Page 73 of The Duke
She cleared fear out of her throat and pressed on. “You can’t presume to know the fate of your soul. That isn’t for you to decide. All I know is that the blackest of hearts can find grace. You can’t have fought with such ferocity, you can’t have—done what you did to survive if you didn’t believe that somewhere in your heart.” Emboldened by his silence, she took a step toward him, gentling her voice a little. “Life, with all its perils and torments, still belongs to the living. We have a responsibility toliveit. You should not waste it by giving over to bleak despair.”
“Nor should you risk it by being reckless and getting in over your head,” he snapped, staring down his haughty nose at her.
Imogen flinched. She didn’t want to be cowed or submissive, but the events of the day had her so rattled, she only managed to hold her proud shoulder aloft. “No matter what you do or say, Icannotturn away those who need my help. It is simply not in my nature. Call me a fool if you wish, but I am what I am. And it’s not that I am incapable of change, but unwilling. I know there is more suffering than I could ever contain, but my life’s purpose is to save who I can.”
He stared out at her from eyes ablaze for one moment to many before saying, “So long as you don’t try to save me.”
She crossed her own arms over her chest. “You are neither above nor below my consideration. I’ll do as I like,” she challenged.
The air between them thickened and shifted until it sang with violence and expectation. His broad silhouette blocked the only escape, and it occurred to Imogen that she might have spoken too rashly, the moment before he began to stalk closer, closing the distance between them.
“You should tell me to leave,” he growled from low in his chest. “Order me out, woman. I am not a good man. And I’m tempted to prove it to you by doing a dire thing.”
She’d like to say that she stood her ground, but suddenly she found herself against the sink, without a memory of retreating the few steps backward. “Being a good man doesn’t mean doing the right thing all the time.” Her voice had taken on a breathy quality she didn’t at all recognize. “There are two halves to our natures, are there not? Light and dark, good and evil, the angel and devil.”
He kicked the bench aside and prowled closer, pure, wicked intent etched into features made savage by lamplight and lust. “Which one are you?”
“I am no angel, Cole, of that you can be certain.”
“Then it seems we are both damned.” In one graceful surge of movement, he was upon her, his lips landing against hers before his powerful body followed suit.
He crowded and overwhelmed her, taking every inch of space and filling it with himself. His chest crushed against her breasts, his knee forced its way between her thighs. A thick rod quickened where he pressed his hips against her.
Kissing Cole was like kissing the night. His potent darkness consumed everything as his lips consumed her. His tongue made a conquest of her mouth, tangling with hers in wet, long strokes.
But his hand… his hand was infinitely more gentle as it cupped the back of her head, still leaving no doubt that she was his prisoner. His fingers laced in her hair, more beseeching and urgent than punishing.
Scalding heat poured like molten ore from his mouth into her. It spread in a flush over her skin, and traveled through her blood with significant haste and languid desire at the same time, pooling between her legs in a release of warmth.
Imogen clung to him as he, quite literally, kissed the wits right out of her.
His every muscle was drawn drum-tight as he rhythmically surged against her in harmony to the plunge and retraction of his tongue. He made a sound so foreign to her; Imogen could only identify it as a violent sort of appreciation.
Her throat produced a husky answer that seemed to both thrill and comfort him.
Abruptly, his behavior shifted from wrath to worship. The hand at the back of her head began to tremble as it smoothed over her hair. His tongue retracted as he dragged his mouth across hers in sweet, drugging pulls. Every breath they shared was a benediction, and he whispered something she didn’t quite catch against her.
His kisses held an element they hadn’t in that room at the Bare Kitten all those years ago. Something dangerous. Something more possessive and uninhibited.
He was no longer merely smooth muscle and lithe grace. He was teeth and bristle and unfathomable need. He nibbled at her lower lip with a sharpness that sent a shock of sensation straight to her sex.
She was drowning in him, or maybe immolating, she couldn’t rightly be sure. Waves of hot desire broke upon her. His. Hers. She didn’t seem to be able to differentiate.
His hand charted the curve of her back, her waist, and was frustrated by the bustle beneath her skirts which he gripped as though to tear the entire garment asunder.
Imogen had decided she’d let him when a scream pierced the close, humid air they’d created in the tucked-away room.
They both froze, their lips tearing from each other’s, tensing like foxes whose burrow had been found by the hounds.
Dear God. Someone had returned home before Welton and poor Cheever had managed to clear the carnage.
The shrill scream sounded again, very close. So close, that there was no chance it came from upstairs at the front of the house. Cole surged for the door, ordering her to stay where she was.
Ignoring him, Imogen scrambled at his heels on knees weakened by desire and then fortified by adrenaline.
She’d been right, she realized. The scream hadn’t come from the front of the house, but the servants’ entrance down the same hall. There, in front of the door, Cook, two footmen, and a chambermaid were huddled around something they’d found at the entry.
“What’s happened?” Trenwyth demanded.
