Page 23 of Dangerous Exile

His left eyebrow cocked. “Love her?”

Ness nodded. “Juliet. How could you not?”

His lips pursed for a moment. “Aye, I suppose I do. I love her as the sister I never had, as family.”

Her forehead wrinkled. “You never wanted to be with her?”

“Bed her?” His head shook. “No, Juliet is worth far more to me as a friend than a bed partner. I respect her too much.”

Her mouth opened as though she was about to say something, but the words stalled. It took her a moment of staring at him before she continued. “So, the women you do bed—you don’t respect them?”

“How do you come by that conclusion?”

“I…” She shrugged.

Did he respect the women he bedded? Debatable. He kept his mouth clamped shut.

Her cheeks pinkened. “I…I just think that makes it wise for me to be your friend.”

Talen took a swallow of his brandy and set it down on the sideboard. He turned back to her, a wicked gleam in his eye. “Usually, my friends offer me something in return, but you, dear Ness, have only taken thus far.”

The insult hung between them, thickening the air for several pulsing seconds.

Until Ness jumped up from the chair, slamming the teacup down along the edge of the side table to break it, and then she ran at him, swinging the sharp shard of the porcelain still in her hand at his head.

With a laugh, he ducked. Baiting Ness was too easy. And he liked her angry. Coming at him.

He caught her elbow high in the air and twisted her arm outward as he wrapped his left arm around her waist and yanked her body hard onto the length of him.

With a fiery growl she wrenched her torso awkwardly to look up at him. Their faces only an inch apart, their hot breath entwined for far too long of a moment.

Excruciating.

The devil himself testing him—her body shifting against the front of him, the blasted scent of apricots in his nose, lips that screamed to be devoured.

Her mouth parted with an intake of breath as her amber eyes went wide. Wide, like she’d just seen down to the carnal core of him. Wide, like she wanted to explore that carnal darkness ready to escape.

All it would take was the slightest move of his head and her lips would be his. Tasting her. Molding her body to his. Dragging his hands down to the perfect mounds of her breasts.

But no.

No.

She was too wounded. Too married. Too much trouble that he didn’t need.

Juliet had known that.

Protect her. That was all.

He jerked his head back, dropping his hands from her waist and wrist as he stabbed a step away. He forced another chuckle to cover all that he’d just imagined doing to her body. “Good, I like to see the fire in you when you’re mad. Your angry swings are much better than your usual puny strikes.”

A screech and she swung the shard of the teacup at his head again. He dodged it, jumping toward the fireplace and kicking up feathers.

The shard of the teacup high and aimed at him, she stalked him. “The one thing I can bring you, you don’t want.” She struck, the sharp edge of the broken porcelain nicking his ear.

His hand flicked up to his ear and then he looked at his fingertips. Blood. The minx had made contact. He looked to her. “Which is?”

“Your past.”

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