The Blood of a Baron - K.J. Jackson Page 0,19

they were half brown—so I could cut them?”

He shrugged. “I do now.”

Her head tilted down and she stilled. Asleep, just like that.

Wes stared down at the top of her head, at the blond strands loose and falling across his chest. All his nerves twitching alert for the words she had just spoken. Words that shook him to his core.

He hadn’t realized.

Hadn’t thought about those moments in years.

Hadn’t a clue that he’d bought the house for the view into the square and there had been a blasted row of lilacs in front of him the whole time.

Of course there had been. They’d been in bloom at the same damn time he bought the house.

Stupid.

Ignoring the very thing in front of him.

His body tensed under her.

Stupid bringing her back here. Stupid what he’d just let happen.

The exact opposite of everything he’d had planned for her.

His eyes closed, his head shaking.

At least he had all night to steel his spine against her.

He needed to break her, and break her soon or he’d never be able to be free of her. Get the box and get out of her life for good.

Tomorrow.

With any luck, tomorrow would be the day.

{ Chapter 9 }

Laney rustled atop him and Wes awoke, though he kept his eyes closed, his breathing even.

A pause in her movements as she hovered over him, and then she delicately extracted her limbs from his body and moved off the settee.

Bare feet padding about the floor. Another pause in the sound. Swishing of skirts.

The heel of one boot clunked softly to the floor. The other boot on and she tiptoed out of the room.

Wes remained still, feigning sleep until her steps disappeared down the hall and he heard the front door open and click closed.

He opened his eyes, moving through the house to the front drawing room and looking out the window without stopping to put his shirt on.

She’d crossed over to the square, her black muslin skirts swinging as she quickly made her way along the pathway that led to Bruton Street.

She’d left before the day’s promised animosity could rear.

Smart.

But he hadn’t had the stomach for it either. Not yet. Not this early.

He’d thought he could fester his hatred for her throughout the night—be haunted by the dreams that always sent him tossing about, rage with no outlet. All he usually had to do to conjure the rage was concentrate on the very second—the moment in time—he realized her betrayal. Then move onto the moments directly after when his world fell apart around him until it was nothing. Until he was reduced to nothing.

Dreams he didn’t have that night.

He’d fallen asleep before he could reignite the hatred that had sustained him all these years, her warm body atop him lulling him into serenity he hadn’t known since that last night they’d been together.

Idiotic, what he’d let happen last night.

He couldn’t afford any softness where Laney was involved. It’d be the last thing he’d do—walking down that path again of having her—trusting her.

His mouth pulling tight, Wes spun from the front window, walking back into the library to collect his clothes.

An hour, maybe two, and he’d be ready to face her again.

Let her make her way to her townhouse. Let her think she was alone again.

Then he could strike.

~~~

He was torturing her.

He hadn’t denied it, and she was now positive that was his goal. Torture her. Make her pay for all she’d destroyed.

Laney wedged open the door to the study in her family’s London townhouse, kicking aside papers at her toes. She had mounds of papers to scour and the only thing that filled her brain at the moment was where Wes’s touch had seared her last night.

He meant to torture her by making her feel things that should be long dead and buried.

And if last night was any indication, he was willing to go to great lengths to do so. Highly suspect lengths.

Not that the knowledge had sent her hand upward to stop him. Not that she had even murmured a single word of resistance to where his hands had been.

No. She had wanted it.

Wanted his hands on her, wanted to feel just a glimpse of what they had once shared. What she had never been able to move on from.

No matter how torturous last night was.

She had wanted it.

Her body betraying her full and through. She’d fallen so easily—without giving the past and all that Wes had done to her a margin of consideration.

That weakness ended today. It had to.

She had to