Page 44 of Greed: The Savage
“Lady Darrow, I am not interested in what you are offering.” Thornwick let his words fall like the verdict they were.
She giggled and squirmed on his lap.
“Oh, you like to deny me, you wicked man. You are such a tease.” She leaned in and whispered into his ear, “It is fine. I am good for any game.”
“This is not a game,” he said, infusing ice into his steely tones. “I do not play games. Not in life, not in bedsport, not in work, not in anything.”
That managed to cool the woman’s ardor.
“Well.” She pushed her lower lip out in a practiced pout. “I simply have to work harder.” Her eyes glittered with a violent lust, indicating just how much she welcomed that challenge.
Silently cursing again, he made to forcibly remove the baroness from his lap when his gaze collided with a figure in the gardens below.
Thornwick blinked slowly.
Christ, he’d had a moment of dread that he’d become as disinterested as a eunuch, until thoughts of Addien brought him to a full cockstand. Now, he feared he was going stark, raving mad, headed to bedlam faster than King George should have been, by none other than the woman he was seeing everywhere.
Addien?
Not just any Addien. Thornwick stared, trying to make the picture in front of him match the woman he knew.
Addien, with her slippers in hand and her hair in a loose, shimmering waterfall that hung about a waist he could span with his hands, taking ajauntin Lady Darrow’s perfumed gardens.
“What in hell…?” he breathed.
As if she felt Thornwick watching and hated him for it, Addien turned back.
Her stricken gaze collided with his.
And he realized what she saw, and what she was likely thinking right now. The time alone he’d granted the baroness hadn’t a thing to do with club business, but instead had been driven by his desire to fuck the wanton widow.
Even with the gulf between them, the force of Addien’s antipathy reached back to Thornwick.
Addien’s gaze cut sharp, as it always did. In those violet depths, hate and resentment gleamed—the kind she always saved for him.
How was it possible from this far away to feel Addien’sdisappointment?
Thornwick stood so quickly, the widow tumbled to the floor with a thump so loud Addien surely heard it from where she stood. She’d already given him a last, disgusted look and marched off.
She’d formed her opinion.Fine. Let her believe what she would.
Except, it wasn’t fine.
Sprinting from the room, Thornwick set out to intercept Addien.
By the time he managed to catch up with her, she’d nearly reached the stable yards, which was ideal as it happened to be where their conveyance was kept. The faster they could leave this place, the better off he’d be.
“Miss Killoran,” he barked, marching more quickly. He was nearly upon her. “Stop this instant.”
Even as he issued that very formal, very gentlemanly delivered directive, he caught Addien’s derisive snort.
Yes, that was right. She’d certainly never respect or respond to that.
“If you don’t want to be sacked, I suggest you turn your arse around, Addien.”
It was a cruel tool to employ and yet the only one Thornwick possessed that he knew would make her halt in her tracks.
She stopped. But she did not face him.
