Page 15 of The Dove
“Except, I didn’t get what I wanted,” he murmured, edging closer, forcing her back against the wall.
Panic flared in her eyes, and he couldseethe sound she held in her throat, the whimper she swallowed, her throat convulsing and her mouth pinching closed. He strummed his knuckles over the swell of one breast, teasing her nipple into a stiff point.
“I wasn’t nearly finished with you,” he added, still steadily teasing her through her gown.
Her chin trembled, and her brow furrowed, her gaze boring into him as if she searched for something. Answers to questions she could not have answered otherwise. His face would betray nothing, and neither would his eyes. Like his father, he’d practiced the art of coldness … of holding people at the distance he dictated.
“You certainly seemed to be finished when you sent me away from Dunnottar,” she accused. “You could not even be bothered to say good-bye. After you used me, embarrassed me, and destroyed any chance I might have had for marriage or a future, you … you did not even have the decency to show your face the morning of my departure.”
Some unfamiliar emotion opened in the pit of his gut, lodging itself in places that made him want to squirm. Could it be guilt?
He certainly hadn’t relished locking himself away in his study while waiting with baited breath for her to leave Dunnottar under Niall’s care. But, it had seemed like the best course of action. A clean break. A fitting end to their short time together.
Only, that time had not been enough, and here he stood, ruining the clean break that had seemed so important to him three months ago.
“You are angry with me for not saying good-bye,” he murmured, gripping her chin and stroking her lower lip. “Let me make it up to you.”
She tried to dislodge his hold again, but failed, wincing when his fingers bit into her jaw. “There is also the matter of the ten thousand pounds you paid my father. ‘Compensation’ for one’s only daughter, I believe you called it.”
That feeling in his gut increased, twisting cruelly. He didn’t like it one bit.
“I paid you more,” he reminded her.
She shook her head. “After you’d already paid them … knowing that I was ignorant to the truth … knowing they would take it and do nothing.”
“I believe the words you are searching for would be ‘thank you’,” he snapped, agitation ruining the good mood that had followed fucking her. “‘Thank you, Adam, for showing me the truth about my despicable family, and giving me enough money that I never have to depend on them again for as long as I live.’”
She sneered at him, her upper lip peeling back to expose her perfect, white teeth. “Thank you, Adam. Now, kindly sod off.”
He released her, laughing as she spun on her heel and began marching back toward the street. “We are not finished, little dove. You do realize that, eh?”
Pausing at the mouth of the alley, she swiveled to face him again, hands braced upon her hips. “Actually, we are, Lord Hartmoor. You see, I do not believe you could afford the amount it would cost for me to let you back into my bed.”
He raised an eyebrow, both amused and intrigued by her words. His little dove wasn’t the spoiled, pampered little chit she’d been when he’d first met her. She’d grown a spine and sharpened her teeth a bit, now able to give as good as she got. It only made him want her more.
Watching her disappear around the corner, he fished in his coat pocket for his cigarillo case, retrieving another one of the cheroots from inside. His blood hummed in his veins as he took the first inhale. Slowly releasing it, he allowed the flavor of the tobacco to linger on his tongue, along with the remaining taste of Daphne.
“And so, the chase begins,” he murmured to himself as he made his way back to the sidewalk, turning in the opposite direction she’d taken.
She had no idea what she’d just gotten herself into. Maybe if she’d given in, if she hadn’t fought him or tried to make him feel guilty for adhering to the boundaries of their agreement, he might have been satisfied with a few more tumbles.
But, no … she’d mauled his face and thrashed in his arms and reminded him how goddamn good it felt to chase her, to clench his teeth around her and slowly tighten his jaw until she stopped resisting and admitted defeat. She had reminded him exactly why he’d come all the way to London just for another taste of her.
He laughed, taking the cigarillo between his teeth and shoving his hands down into his pockets as he quickened his pace, lowering his head against the cold.
This was going to be fun.
CHAPTER FIVE
he following morning, Daphne trudged into the dining room, her head in a fog. Returning home after her unexpected encounter with Adam—in an alley, of all places—she hadn’t possessed the energy to do much more than fall into bed after undressing. She’d done that bit herself, not wanting her maid to see her chafed inner thighs, or the bite mark left behind on the side of her neck. With the candles doused and the coverlet pulled up over her head, she had squeezed her eyes shut and tried to find escape in sleep, to sink into darkness and silence and forget.
With startling predictability, Adam’s phantom presence refused to allow it, his face filling the insides of her eyelids, and his voice, rough and raspy as he laughed at her—tauntedher—seemed to echo from the walls of her chamber.
Despite her best efforts, she had been unable to put him out of her mind, or stop reliving their frenzied mating in the alley over and over again. She could stillfeelhim—his mouth on hers, his tongue shoving its way between her lips, his hands clenched around her wrists, his big body pinning her against the rough, stone wall. Her cunt ached, throbbed with each beat of her heart, the tender flesh swollen from being so brutally used after months of abstinence.
His scent had clung to her clothes, but even after taking them off, she could still smell that unique combination of cedar and musk, the spicy aroma of the last cigar he’d smoked layering over it all. It clung to the strands of her hair, and even seemed indelibly ground into her skin. It had taken hours of tossing and turning before she could fall asleep, but it had not been restful. She’d awakened several times throughout the night, her heart pounding, skin tingling and breaking out in a sheen of sweat.
As if some part of her had been awakened—the part that sensed she was being hunted, stalked for the kill—and now, she could not put it back to sleep. She half expected to open her eyes to find him on top of her, holding her down and rasping ‘little dove’ into her ear before forcing his way into her body.
