Page 123 of The Trouble with Tigers
She stumbled backward until her legs hit the mattress.
“Kitty, tell me what the hell is going on here,” he said through his teeth. “One minute we’re getting married. The next you’ve disappeared without so much as a goodbye.”
She gazed up at him, hands fisted at his sides. Heat emanated from his body, and he smelled of wind, and leather, and Zeke.
“Kitty? Say something.”
“I-I left a note.”
His nostrils flared, and his jaw went rigid. “For. The. Earl.”
She had hurt him. She blinked back a fresh onslaught of tears and slumped onto the edge of the mattress.
Zeke sighed heavily and lowered to crouch before her, dropping his head onto her lap. His arms fell on either side of her thighs. “Please don’t cry, Kitty.”
Her heart ached. Literally burned. “All right,” she choked past the lump in her throat. Helpless to resist, her fingers sifted through Zeke’s silky golden hair.
A shudder went through him at her touch, and his hands coiled into fists on the bed. “I thought…I feared—” He broke off.
Why he’d come was all too clear. He’d come to save her. Again.
Meanwhile she’d skulked away at dawn, without even leaving him a note. She’d thought only of herself. Of the fact he didn’t love her. She’d conveniently overlooked how he’d repeatedly come to her rescue. How he’d been there for her when her own brother had not. She didn’t deserve this man. But he did deserve an explanation.
She took a bracing breath, and forced out the hated words that would finally free him of all obligation to her. “Zeke, I had to leave because it wouldn’t have been right to continue accepting your hospitality when…I’m marrying Garrick.”
***
Zeke’s head shot up. Had he heard correctly? Because it sounded as if she’d just blithely announced she was marrying her cousin.
She cupped his wind-burned cheeks with hands as cold as ice. “You’re free. You needn’t worry over me any longer.”
Blood hammered in his ears. He wanted to punch something. Make that someone. “This is your brother’s doing.”
She lowered her lashes, averting her gaze. “He asked me to marry Garrick, yes, but"—she bit her lip—“Garrick’s going to return the Maidstone title to him in exchange.”
At the vicious curse Zeke hadn’t realized he uttered, Kitty flinched and started to pull away. He covered one of her hands with his, holding it to his jaw, then angled his head to press a kiss into her palm.
A tremor ran through her. Good. He was beginning to think her completely inured to him.
“You’re not a piece of meat to be bartered at market. Hastings has no right to ask this of you. And you—how can you agree to such madness? After everything that’s happened?”
Her pale green eyes turned zealous. “That’s exactly why I must. Collin—he’s been through so much. How can I not do this for him? As for Garrick, I know he’s behaved in a deplorable, despicable manner, but—”
“I was talking about what happened between us,” Zeke said through clenched teeth.
His chest burned, like someone held a red-hot branding iron to the underside of his ribs.
“You gave yourself to me. You belong to me now.” As he spoke the words, his eyes roamed over her, hungry, desperate. “We made love, kitten. I put my seed in you. Even now, you may carry my babe.”
A sob caught in her throat. She shook her head.
He rose to his feet, grasping Kitty by the shoulders to bring her toe to toe with him. His gaze settled on her rosy, quivering lips. “You’re mine,” he said in a voice he barely recognized as his own.
Those soft sweet lips parted, and the tip of her tongue peeked out to dampen them in unconscious invitation.
It was too much. With a low groan he bent, claiming her mouth with his, half devouring her as he sought to vanquish the anger, fear and need roiling within him.
After a moment, a whimper sounded low in her throat, and her arms twined around his neck.
