Page 34 of The Hellion is Tamed

“Ludicrous drivel.” His flash of emotion sent a shudder through her belly, her thighs, weakening her knees and making her long to touch him. “No one, that’s who. I’m not marrying. Ever. Finn, JulianandSebastian, the Duke of Ashcroft, each have a child who has inherited a supernatural gift from their parents. Do you imagine I would want thatagony?” With a muttered oath, he grasped her shoulders and hauled her against him. “Well, Idon’t. I have enough people to protect without children I adore being added to the jumble.”

The puncture of affection beneath her breastbone was razor-sharp, taking her breath. Settling her hand alongside his jaw, she tipped his head down. Brought his lips to hers. “Simon,” she murmured against his mouth, having no idea what she was pleading for. Perhaps simply an end to his anguish. Her tongue flicked out, a languid sweep over his bottom lip. She felt his surrender as his body sagged, leaning over and into her, his arms sliding around her, tightening their hold amid the crush of their bodies.

Simon glanced over his shoulder into a far, dark corner. “Leave us, Henry,” he snarled, then dragged her against him, his lips capturing hers.

She melted into the kiss, her thoughts dissolving into London’s viscous brume. His hand rose, cradling her face, slanting her head and perfecting a fit she’d thought already flawless. His touch resonated like the clamor of a bell through her soul, ripples of desire dancing along her skin.

Then, it changed, the kiss going from tentative to seeking, calamitous. Shattering her self-control and her heart. Her breasts flattened against his chest, her nipples peaking, tender points of awareness in a body catching fire as he continued to claim her. Her hand tracked up his chest, over his shoulder and into the thick hair at the nape of his neck. Tugging the strands, she sighed into his mouth, a sign of acquiescence.

Groaning, he spun them around, pressing her against the column. “Tell me to stop, Emma,” he whispered against her mouth, then plunged back in before she could speak. His arm circled her waist, his lips molding hers as he deepened the kiss. Taking more, more,more. Turning her inside out, until she felt reborn, a raw mass of sensation.

Shaken, she curled her hand around his hip to keep from stumbling. Time, her gift and her curse, suspended, holding steady as it never had before. Without a plan, she tumbled into the marvel of an unhinged Simon Alexander.

An unhinged Emma Breslin. Drunk on yearning and recognition.

When she’d never felt more herself in her life.

Kissing his way down her jaw, he halted at the curve of neck and shoulder, releasing a hot breath that skated deliciously across her skin. The hand at her waist lowered, tunneling beneath her bustle and curving over her bottom. Then, with a strangled, hungry moan and a shift she felt to her core, Simon brought her up and against his hard length. His lips returned to seize hers, his tongue inviting her in playful, toe-curling enticement. Her fingers were tangled in his hair, her hand kneading his hip through layers of clothing, fighting the urge to slide center and down, reach his trouser close, free his cock to her pursuing touch.

“Simon,” she whispered, voice tortured, sentiment laid bare. Nothing to hide, nothing shecouldhide.

He wrenched back enough for her to see his face. His eyes. Wild, a deep, murky brown surrounded by that startling ring of violet. Opposing forces, those colors, one tranquil, one savage.

With a sigh she knew meant he wasthinking, Simon’s hold on her loosened, his connection unraveling second by second.

She dropped her hand to his chest and shoved him back, completing the separation. “You’re not afraid of the heat, the passion, but any emotion coming with it scares the life from you. So I understand what you mean about the women being nothing. Because you neverfeltanything. And, now, I think you do.”

His lips flattened, a muscle in his jaw tensing. Not pleased, but not arguing, either.

A knot of emotion backed up in Emma’s throat at his lack of effort tokeepher. In any way, shape or form. She stepped back. “This is useless. I’ll—”

“This performance sheds light on why you’re skipping through time like a rabbit, Miss Breslin. For some curious reason, because of it, I’ll enjoy returning you even more.”

Emma turned with a gasp, recognizing the threat and the voice.

Simon grasped her arm and shoved her behind him. “Bloodyhell, Emma. You didn’t tell me the tracer is Hargrave.”

“I didn’t know.”Hargrave. The journalist who’d been sticking his nose in Simon’s business was her tracer. The bastard who’d been chasing her for years through time. Simon and his brothers thought the reporter’s interest was the Blue Moon when it appeared it was much more than merely infiltrating a gaming hell.

He must have known about the League, about their supernatural society, about everything.

Hargrave stepped out of the shadows and into the moonlight, his knee-length cape swirling around him. Tall and gaunt, an untrimmed beard covering his face, ebony slashes beneath his golden eyes, he looked determined. And exhausted. She’d often thought, if not for his ability to render her senseless with a touch, she could’ve fought him and won. “Alexander, we meet again,” he said and nodded to Simon. “Now, why do I think you’re going to disagree about handing her over? She’s already caused one disturbance in this time, altered a young woman’s reality. Did you think I wouldn’t know about that?”

Simon’s voice dropped so low she had to struggle to hear it. “When I say run, take my hand and run. Don’t think,run.” Then, he turned his attention back to their nemesis without missing a beat. “You’ve laid a keen wager, Hargrave. Because Iamgoing to disagree about handing her over. We’ve been waiting for you. Hoping you’d step into the light, where we could have a fine look at you.”

“Ah, your League, is it?” Hargrave took a stumbling step forward, a crooked smile tilting his lips. A gust caught his cape and sent it shooting like a dusky vapor behind him. “I have a job to do, Alexander. Or, what was it in the rookery days, before a viscount stepped in to liberate you from your deprived existence? MacDermot? See, I grew up in Spitalfields, not ten streets away from your grubby hole. In the 1740s, though. Strangely enough, I heard about you before I ever arrived in your time, whisperings in the occult world while I traveled through it. About a boy with enchanted hands, a devil who could filch a jewel off Victoria’s crown while it sat perched atop her head. A boy the deceased sheltered. A boy who sheltered the deceased. You’re legendary in our bizarre sector for having a foot, much as time travelers do, planted in dual realities.”

Simon rolled his shoulders and laughed, a sound frosty enough to send a chill down her spine. “The circumstances of my birth and removal from St Giles matter not. You’re welcome to my secrets, but you’re not welcome to the girl.”

Hargrave shook his head sadly, gave a half-hearted shrug, then rushed them in a move no one expected. Although Simon was bigger, leagues stronger, and from what she’d seen, well-trained in hand-to-hand combat, Hargrave had a gift for casting spells. Knocking people off their feet with a simple touch.

When his knuckle grazed Simon’s chest, Simon went to his knees with a pained curse that rang through the night.

Emma walked backward across the veranda as Hargrave advanced on her. He crooked his finger, his teeth a sallow glint in the darkness. “Come, dear heart. Your dire predicament in 1802 isn’t my responsibility. Returning you to itis. I only follow what must be. I can’t be bothered with whatis.”

Hargrave tracked the look she directed at Simon as he struggled to rise, the tracer’s expression souring. “I see what’s in your eyes, darling, even if your thieving lover can’t. You want me to render him senseless for the rest of his days? Then fight me on this. Challenge your destiny, and we’ll see where that lands us. Landshim.”

Desire and regret an unbridled pulse beneath her skin, Emma surrendered without a battle.