Page 19 of The Hellion is Tamed

“And you’re askin’ the same of me, this transformation. Emmaline Breslin, forgotten cousin of a duke made from a meager chit from Tower Hamlets.”

His mahogany gaze circled the ballroom before returning to her, his face serious, solemn. His sincerity struck a chime deep within her because very few people in her life, even while telling her things she didn’t want to hear, had been sincere. “Yes, I’m asking the same of you.”

Say it, Emma. No reason to hold back when he knows.“Are you ever going to forgive me for leaving? Would it be easier, us working together, if you did? If I tell you I tried to come back, take it at that. Then we never speak of it. My word is good.” She couldn’t open her heart again, not after he’d destroyed it with that daft countess and the hundreds of others. Not waiting for her, which was a pointless bundle of feminine nonsense anyway.

But maybe they could befriends.

Emma would remember Simon’s frank response for the rest of her days, endearing him to her in a soulful way she’d never be able to eradicate. A splinter buried so profoundly it eventually became a part of you. “I don’t know, Emmaline Breslin. But I’m going to try.”

She bowed her head as a shiver of awareness glided along her skin. His scent drifted to her, soap and some spice she rarely smelled in the rookery. The mint he used on his teeth. The urge to close her eyes and travel to another time was almost stronger than the urge to step into his arms and beg him to hold her. Never leave her,takeher. But she’d left the swish stone under her pillow, and God knows where she’d end up without it. Maybe in the middle of a Scottish winter again, which had beenhorrid. This new life, the League’s offer, right now, for themoment, she reckoned she was going to accept.

Holding out her hand in the upmarket way the duchess had shown her, Emma tipped her chin, also just so. “Thank you. I would love to dance, Mister Alexander.”

Simon glanced at her hand, bare because she’d brought onlyhisgloves to the parlor in hopes of returning them. Instead, she gave her fingers a wiggle, no way to change what was, the thought of dancing with him, her body tucked against him, making her jumpy. They looked to his gloves resting in a tumble on the side table, then back to each other.

Now or never.

Pausing, he tapped his boot, catching the tempo of the duke’s melody. “I suggest gloves for the real thing. The waltz is intimate enough without added temptation,” he whispered, then swept her into his arms.

And the world disintegrated until it was only theirs and theirs alone.

Chapter 6

She could dance.

Emmaline Breslin, Regency time traveler from the London Borough of Tower Hamlets, could dance. True, she’d stepped on his toes. Twice. And Simon had to keep negotiating control, a gentle squeeze of her hand to remind her,follow, don’t lead. Too, she didn’t get the four-step rhythm at first, turning as they whirled into their first rotation one way when he wanted her to go another…

But. She. Could. Move.

Dancing with her, even with the minor blunders, was effortless. She was fluid, willing to change course, direction, on a penny. She trusted him. In the ballroom, if nowhere else. There was a…flexibilityto her form—he couldn’t think of another word that worked as well—that he hadn’t encountered. By the time he swept her into the fourth turn, she had the steps down, her gaze cast over his shoulder, not at her feet, her attention entirely focused.

And he was mesmerized.

The scent of rosemary and lemon drifting from her skin, mingling seductively with the floral bite from the vases lining the outer edge of the ballroom, was beginning to adversely affect his rhythm. As well, there were other distractions. That tantalizing birthmark, really more a freckle, on her cheek. Her bottom lip glazed from where she chewed on it as she concentrated on her steps. Her breasts bumping his chest with each turn he guided her through. Their thighs linked as they maneuvered the measures in a way usually reserved for horizontal bed play. Which, once he pictured Emma beneath him, even for one, hot second, he couldn’tnotconsider.

The image sending his cock into the perilous situation of becomingknown.

He wondered how she would do, letting some smitten toff handle her beneath these very chandeliers in two weeks during a fete meant to deceive society into thinking she was one of them. He’d have liked to waltz with her then, before all of London, a possessive assertion, which would never occur. Dancing with a viscount’s byblow, even should the byblow be invited, which he would be, would not further her cause.

Two, he wasn’t about to claim this woman ever again.

It wasn’t his fault, entirely, if he imagined crawling atop her and sliding inside, nestling his body to hers without a lick of clothing between them. Without secrets and mystical gifts and betrayal between them. He couldn’t help himself. Not with her unique fragrance overpowering his senses, her devastating eyes daring him in ways he dreaded and sought.

It was more memory than fantasy.

In bed. Laughing, teaching, learning. Moist skin and tangled limbs…everything he wanted to share and nothing he would. Allowing Simon MacDermot to enter the erotic dance, more destructive than a mere waltz. Cold lust, everything he’d previously experienced.

Simon Alexander was all anyone was getting.

A man for sale.

The duke’s melody intensified as Simon swirled Emma through a chandelier’s golden puddle, a storm having descended beyond the floor-to-ceiling windows, casting the ballroom in silhouette.

A storm had also descended in him, a bleakness he well recognized.

Emma stared as if she knew. As if sheunderstood. Her indigo eyes pulling him in. Making him want. Yearn.Hunger. For the girl who’d stepped into his life and made him believe she was his.

When all he’d learned was, the things you hungered for were the things youlost.