Page 54 of To Catch A Rogue

And shuddering at the thought of how close he'd come to giving in to the hunger inside him.

* * *

Lark slammedthe door to her bedchamber behind her, unable to stop trembling. She'd fled from him in only a towel, grateful everyone else must have been asleep, including the servants snoring in their chambers.

Her lips were soft and swollen, and the pit in her lower abdomen ached mercilessly.

He'dkissedher.

Charlie had kissed her, and somehow she knew she'd never be the same.

"Don't be a fool," she whispered, pacing the room and searching for her bloody nightgown. "This is wrong. This is reckless. You can't afford to forget yourself right now."

Dragging her nightgown on did little to still the racing beat of her heart—she wanted to go back down there and throw caution to the wind and take everything Charlie had been offering, even if it was only for one night.

Lark stared at herself in the mirror, capturing her own gaze.

Stormy eyes, glazed with desire.

Grigoriev eyes.

Lark closed them.

"I know you inside and out,"he'd said.

But he didn't. He didn't know a damned thing about her. Lark was merely a creation, a mask.

She'd spent years in Whitechapel easing into her new life. At first she'd never stopped looking over her shoulder for the blue bloods that had killed her family, but when Charlie arrived in her life, she'd begun to relax.

She'd lost herself in being a young girl, challenging Charlie to races over the rookery rooftops, and laughing as she dunked him in the river. Being with Charlie made her forget the past. It made her forget everything. She'd felt like a normal girl with a normal life ahead of her.

For the first time in years, she'd lost the haunted, ever-watchful feeling that dogged her every step. Though her nightmares hadn't disappeared altogether, sometimes she dreamed of lying on a rooftop arguing over the shapes they saw in clouds instead, or waking up on her birthday only to be chased by Charlie in a pink nightrobe. Silly, carefree dreams, like the kind she'd had before she turned seven.

She'd been happy.

And happy meant careless.

"Be careful,"Tin Man had told her one night after a particularly foolish escapade earned them both a thrashing from Blade.

At first she'd thought he was warning her to stop creating havoc in the Warren. Blade ruled the rookeries with an iron hand, but he was lenient when it came to members of his own family.

Unless they stepped too far over the line....

"I know you feel safe here,"Tin Man signed, his entire expression mournful."I don't want to take that away from you. But you can't afford to draw the wrong sort of attention. The stunt you and Charlie pulled today? It's got people talking. People outside the rookeries. I know you think throwing that screamer into the heart of Kowalski home territory was funny as hell, but the Kowalski gang's allied with the Orlov Eagles. You cannot afford to bring them sniffing around."

It seemed so unfair. Nobody should recognize her.

She'd been almost seven when Irina Grigoriev "died" in a horrific fire. Who would recognize the girl she'd become?

But she wasn't the one who was memorable.

A man with no tongue, a hook for a hand and a set of iron lungs?

That was the sort of thing people might ask questions about.

And it was precisely rumors like that, which might draw the men hunting them down upon them.

"I promise I'll be more careful," she'd told Tin Man, squeezing his scarred knuckles. He'd given up so much for her. The least she could do was try not to draw too much attention.