Page 86 of Just About a Rake
But only if he didn’t keep his wits about him.
He was still a rake.
Hardened.
Flickering light illuminated the room in a soft orange glow. Illuminatingherin a soft orange glow.
“I want to kiss you.” Christ, he was holding on by a thread, but he also didn’t want to make any sudden moves.
She laughed, and a slender arm reached out to him. “So kiss me.”
He placed his hand in hers, jolting when a sizzling spark exploded between them. His calm shattered. His lips found hers right about the moment his chest burst into a flurry of wild, unforgivable beats—half panic and half daze.
His tongue coaxed hers while his mind and his heart battled each other.
Dear God, had he developed feelings for her? Feelings that poets would start with aLand end with anE?
No, Dare couldn’t accept such a thing. And yet he couldn’t stop wanting her. She called forth emotions inside him he had believed long dead.
It was intoxicating.
He pulled away from her, breaking their kiss, searching her face. His whole body erupted in flames at her unfocused countenance. They had no future. A man like him... He could not give her what a woman like her deserved—happiness. Forlife. Even if he could give her all of it, all of himself, it would be a broken fragment, the last shard left of a long line of broken Dare men. Nothing in him was whole. Nothing in him deserved her.
Hedidn’t deserve her.
If he had any moral scruples left in him, he would walk away. Walk away and never turn his head to her again. But even while he didn’t deserve her, neither could he resist her.
Hell and damnation.
What should he do?
Ravage her without regret.And whatever flutters pushed against his chest, he would keep to himself. He had no qualms about asking his heart to suffer in silence. He was used to it. Yearning, longing for something he didn’t understand—it was second nature.
“Dare?”
Yes. “Call me Rake.”
She hesitated only a fraction of a second before she murmured, smiling, “Rake.”
His name on her lips. God save him, there lay the trouble. The simple sound of it—his name, from her—had the power to undo everything he was trying to keep together. His lips found hers again, pouring into the kiss all the things he would never, ever speak out loud.
He loved her.
Dear God, he loved her.
He loved her so damn much. But being the man that he was, his moral compass about good and bad was skewed at best. Even if she pleaded for his affection, begged for his responsibility, noble sacrifice was not within his scope of being.
He was no hero.
Would never be.
Her hands found his face. Dare almost growled when she pulled back and breathed, “Your turn.”
His turn?
She grinned at him, planting a soft kiss on his lips before drawing back again. “Say my name.”
“Leonora.” Her name left his lips before he could stop himself. “Leonora.”
