Page 40 of Loving a Beast of a Marquess
“Do you regret finding out about my father?” she asked. “Or are you perhaps avoiding me because you regret everything that took place between us?”
His face slackened with shock, and she cursed herself. She should have found a more delicate way to approach the matter. Because if he told her now that he regretted everything that took place between them, she was not sure she would be able to remember how to breathe.
“Is that what you think?” he demanded, his voice hoarse. “You think I am avoiding you because Iregretwhat happened?”
“What other reason can there be?”
He came closer, footsteps crunching on the gravel. They were hidden from the house at this angle, and she found herself trembling, wishing more than she had wished for anything in her life, that he would kiss her again.
“Knowing what I know now about your father,” he said gently, standing close enough that hecouldtouch her if he wanted although that was clearly not his design as he made no effort to, “I could not take advantage of you.”
“Take advantage?”
“I’m your guardian, Evangeline.”
“You are not my guardian until the will is read, and everything is properly settled,” she hissed. “As for taking advantage of me—do I not have my own mind? Can I not make my own choices?”
His eyes, as he looked down at her, were too blue, too bright. “And if you could, what would those choices entail?”
The air between them became taut. If she had been asked to put her feelings into words, she would not have known how. All she knew was that she missed the way he had looked at her in the library. She craved him in a way she had never craved anything before.
It was an itch. A temporary addiction she had fallen into after the death of her father. Like any itch, it needed scratching.
Her stomach tightened as she stepped forward, so close to him now that her chest lightly brushed his, and even that slight friction sent shivers of sensation through her.
“Can you not guess what I want?” she whispered, tipping her head back so she looked up at him. “When you have shown me a world I never knew existed. I—”
He kissed her, his mouth rough and hard against hers, swallowing her words before she had a chance to utter them. His lips were commanding, seeking, eager, and she was no less eager to offer herself to him.
This was what she had craved: that sense of closeness, of beingwantedthat he had shown her. She slid her hands underneath his jacket, toying with the edge of the waistcoat and up to where his cravat encircled his neck. There, she found skin, and she traced it, drawing her nails along his throat until he laughed, harsh and desperate, into her mouth.
“I told myself I would not succumb to impulse,” he said, even as his arms encircled her, pressing her against him tightly enough so that she could feel the press of that rod against her stomach. And oh—she wanted to explore it more. She wanted to understand what made it throb against her, and what made it appear. She wanted to understand his body the way he already appeared to understand hers.
“Why resist?” She slid her hands to the back of his neck and pulled him back down to meet her. “You see, I do not.”
He swore roughly and kissed her again, his tongue sweeping into her mouth and claiming her the same way his fingers had claimed her once before. The sheer want of it pooled between her legs, and she pressed her thighs together as though she could contain the feeling. But as he palmed her breast, he drew a moan from her even as she turned her attention to the buttons on his waistcoat.
In his bedchamber, he had been utterly naked, and she wanted to see that again. Last time, she hadn’t appreciated it; this time, she wanted to take her time. To savor him. Perhaps if she did that, this aching need would dissipate.
This would be the last time, she told herself, knowing it was a lie even as she exposed her throat to his mouth. When he licked from her chin to her collarbones, she shivered.
“You are a goddess,” he murmured as he kissed down across her chest until she was certain he must be able to feel the pounding of her heart, “and you can have no idea of how much I want you.”
“Zachary—”
“But a garden is not the right place for this,” he said, pressing one final kiss on the swell of her breast and looking back into her face. His hair was mussed—was she the one to have done that?—and his cheeks were flushed. His eyes held her attention the most, however. They glowed with the same heat and desire and hunger that rampaged through her, leaving her almost breathless. “Much as I wish I could take you here, it wouldn’t be right.”
“Of all times for you to gain a conscience, this is the most inconvenient.”
He chuckled again. “Believe it or not, I have always had a conscience.”
Frustrated, irritated, she skated a hand down her chest to the bulge in his breeches. She stroked her fingers along its length, glorying in the way it twitched under her touch and the way his breath caught, his eyes half closing.
“If you don’t stop, I won’t be able to,” he said, catching her wrists and holding them away from him.
Evangeline looked up at him, leaning against his chest once more. His gaze dropped to her breasts, flushed where he had kissed them, and back to her face. “I said nothing about wanting you to stop,” she said. “Why must we when it feels so good?”
He groaned and strode away from her, running his hands through his hair. “Good God, you havenoidea how close I am to losing control.”
