Verity frowned. When he put it that way, she could certainly appreciate how he—or anyone—might take offense with her work. “I’m only willing to share that which you are willing to share with me.”
Pure, unadulterated masculine interest glinted in his eyes. “Oh?”
The air crackled; the suggestive utterance robbed her of a suitable response. Needing space between her and this man whom she could not figure out, Verity made to draw away from him and his tantalizing caress.
His eyes mocked. “Never tell me you’re afraid?” he murmured, resuming his gentle stroking. Refusing to allow her that distance. “I’m disappointed. I’d expect more from a woman on her own, darting around the sewers of London, Verity.”
He laid ownership to her name with an ease better suited to one who’d been speaking it for years. That theft undoubtedly as much a part of the fabric of his person as the hard set to his scarred features. “Sh-should I be afraid?” she whispered, latching on to the mocking question he’d put to her. Fear, of course, was the suitable response. And there was something inherently wrong in her lack of that proper, justified reaction to this man.
“Oh, yes,” he murmured. “Very much so.”
The fact that he sought to rouse that sentiment in her was in and of itself reason enough to fear him, and yet, everything tunneled on that back-and-forth glide of his fingertips. “I’m not afraid of you,” she said quietly, and then his fingers ceased their distracted caressing.
North rotated his palm and cupped her cheek. He lowered his head close to hers. Closer still. His dark eyes pierced her, running her through with the intensity in them. And more.
Desire.
“You should be.” Their breath mingled as he spoke. The faintest hint of brandy wafted over her senses, more dangerously intoxicating than the actual spirits themselves.
“I—I should be what?” she managed, her voice thick even to her own ears. What had he been saying? What had they been talking about?
A slow, faintly mocking grin curled his hard lips up in that all-too-pleased, feral masculine grin. He was a man who knew the effect he was having on her. “Afraid.”
With that, his mouth covered hers.
And she was very much her mother’s daughter, for as he devoured her with his kiss, it was not fear or indignant outrage at this stranger who dared to embrace her that she felt, but a searing, gripping need.
There was an almost violence to the bold slash of his lips. He slanted his mouth over hers. Again and again. It was her first kiss. And as heat sang through her veins, she at last had an answer to why women threw away reputations and honor for fleeting moments of passion.
Verity gripped his shirtfront and drew herself closer. Heat poured from him, and she moaned against his mouth like the wanton she’d become. Or mayhap had always been.
He slipped his tongue past her parted lips, and Verity met each bold lash. He mated his mouth to hers, this man a stranger. This embrace forbidden. And mayhap it was the thrill of that wickedness. Or mayhap it was the fact that she was thirty and had never experienced, nor understood, the temptation of carnality. But she wanted this moment to stretch on. She wanted the desire battering at her senses to continue to drag her under.
He cupped her buttocks in his impossibly large hands, and drew her close. The feel of him—steel and heat burnt through her skirts, and moisture pooled between her legs, the desire to be closer still. Of their own volition, her hips rolled against him.
With a primitive growl, he plunged his tongue more violently, and she whimpered; her body bowed to that melding of fear and desire his embrace stoked.
And then he released her.
Her body sagged, even as she silently cried out at the sudden loss. Verity forced her eyes open, and struggled to push back the desire blanketing her senses. And ignore the agonizing ache at her center.
Oh, God.
What had he done? What had she done?
Verity took a lurching step forward, making a beeline for the door, but he caught her in a lazy grip. Looping an arm around her middle and anchoring her to him.
“Found your fear at last,” he breathed against her ear.
Little shivers raced along the small shell, trickling down the sensitive skin of her neck, and she resisted the reflexive breathless giggle. “You’ve prevented me from leaving and continue to do so.” Except he didn’t truly hold her captive with anything more than the loosest of holds.
“Is that what I did before, love? And here my chest bears the marks of your nails from where you gripped me.”
She gasped. Mortification chased away whatever maddening spell he’d woven. Verity spun out of his arms. “You are no gentleman, my lord.”
He smiled again. “Ah, given our recent familiarity, Malcom should suffice.”
Recent familiarity, indeed.
“You’d run off without gathering the information you sought about me . . . unless”—he gave her a suggestive look—“this was the information you—”
Her outraged gasp drowned out the rest of that shameful charge. “You’re incorrigible.” Her weak insult merely earned another of those mocking smiles. “And here all I sought was information about you, my lord.”
“Malcom,” he dared.
“Malcom,” she ground out between clenched teeth.
His gaze worked over her. “All you sought was information?” he asked quietly.
The absolute lack of mockery and ice in those golden eyes gave her pause. Mayhap she’d reached him. She nodded slowly. “That is all.” For her. For her sister. For Bertha. For her employment at The Londoner.
“You’ve your pencil ready?”
A pencil? It took a moment for that question to register, and when it did, along with what he offered, Verity sprang into action. He’d help her. She scrambled to retrieve a remnant of pencil she could still write with. “I do,” she said quickly, cursing the fact that she was without her journal. Glancing hurriedly about, she slid into a seat at his desk, and stared expectantly at Malcom North, the Earl of Maxwell.
“Society, Polite and otherwise, with their interest in me and my life, can go hang, Miss Lovelace.” He dropped his hands on his desk and leaned across the stretch of surface. His lip peeled back in a black snarl. “Write that on your paper. Now, lest you wish to see what I’m truly capable of, I suggest you leave,” he whispered. There was a beat of silence while she sat there, frozen, numbed by all the original terror she’d faced in this man’s presence. “Now,” he thundered.
Verity jumped to her feet with such speed her chair flew backward, landing with a heavy crash. Her heart pounding, she raced across the room and scrabbled with the door handle.
Locked.
Verity’s neck prickled with the heat of his approach. Her clumsy fingers struggled with the lock, and as it gave with a satisfying twist, she tossed the door open and raced out.
The hulking figure who’d greeted them at the back of the earl’s residence waited in the hall. Gathering her skirts, Verity darted around him. Waiting for him to shoot a hand out and catch the back of her skirts. Braced for it.
But it did not come.
Hurrying down the narrow stairwell, she followed the same path Malcom North had carried her down. An hour ago? A lifetime ago. As soon as she reached the outside, she lengthened her strides. And she didn’t stop running. She ran until her breath came in great, heaving spurts. Painful ones. And a stitch formed in her side.