Page 25 of The Duke With the Dragon Tattoo

“… I don’t know.” He didn’t care to know.

She winced. “Of course. Of course you don’t know. What a stupid question. I’m incessantly ridiculous—”

He banished her tirade with the pressure of his lips against hers.

His mouth lingered rather than demanded. Brushed and tasted. Savored. He dared not use his tongue, or his teeth, or any other part of him that hungered for her.

He held in his arms the girl he loved. And thus was the cause for his caution.

Lorelai was just that.

A girl.

Hewas no longer a boy. The feelings he had, the desires. The hunger. The heat. They belonged to a man, a man who would slake them with awoman.

Not a girl.

She clutched at him, her artless sigh giving him breath. Her response both shy and lush. The promise of something more.

This could not be that. This was only a kiss of creation. A promise of something blooming between them. The overture to a symphony of longing he’d compose over time.

I love you.The confession danced behind his lips, and so they remained pressed to hers. This he could not say, not until his evil deed was done. Not until her grief for her brother, such as it was, had finally passed.

Ash would be a good man for her. After this one sin, he’d spend the rest of his life in repentant worship of her. She’d be his savior. His goddess. His life.

And if hell awaited him after death for what he was about to do…

So be it. He’d have lived a lifetime in the heaven of her love.

The earth beneath them trembled with approaching hoofbeats, driving them apart.

She held unsteady fingers to her parted lips, staring at him with eyes brightened by revelations and the whisper of something less angelic than usual.

More carnal.

I love you.The words would not leave his mind, nor his mouth.

Suddenly her expression shifted, an inexplicable anxiety concealing the innocent awe. “Don’t go,” she whispered.

“I must,” he panted, struggling to regain control of his breath.

“But you’ll come back, won’t you?”

“I told you I would.” Impassioned, he clutched at her arm. “Lorelai. There are only two indisputable facts in this world: One, that the sun will set in the west. And two, that I’ll come for you. Always.”

“I just have this feeling—”

Mortimer broke through the mists, nearly knocking them both over on his steed before he reined to a stop. Clenched in his fists were the reins of the nag upon which Ash would ride to Heybridge.

Apparently pleased to ruin their moment, Mortimer sneered at his sister. “You’ll be releasing two pets today, Duck.”

“You’ll both be back tomorrow,” she said, as though comforting herself.

“Let’s get a move on,” Mortimer urged. “I’d hate to missthisappointment.”

Ash caught the reins Mortimer hurled at him, enjoying the displeasure his reflexes caused the man who seemed to suck the air out of any space he occupied, even here in the open, replacing it with derision and dread.

Not anymore. Not after today.