what seemed like weeks.
“Name the day, love.” He’d marry her the same hour if he could rustle up a vicar.
May pulled back with one of her supremely satisfied grins. “Why not today? In a few hours?” She ran the backs of her fingers over the stubble along his jaw.
“I should shave first,” he teased, though he loved the sensation of her fingers raking through his whiskers so much he didn’t want her to stop.
“Yes,” she said in all seriousness. She truly meant for him to go and shave, and for the two of them to exchange vows in a matter of hours.
Impatient, beautiful woman.
He lifted a hand to caress her cheek. “I take it this isn’t entirely spontaneous.”
