Page 35 of The Duke With the Dragon Tattoo
“You… you didn’t just threaten to… tokillher?” Ashrill note climbed in tandem with her panic. “Is she safe with that lunatic?” She took a halting step toward the door.
The hand on her arm tightened just short of painfully. “You have my word… Veronica Weatherstoke will remain unmolested, so long as you comply.”
“God! Why must you be so violent?” The moment the frustrated words left her lips, she regretted them.
She wondered if the bleakness had lurked beneath his sinister façade this entire time, or if she’d conjured it with her words.
“Violence has kept me alive these twenty years. It’s all I know. All I remember. In fact, the second I walk out of this room, I’m going to war.”
“Then go,” she spat. “And the devil take you.”
“He might do. Someday.” He pried her white fingers from his throne and drew her toward him. He was a man aware of his power, physical and otherwise, and could wield or temper it with astounding control. “But tonight, I’m allowedthis.”
When his gaze dropped to her lips, Lorelai panicked.
Oh God.
After a wedding, came a wedding night, and the Rook was about to claim his.
CHAPTERSEVEN
How long had she dreamed of this? How many times had she imagined Ash galloping toward her on his white steed, whisking her off the moors, and the two of them disappearing together into the mist? In her fantasies, they’d married. He’d kissed her gently, tenderly, with as much reverence as he had the day they’d parted.
The day he’d disappeared.
How could she have known that his fervent promise to come for her, all those years ago, had really been a threat?
When the Rook’s fingers brushed her neck beneath her veil, Lorelai trembled, but she held straight and still as a mooring post as he explored the delicate skin of her nape. His fingers threaded in her hair, tangling into the ruined coiffure until he cupped the back of her head.
“What a-are you doing?”
“You always wore your hair loose when we were young.” He extracted pins as he discovered them.
“I—I am no longer young,” she stammered. “Convention dictates that I wear it up.” Dear God, how could she be arguing about herhairat a time like this? “I cannot simply—”
“Convention holds no place here,” he interrupted, brushing her hair over her shoulder, so it spilled down her bodice. “You may do as you like.”
“Then I’dliketo leave. I’dliketo go home.”
A sharp breath escaped him. Not a chuckle, but perhaps a sign of amusement.
“Allow me to rephrase.” His head dropped until his lips grazed her shoulder exposed by the wide neckline of the gilded gown. Chills speared her, thrilling up from some deep and forgotten place with such force her belly clenched, before they exploded onto her skin in a wash of tiny shivers. “You may do asIlike.”
The Rook eased her closer, and Lorelai remained so paralyzed, she couldn’t even find the wits to resist. His full lower lip curled slightly into his mouth, emerging with a sheen of moisture, then parting in preparation—
No.
Lorelai rejected the notion of this pirate ruining what she considered her loveliest memory. Should he kiss her now, it would be nothing like what she shared with Ash once upon a time.
What if it was terrible?
Or worse, what if shelikedit? What if he made her want it? What if this new demonic incarnation of Ash stirred in her the same awakenings she’d experienced as a girl in his arms?
Because, Lord help her, the Rook was possessed of a dark charisma she’d never before encountered, and it was wreaking havoc with her senses already.
Ducking her chin against her chest, she turned her tiara into a weapon.
A less dexterous man would have taken a Weatherstoke sapphire right to the eye.
