And why should any reasonable person want to woo a suspected murderer back into her bed?
I passed no one on my way to the front door, and the front courtyard was empty of horses and people, nothing but wet flagstones and a weather that was somewhere between drizzle and mist. I plunged into the fog, grateful to be swallowed up and grateful to see that Markham Hall had been swallowed up behind me. But the tightness in my chest didn’t ease and my mind didn’t clear. I could only think ahead to my next footfall, to my next breath.
Run, that voice urged. Run until you can’t any longer.
I walked still, finding it impossible to gauge distance or time in the fog, worried I’d missed the fork in the road that went to the village and had instead taken the road deeper into the forest.
Hooves pounded the road behind me, and I whirled around, seeing nothing but fog and grasping tree branches. Then the gray mist parted to reveal Mr. Markham and Raven, the former with a loosely knotted cravat and tousled hair.
Run! the voice screamed. Run while you can!
And I did step warily back as Mr. Markham dismounted his horse and walked toward me, slowly, his hands out as if he were approaching a wild animal. “Where are you going?” he asked, and there was palpable pain in his words. “Are you leaving here? Leaving me?”
His eyes dropped down to my hand—my now naked hand—and something inside of him seemed to shred itself apart, flay itself open. He met my eyes again and that look was enough to make me weep. “You are leaving,” he whispered.
I half shook my head, but I took another step back as I did. “I don’t know,” I answered, also in a whisper. Our voices hung in the air like the mist: too light to fall, too heavy to float.
Resolve steeled in his eyes and in a handful of steps, he crossed to me, too fast for me to evade. One arm was around me and then the other between us, his hand gripping my jaw and forcing me to look up at him.
“I just came from the house. I searched every room for you. And you know what I found?”
I didn’t answer, couldn’t answer.
“You slept in my bed last night,” he breathed. “Tell me, Ivy, were you naked when you slept in my bed? Did you touch yourself? Did you make yourself come?”
Almost against my will, I nodded. I couldn’t resist the pull of those viciously hungry eyes.
He groaned at my response. “Tell me,” he said, shoving his hips against mine. “Tell me what you did.”
“I could smell you,” I said. “I could smell you on the bed. I couldn’t stop myself, I had to come. I rubbed myself thinking of you.”
“Thinking of my cock? Or my tongue? Or my fingers?”
“Yes. All of it. All of you.”
He buried his face in my neck and breathed me in, his arm tightening around me. “Why are you trying to leave?” he asked, words muffled. “What can I do to make you stay?”
His arms were so strong around me, his voice so rough and husky, and I knew if I looked at his face, I would see those lightly scruffed cheeks and those piercing green eyes. My body and soul longed to submit to him, to be subsumed by this male, this force of nature that could light my skin on fire with a single touch. But my mind—my mind remained crouched and wary, prey darting around a trap. And that’s why I could tell him, “I’ll only stay if I know I will be safe.”
“Safe,” he repeated. “Safe.” I expected his hold on me to loosen, for him to either be offended or suspicious or even angry, but instead, he held me closer, one hand deftly pulling up my skirts. “What does that really mean, wildcat? Safe from me? Or safe from your own fears?”
I’d dressed so hastily that I hadn’t bothered with drawers and so his fingers found my cunt easily.
“You’re wet,” he remarked, lifting his head from my neck to speak into my ear. “Tell me, are you wet because you feel safe with me right now? When you make yourself come in my bed, are you thinking about how safe I make you feel?”
God, I was wet. And I was growing wetter, my nipples hardening into painful points beneath my dress. His fingers flicked gently across my swelling bud, tracing delicate curves along my sex.
“So what is it, Ivy? What kind of safety do you so desire that you are running away from me?”
I was breathing harder and faster now, arching my hips into his hand. “I don’t want you to hurt me.”
He bit my neck—hard—and I cried out, bucking my pelvis even more as the pain sizzled into a fresh wave of arousal. “I think you like being hurt.”
My mind was slipping away from me, burdened by my undeniable need and my insatiable longing for this man with his hand up my skirt.
But I managed to say it. Bluntly. “I’m afraid you’ll kill me.”
That did make him loosen his grip. “Kill you?” he demanded, seizing me tightly again, his thumb now pressing hard against my clitoris. “You are the most beautiful, the most perfect thing that’s ever happened to me. I would slice my own throat before I hurt you.”
