Page 33 of A Dark and Stormy Knight
Dorian’s shoulder leaned against the wall and he crossed one foot in front of the other, a cruel gleam in his dark eye. “All this time I worried you took no other lovers because you were still in love with my wife.”
“Enough.” Morley tossed his whisky back and slammed the empty glass onto the table with a bang loud enough to be heard by the occupants of the floor below them.
For a man who didn’t believe in miracles, he knew he was witnessing one now as they all blinked at him in blessed silence.
Wouldn’t last long, he thought bitterly.
They’d been taciturn villains all, before their women had made them happy.
Happy men never seemed to tire of conversation.
Except Argent, who only spoke when words were absolutely required.
“So angry, Morley,” Dorian tutted. “Struck a nerve?”
Ash tossed a disapproving look over his shoulder at Dorian. “A low blow, Dorian, even for you. We are all of us angry men. It is that anger that drives the best of us to succeed.”
“Au contraire, mon frère,” the Blackheart of Ben More twisted an imaginary villainous mustache, ever unrepentant. “Cunning. Cunning is how we do what needs done.”
“This isn’t a bloody lark, it’s mylife,”Morley grit out from between clenched teeth. “She’s seen me as the Knight of Shadows. We engaged in a scandalous affair for a night. And now she’s down there having quite likely murdered her fiancé and desperate to tell anyone who would listen my secrets.”
“Does she recognize you as the Knight of Shadows?” Argent speared him with a serious gaze.
Morley nodded, feeling distinctly defeated.
“There’s more to this, isn’t there,” Argent stated dryly, narrowing his verdant eyes. “Something you’re not telling us.”
Morley’s head snapped up. There was no way for Argent to know, but the bastard was an infuriating genius when it came to reading other people.
“Is she blackmailing you or something?” the taciturn detective inquired.
Morley shook his head. “Worse. She’s claiming I impregnated her that night.”
At that, all sense of joviality drained from the room as the enormity of the situation pressed the very air into something heavy and dark.
For all their differences, all four of them had something very much in common.
They’d grown up without paternal care. Their fathers had abandoned them at best and tried to murder them at worst.
“Do you have any reason to believe her?” Dorian asked. “Have you seen proof of her condition or is she simply desperate to save her neck?”
“She hired a prostitute,” Ash said carefully. “So, there’s the possibility the father of her child could have been any number of men.”
Morley thought on that, and then violently rejected that notion, voicing the fear he’d had for some weeks now. “I’m not certain she’d ever truly had a lover before me.”
All the men suddenly seemed uncomfortable, but it was Dorian who said, “Well… I mean… there’s an uncomplicated way to tell.”
“Not… the way we… Holy Christ I don’tknow.” Morley buried his hands in his hair and pulled.
“I’m afraid to ask, and yet I find myself anxious to find out,” Argent said as if this surprised him.
Morley sorely wished he could be anywhere else. He couldn’t very well admit that he was so bloody ravenous that he might not have noticed the physical barrier of her virginity.
That her arms were so sweet. Her body so tight, yet welcoming. Her moans might have been pleasure or pain, but her words were nothing but encouraging.
He proceeded carefully. “She wasn’t…experienced, but neither did I notice a… physical impediment. She wasn’t the shy, wilting flower, obviously, she approached me. But, neither was she a vixen. She’d found out about the Earl of Sutherland’s infidelity and was angry at his selfishness. She wanted a lover of her own.”
He didn’t want to give them more. To say how adorable she’d been. And so damnably desirable he’d been on the verge of orgasm the minute they’d kissed. He’d been beneath her skirts as he feasted her to completion and was unable to tell if she were shocked or expectant. Nervous or experienced.
