Page 13 of Between a Duke and a Hard Place (The Honeywells #1)

Chapter Twelve

M ax had not known fear in many years.

Not since the war. Not since the battlefield. But when he’d returned home from his morning journey to Eddington’s, followed by his monthly visit to the tenant farmers at the farthest reaches of his ends, and been informed that his wife—his reckless, infuriating wife—had gone riding alone, cold terror had seized his spine. Following it, came absolute fury.

Her own family was plotting against her and still she behaved as though the world was not a dangerous place. When he’d returned home to find that she had gone out alone—he had not even thought. Instead he’d had only mounted his still saddled horse and ridden after her at a punishing pace, his jaw clenched so tightly he thought his teeth might crack.

And now, here she stood, blinking at him as if he were some troublesome gnat, utterly unrepentant. “I see my husband has developed a habit of following me about,” she said, her voice cool and dry as winter air.

Max reined in his horse so hard it reared slightly, then dismounted in one swift movement, closing the distance between them in three long strides.

“What the hell were you thinking?” he ground out.

She lifted a brow. “That I wanted to go for a ride. I’ve been riding on these lands for nearly two decades now!”

“Alone?”

She held her arms out akimbo. “Do you see anyone else, Max? I am quite obviously alone.”

He exhaled sharply, rubbing a hand down his face, physically restraining himself from throttling her. “You do realize that you are a target, do you not?” His voice was low, tight with fury. “For Eddington. For Nigel. For Ethella. None of them can be trusted and any of them could happen upon you here!"

Violet folded her arms. “On your land? They would not dare.”

Max let out a short, humorless laugh. “You really are a menace, aren’t you?”

“I have been called worse.”

“Would you like to hear worse?”

Her lips twitched, but she suppressed it. “I do not see the need for such dramatics.”

“Dramatics?” His voice rose. “You think this is dramatics?”

Violet did not step back.

Max did not step forward.

And yet, somehow, they were suddenly too close, the space between them thick with heat and tension, their breath coming short and fast.

“I will tell you something, your grace,” Max said, his voice now low and lethal. “Eddington does not care that you are wed to me. He does not care for titles or honor or consequence. He will take what he wants. And if he catches you alone…”

He did not finish the sentence.

He did not need to.

Violet’s breath shuddered out.

For the first time, true fear flickered in her eyes.

Max’s hands flexed at his sides, desperate to do something, to shake some sense into her, to pull her against him?—

To touch her.

The realization hit him like a fist to the ribs.

He wanted to touch her.

To soothe her.

To prove something to her—something he did not yet have the words for.

And then?—

She lifted her chin. “You are awfully close. Too close.”

He froze.

Her lips curved ever so slightly, though her breath was still shaky.

And it was that—that damned defiance, that irritating smirk that had taunted him for years, that had always driven him mad with frustration and longing in equal measure—that broke him.

Without thinking, without hesitating, without allowing himself to stop and question the madness of it, he reached out, curled his fingers around the back of her neck, and kissed her.

Violet gasped against his mouth, her hands clutching at the lapels of his coat, not pushing him away but pulling him closer.

Max was lost.

Lost in the feel of her, in the soft, sharp gasp of breath against his lips, in the heat that surged through him like wildfire.

He had wanted this for years.

And now?—

Now she was his, and she tasted like frustration and fury and something he could not name but had craved for far too long.

He should have stopped. Should have pulled away. Should have remembered himself. But then she kissed him back, fierce and unyielding, and Max knew two things with absolute certainty.

He was a fool to think he could resist her and he was never going to survive their marriage with his sanity intact.

Violet was lost in that kiss. Lost to the feeling of his lips on hers, to the taste of him and the feel of his arms closing around her, the firm press of his chest against hers. For all her life, Violet had been battling against the rules of society, the rules that said because she was female she had to bend to the will of men. She had to be quiet and docile and demure. And she’d never done any of those things. Instead, she’d managed Wellston in her brother’s absence, she’d eschewed courtship and a London season to do something that she felt mattered. And in all of it, people had looked at her as something less, as not really a woman.

But she felt like a woman now. She felt feminine and delicate wrapped in his strong arms. She felt desirable as she tasted the hunger of his kiss, as she felt the tension in his body and the heat that bloomed between them.

His lips left hers, his hand tangling in her hair and pulling her head back. With her neck arched, he placed his lips against the column of her throat. Then she felt his teeth grazing her skin, his tongue soothing the slight sting in their wake. And she simply caught fire. As if her blood itself had become molten in her veins. Her heart raced and that strong heat that had pooled in her belly as they’d sat at the breakfast table the previous morning suddenly made so much sense to her. Desire. What she’d felt then, what she currently felt, it was desire for Max.

As abruptly as it began, it ended. He stepped back from her so suddenly that she stumbled. She would have fallen and his hands not closed around her forearms, steadying her.

“That shouldn’t have happened,” he said.

“Why?”

“Because it isn’t part of our agreement,” he replied, the words bitten out through his teeth. “It was a mistake, Violet. One that will not be repeated.”

Those words cut her to the very quick. “A mistake?”

“Yes, Violet. A mistake,” he repeated sharply. “Go back to the house. I’ll follow shortly.”