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“That,” she said archly, her prim tone somewhat undercut by the way she was pressing herself against the back of a piece of silk-covered furniture, “is entirely beside the point.”

He pretended to think about this.

“I really don’t think it is,” he concluded.

Her ire was raised now, her cheeks pink with it.

“It is,” she insisted. “Youwanted a convenient wife. You wanted one without scandal, too, it’s true, and you haven’t gotten that. But convenience? Well, I’m neatly on the hook, am I not? You’ve gotten what you wanted, and you were very clear about what you didnotwant. You are not looking for love nor affection. So why should it matter to you what I did or did not like?”

Benedict had a great number of answers to these questions—too many as it happened as they all swirled around in his headwhich he found to be once again oddly muddled by Miss Rutley’s proximity. He could point out that love, affection, and desire were all different things. He could argue that he might seek a marriage of convenience, but that he was not a monster, and he would not take an unwilling woman to his bed. He could retort thatnothingabout this entire situation could be labelled as convenient, and he resented the implication that he’d somehow planned the entire mess. Not only was he not some sort of rakish seducer of innocents, but if he had come up with an actual plan, he would have done a far cry better thanthis.

That was far too many thoughts, far too many words, to organize. So, instead, he took the expedient route.

He kissed her.

And hell, Benedict didn’t know if he was cursed or blessed because Miss Emily Rutley, with her argumentative tongue and her willful ways, collapsed into him like she’d been starving for it.

He could not deny her, not then.

She was a fast learner, apparently, and this too was either marvelous or terrible because she opened her mouth to him immediately this time, letting the kiss turn heated in an instant. He pressed, and she folded, welcomed him, andGod, how could she be so difficult and yet so good?

They should not be doing this he thought, even as he canted his hips to press more firmly against hers. With the settee behindher, she had no room for retreat, not that she seemed to want one.

“Emily,” he murmured against her mouth, her given name tasting good on his lips. “We?—”

Shouldn’t.He’d meant to sayshouldn’t.But before he could get the word out, she made another of those littlesounds, the kind that would no doubt haunt him for the rest of his days, an eager, needy little noise.

His mind blanked of everything except fulfilling that need. He kissed her harder, putting one hand behind her head to pull her in towards the press of his mouth. He was too tall for most women, but Miss Rutley was not most women, and when he pressed against her, they nearly matched, hips to hips, chest to chest, mouth to mouth.

He was consumed. He was not himself, or perhaps he was his truest self. He didn’t care. It didn’tmatter. Kissing her, gettingmoreof her—that mattered.

She evidently felt the same because one of her hands came up to grasp at his hair. That, decided the possessive, animalistic part of Benedict that had taken control, would not do at all. He removed his hands from her to grasp her wrists—she whimpered again—and pressed them firmly against the back of the settee.

“Leave them there,” he whispered into the soft skin of her throat.

She nodded, the gesture not nearly as obvious an acquiescence as the way she arched up into him, pressing closer even as sheobeyed,her back bending her into a beautiful, glorious portrait of submission.

It sent Benedict’s mind wild with ideas, of Emily, laid out before him, willing, eager, ready andbound?—

He thrust himself away from her with a gasp like he’d been drowning.

She blinked, confused, before she processed this swift change in their positions. Her cheeks had been flushed with pleasure, but now, they heated further, obviously with embarrassment. She lifted one of her hands—and despite everything, he wished to lunge at her and put that hand back where he’d left it—to press against her flaming cheeks.

He did not wish to embarrass her. Despite the animosity between them, she was to be his wife which meant that she was his to protect—which included, whenever possible, her feelings. But he could not make an apology, not when the most urgent thing from which she needed protection, in this moment, was his appetite.

Good Lord, but he wanted her. Enough that he’d practically debauched her in a parlor.

He was a disgrace.

He was a disgrace whose body had not, unfortunately, caught up with his mind. His blood thrummed, his heart raced, and his trousers?—

Well, he was not fit for polite company.

“I beg your pardon, Miss Rutley,” he said stiffly. “I should not have behaved in so ungentlemanly a manner.”

Her flush deepened, and he knew she was taking his comment as a slight against herself. He should clarify, he should, but he was helpless to do anything but take his leave before his senses decided to taketheirleave.

Again.