Page 26 of The Hellion is Tamed

Perfect for a man waiting to be led to the right spots.

He fought the urge to toss her over his shoulder, hide her away in his bedchamber at the top of the stairs and never come up for air. Make her beg for mercy as he prayed for deliverance. As he’d always dreamed.

With a gasping inhalation, the first full breath she’d had in hours, he’d bet, she moved to press the ruined corset and gown against her bosom, gazing over her shoulder with a feral twist of her lips. “You don’t have to look so happy about the obliteration,” she whispered in a ragged voice that told him that she, likely against her will, was affected by both his touchandhis savagery.

Her response revealed much about her in the hazy darkness, things he didn’t want to know.Or use.

Hoping his erection would die a quick death, Simon rocked back on his heels, closing his knife and jamming it in his boot. “Is that any way to talk to the man who just removed you from your torture device?”

Emma yanked a coat from the pile that had fallen to the floor and jammed her arms, one at a time to keep from exposing more of her body to his hungry gaze, through the sleeves. They hung well past her hands, dangling nearly to her waist. “I wager that’s not the first time. Corset removal.”

“With a knife?” He raised a brow when she looked back at him, daring her, challenging himself. “It’s not.”

“You despicable cur!” she spit and shoved to her feet. When she got there, she closed her eyes and braced her hand on the wall for balance. She looked pitiful, the overcoat leagues too large, draped over her shoulders, gathered in a sorrowful heap around her ankles. Her gown a disaster, her cheek and chin smeared with blood. Her skin having paled to the color of chalk, except for the rosy slashes sweeping her cheekbones.

He held himself from going to her, protecting, nurturing, but just barely. A caretaker for haunts since the hour of his birth, he wasn’t volunteering to care forher,too. “Time tracer,” he murmured and deliberately rose to his full height, an intimidating stance. The poker chip was in his hand before he could stop himself from tunneling in his pocket to retrieve it. “Care to tell me about that?”

Emma blinked, her mouth falling into a round, little O he wanted to shut with a kiss that would curl her toes. Bemusement looked marvelous on her.

Simon rotated the chip between his fingers, watching her try to puzzle her way out of her dilemma. “Don’t lie now; it’s too late. I know enough, and you’re going to tell me the rest.”

Emma gave the coat sleeves a brutal roll, exposing delicate wrists and a light sprinkling of hair that glistened in the light. “I don’t owe you my story.”

Simon lobbed the chip in the corner and stepped in, snaking an arm around her waist and dragging her against him. She fit like she’d been made for him. Which, at one time, he’d thought she had. “You damn welldo. I risked my life to saveyours. That, my darling Emma, is payment owed. And as you can see from my booming business in the salon behind us, I know well how to collect.”

She tipped her head, catching his gaze. “Collect, then. Go ahead, Alexander. Do your worst. Take your payment. I dare you.”

His hand roamed her back, curling possessively around the nape of her neck. Her skin was flushed, slightly moist, her scent, lavender this day, circling, entrapping. She smelled like the duchess’s soaps, every last one of them. A new scent every day, driving him mad with desire. And anticipation. “You’d love that, wouldn’t you? Make me lose what I’m about.” The words came out harsher than he’d intended, more truthful, closer to the bone.Damn her.

Her lashes lowered, quivering, her tongue coming out to wet her bottom lip. “With all your women, how could a gutter rat from the Hamlets possibly make you lose what you’re about?”

Simon’s resolve splintered.

She was too tempting. His fascination too real.

Her eyes blazing, goading when he wasn’t a man to be goaded. Her warm breath struck his cheek as he stood there debating, the scent of mint rolling off her tongue to tangle around his. A darkened cloakroom and the sounds of a gaming hell sliding into the background.

One kiss…

How much could one kiss change?

And wasn’t a kiss what he’d always wanted from her?

He didn’t think, question, strategize. He simply acted. Hand rising to cradle her jaw, fingers plunging into her hair, tilting her head andtaking. Simon caught her against him, his lips capturing hers, dragging her almost off her feet.

The contact bursting with everything he’d denied every other woman.

He kissed Emma like it was the only time, the last time, his onechance. Like she’d returned instead of leaving and wrecking his heart.

He kissed her like it was forever.

Chapter 9

Devastating.

The thought circled Emma’s mind that she’d been waiting for this kiss her entire life. A horrifying thought. Simon wasn’t hers, wouldneverbe hers.

So she should let him go.