There was a seething, fraught silence.
“It will shock you to learn,” he said very, very slowly, his voice shaking with the effort of control, “that I have, foolishly, spoken without due consideration.”
“No matter, James.” She said this with a sort of blackly amused amazement. “I suspect these sorts of transactions are going on all over England as we speak. Now, I wonder what you thought my price should be. Did you have a starting figure in mind? I like a good negotiation, you know that. Go on, tell me about the offer so I can counter it.”
“Mariana.”
“Tell me.”
“Mariana—”
“Tell me my PRICE.”
“Stop it,” he ordered her in that low, slow voice that could likely stop a river from flowing.
All her reckless rage left her at once. And she was drained and trembling. Her tears blurred her vision as she stared up at him.
He had gone gray-faced.
“Mariana . . .” His voice was quiet. She could hear in it his struggle. “I cannot change my past. I cannot change who I am and do not want to. You cannot change your past and who you are. I would not want to change one particle of you. I thought you understood this. This is how things are.”
“To be clear, this money is to buy my discretion, too, is it? I’m to tiptoe about as long as you pay me to do it? Where the bloody hell is the honor in that? What kind of life is that for me?”
She could hear, she could see, his chest moving swiftly with his rough breath. Other than that, he was silent.
“Funny, isn’t it?” She sniffed. “You’re a bloody hero and you’re used to ordering legions what to do. And your reward for that is that you’re at the mercy of legions now. Brave, brave, stupid man who can’t make himself happy. And can’t you see that? Can’t you see you’re a man?”
Her voice broke. Her eyes filled and tears spilled. She covered her face with her hands, horrified by the anarchy of her emotions, heaving for breath. “Oh God. I’m sorry. I don’t know why I’m . . . I haven’t the right to . . .”
Because she saw it clearly. Beneath her rage was terrible, futile heartbreak. She had known precisely how it would be and still she felt all but murdered. How? How was it that she’d still entertained, for even a moment, the minutest possibility of a happy, improbable ending right out of an opera? That wasn’t who he was. He’d encapsulated the problem in just a few words: he could not change who he was. She could not change who she was. This was how things were.
He’d assessed the problem and offered what he saw as the only practical solution.
And God help her, part of her thought: he cannot bear to part with me. And in that was a sort of unholy joy.
But still he would probably marry some young titled woman, and he would have kept Mariana in an apartment like a horse in a stable.
If only he had just let her go. She could have left him with her illusions intact.
James struggled to breathe. He—the hero, as she’d called him—was lost. He had no idea how to bear her pain or his own. Or how to comfort her. But he reached for her anyway. He wrapped his arms around her, because he didn’t know what else to do. Holding her was the only comfort he’d truly known. Possibly the only peace he’d truly known.
Because peace was being known.
Once his touch had melted her. Now her every muscle stiffened, braced furiously against him.
“Mariana, please don’t cry. Please don’t cry.” He brushed his lips across her temple, her brow, softly, softly. He kissed her cheek and tasted salt. “Sweetheart, my love, don’t cry, don’t cry.” He had never begged for anything before in his life. He had never murmured endearments that poured from him as though his heart was indeed cut open. His throat was tight. “I cannot bear it if you cry.”
But she was still weeping when she turned her lips to his. Took his face between her hands. Because God help her, he was her only comfort, too.
Half tender, half savage. The kiss was a contest. Then a war. They were out to prove that neither of them could do without the other. She dragged her hands down his chest, to his cock, took it in her hands, caressed and stroked and teased in rhythm, in time, with their deep and drugging kisses, the clash of teeth, the glide and sweep of tongues. She knew him, too: when the cords of his neck went taut, and when his breath came in ragged bursts through parted lips. His hands on her breasts, the feathery strokes, the hard thumbs across her nipples, her head falling back on a helpless sobbing catch of pleasure that made him wild. As if it was too much to bear.
She pulled him down over her. He braced himself on both arms. And then he was inside her.
And he could see her struggling to forestall it. To prove to him that he could not always conquer her so easily. Her breath gusting through parted lips. Her eyes defiant, as she denied him what he wanted. What he wanted was the satisfaction, the sheer carnal triumph, of knowing that she was in his thrall. That he could make her wild with need. He wanted to see her eyes go dark. To feel her body ripple, then thrash, in the throes of pleasure. To know he had given this to her, and that she wanted only him.
So he was slow, slow. He tortured both of them. Sweat beaded her brow and his. He knew what she wanted and how she liked it. And he could deny her, and he saw the moment when she furiously surrendered.
“Please . . . James . . . you bastard . . . now . . . like that . . . Oh God oh God . . .” She arched up into him, begging him with her hips, her hands reaching for his hip, urging him on.
She made a fist and banged his arm with it, enduring the banking pleasure; her fist fanned and her fingers clung because she knew she was about to be all but torn from her body. She was nearly sobbing with fury that only he could give this to her. Now and always, he wanted to say. Now and always.
He unleashed himself.
His hips drummed, and their bodies collided hard. Her hips bucked to meet his, to take him deeper as he thrust swiftly. Her nails digging into his skin, her feet locked on his back. Her breath mingling with his, a storm. Her eyes black, then hazed, then closed.
And when she screamed her release, her head turned into the pillow to muffle it. Her body bowed helplessly up. He felt her pulsing around him.
“Mariana. Oh God . . . dear God . . .” He went still above her, hurled from his body and into the blackness, into that little death, lights exploding behind his eyes, his body racked with violent pleasure. He could still feel her hands digging into his shoulders. Holding him.
She kept her eyes closed.
He withdrew gently, lowered himself gingerly to lie beside her.
After a moment of silence, he whispered her name. As if he was already alone in the dark.
She said nothing.
They normally would have reached for each other, in celebration of magnificent sex and congratulations at their skill.
They lay still, side by side. Not touching.
He listened to her breathe. He could feel a hot, hollow space in his chest, as though his heart had been spaded out.
She shifted and laid an arm across her eyes, as though she couldn’t bear to see him.
There were layers to this shame. He’d used this explosive hunger between them, and her own sensual nature, as weapons. He’d meant to show her what she was denying herself if she were to leave him. To show her that for all her strength and determination, she would always surrender to him. Even when she was furious and hurt.