Page 48

“We need to talk,” she told him simply.

“No, we do not,” he snapped.

What she needed to do was go back to her bedchamber and lock the door. Maybe even barricade it with a table, a chair…

His cock stiffened eagerly, and he nearly groaned.

Her, alone with him, in his tower, was a disaster of mass proportions. The kind that left ruin in its wake.

“Of course we do,” she persisted, crossing her arms over her chest. “About that kiss?—”

Hell no.They werenotgoing to talk about the kiss that just rearranged his brain and its priorities. Not while they were within walking distance of each other.

“I just want you to promise that you will forget about it,” she babbled on. “Neither of us need to mention it again. I cannot have you humiliating me like I am some naive debutante in her first Season?—”

“Scarlett.” Her name came out of his throat in a low, guttural growl.

She stopped in the middle of her rambling. He heard her sharp intake of breath. Saw her eyes darken unmistakably with desire, her lips patting on a soft gasp.

“Come here.”

It was a soft command.

But he was stepping closer to her, and she was swaying towards him. They were like two magnets that could not help colliding.

His hand slipped around the back of her neck, and he leaned in, breathing in her distinct, womanly scent. That fragrance was stamped in his brain. He wanted to know the taste of her as well.

“I told you that you were not supposed to be here,” he said in a husky voice. His finger trailed down her shoulder, dragging theflimsy sleeve of her robe down with it. “Such a naughty, little cat you are.”

He caught the slight whimper that escaped her lips and smiled to himself.

“Oh, is that so? And what are you going to do about it?”

The woman defied him at every turn, and he actuallylikedit. She would make him work for whatever he wished to get from her, anddamn, he found himself enjoying it immensely.

“Tsk, tsk, little cat,” he taunted. “Keep doing that, and you will find yourself getting punished.”

The little shudder that went through her only heightened his awareness until his entire world narrowed to her and only her.

He backed her up against the wall, bracing his arm above her head as he towered over her. She was smaller than him, but her courage made her twice her size. She glared up at him, and he felt heat skittering downhisspine.

Funny. He had never feltthatbefore.

“Andthatis yet another thing we have to talk about,” she bristled. “You are the most contradictory being in all of London. You want me, and then you despise me. You kiss me, and then you push me away.Make up your mind.”

He frowned at her. “You would not want me, little cat. I am the bloody Duke of Wolves, remember? I do not care for marriage.”

She flinched, but she needed to know the truth. Needed to understand that whatever this thing between them, whatever fantasies she had of him, they were never going to amount to much.

He was only going to disappoint her, and heneededher to know that. They were standing on the precipice of something wild and dangerous, and he would not have her falling into the abyss with him unless she was sure of it.

“So you have been reminding me ever since I came here,” she replied with a slight shrug. “It actually gets boring when you keep repeating it as if I am some lackwit.”

“You are no lackwit,” he groaned. “And the past few days, I have unfortunately found my taste in women to have become rather specific.”

Her reply came out more like a breathy gasp that stirred him all the more.

“How specific, Your Grace?”