Her mouth tasted like champagne and cinnamon, her lips were soft—softer than I remembered—but warm. When I parted them, her tongue was a slide of silk and heat, a sensation that went straight to my cock. It throbbed for that tongue, for that hot mouth. It wanted to violate her…again and again and again.
Molly’s face tilted up to mine, exposing her throat, and I don’t know how my hand found it, just that it did. And my hand caressed the smooth white column of her neck before I cupped her nape to keep her face tight to my own.
She pulled back, gasping, her breaths forcing her tits against her corset. I was so fucking hard right then, I swore I could feel every beat of my pulse in my dick.
“Don’t touch me,” she managed, trying to catch her breath. Her pupils were wide black pools and her lips were swollen. I dropped my hand from her neck.
I had no idea why I had dragged her off like a caveman or why I’d felt the need to brand her with such a possessive kiss. It had come from some dark place inside of me that I was unfamiliar with, despite the fact I’d seen it last year when I’d been with Molly. It had laid dormant since, but now that I was with her again, now that I had those pert, small breasts in front of me and all that scarlet, silken hair, and that adorable smattering of freckles across her nose—it flared back to life, roaring.
Take her, it urged. Use her.
Love her.
I shook it off. Donned the charming Silas mask everyone knew and loved. “Darling, I am so sorry. I simply couldn’t help myself; you are such a rare vision tonight.” I grinned at her, reaching out to run my thumb along her lower lip, but she swatted me away.
“Don’t call me darling,” she spat. “And don’t pull that playboy shit on me. We both know better.”
The dark thing reared its head again. “We do know better, don’t we? How many times did you let me come in your ass, Mary Margaret O’Flaherty? And how many times on your face? How many times did you let me spank you until you were begging for more? Begging for me to ram my—”
“Stop,” she said, her voice shaking. Her jaw was set, but her eyes glittered, unshed tears turning the bright blue eyes into dark sapphires. “Just stop.”
I looked at her—really looked at her. At the delicate swoop of her nose and the fine china of her skin under her freckles. At the dark smudges under her eyes, as if she hadn’t slept well in months, and at the angular dip of her collarbone. At the frail curve of her shoulders.
“You’ve lost weight,” I said quietly, and the dark thing in me was pacing and angry. Not at her, but at myself. I felt the unaccountable urge to find some food and make her eat it in front of me. She’s your responsibility, the dark thing said. She is the woman you love, the woman you should be serving. The woman you should be doing everything in your power to care for.
I pushed the voice down, down and away from my mind. “Molly,” I tried again. “I’m so sorry. May we start over?”
She cleared her throat, not meeting my eyes. “I think you should leave.”
“Leave the Baron’s?”
She took a breath and then lifted her gaze, firm and still wet with tears. “No. Leave London.”
Something jagged sliced through my chest. Jagged and cold.
“We ended badly,” she continued, “but I see now that it was for the best. You and me—what we had—it wasn’t real. It was only three days, and Silas, we know better than to believe in love. Whatever we said to each other, whatever we promised each other, it was delirium brought on by good sex and nothing more. And you did us both a favor by dispelling that delirium as quickly as possible.”
The cold, jagged slice went deeper. “Dispelling it by fucking Mercy, you mean,” I said hollowly.
She hesitated, her throat bobbing ever so slightly, a tiny tremor in her chin. “Yes,” she said after a minute. “By fucking Mercy.”
We stared at each other again.
“Molly—”
She held up a hand. “Don’t. Just—whatever you were here to prove, you’ve proven it, okay? And I wish that I could rage at you, I wish that I could rain hellfire on your head, but I can’t. Not tonight. You’ve won, Silas. Now take pity on me and leave. I have too much going on in my life to expend the effort it would take to hate you.”
I felt completely sliced in two now, bleeding and severed. I had done this, I had earned this apathetic defeated tone, with my own weakness and cowardice last year. But tonight wasn’t supposed to be about last year. It was supposed to be about a fresh start, a straightforward agreement.
Just say what you came here to say, you idiot. “Molly,” I said, as contritely and also as charmingly as I could. “I came here to help you. Not to fight you.”
She lifted an eyebrow. She didn’t believe me, which was fair, I supposed, given our history.
I went on. “Julian told me about the board and their decision to make you marry.”
She sighed, making a yes…and? gesture with her hand.
“And I came back from France because I want to help you.”
