The Last Time We Met - By Lily Lang Page 0,10

piercingly aware of her surroundings. The ticking of the ormolu clock on the mantelpiece, the reflection of firelight in the cravat pin Jason wore, the warmth of his hands against her skin, had all taken on a sharp and consuming clarity.

He placed his hand beneath her chin, forcing her to look into his face. “It’s very simple,” he said. “I will save your brother. I will protect him, and you, and restore Thornwood Hall to you. But in exchange, I want you.”

She looked steadily at him. His eyes were very dark.

“You want me for your mistress, in return for saving William,” she said, and it was not a question. She could not possibly mistake his meaning.

“It would be a fair exchange,” he said.

She closed her eyes, knowing what she should say, knowing how she should feel. She was gently born and bred, the daughter of a viscount, and she ought to be shocked, and outraged, and horrified.

But she was no hypocrite, and the only emotion she felt was pain, and beneath the pain a flicker of yearning too strong to be ignored or extinguished. He would save William. He would help her. She need only agree to be his mistress. To be his. Outside of wedlock, outside the boundaries of what was proper, in defiance of what was proscribed by man and God.

But she would be his.

She drew a shallow breath. “All right,” she said.

She was not prepared for his reaction.

His head jerked back; his hands tightened painfully on her flesh. “All right?” he repeated with disbelief. “All right? That’s it?”

She stared up at him. He looked at her with so much rage and hatred she took an involuntary step back.

“I see. You intend to be the sacrificial lamb. You are so desperate to save your brother you will do whatever I ask. Even this. Goddamn it, Miranda,” he whispered raggedly, “don’t you have an honest bone in your body?”

She stared uncomprehendingly up at him, and he reached for her again, but this time, his hands and his mouth on her were hard and painful. His fingers reached into the loose neckline of her dress and closed roughly around her left breast, and he dropped his head to nip at the sensitive skin of her shoulder.

“Please,” she gasped. “You’re hurting me.”

He lifted his head again, still holding her, and she gazed up at him, unable to breathe, unable to save herself.

“Do you hate me so much?” she whispered.

For a moment his grasp slackened. Then he dropped his hands from her altogether and took two steps back, leaving her standing cold and alone by the window, the bodice of her borrowed gown fallen nearly to her waist. The way he eyed her naked breasts and shoulders made her flush hot with embarrassment.

“Of course not, Miss Thornwood,” he said. The rage was gone. His face was once again a cool, blank mask. “I don’t hate you at all, my dear. I was only curious. I wanted to know if you really were worth two years in the hulks.”

The barely veiled contempt in his eyes, the silky tone of his voice, was crueler than a blow. Though he made no move to touch her again, his rage and hatred was a palpable thing.

Miranda, who had never been afraid of this man before, was afraid of him now. She flinched, struggling to right the flimsy material of her bodice. But she managed to find her voice again before he could reach the door.

“You will help William?” she asked.

He did not turn. “I’ll keep my part of the bargain,” he said. “Will you keep yours?”

Jason let himself into his darkened office once again. His shattering loss of control shook him to the core. He had never hurt a woman in his life, but when Miranda had looked up at him like some kind of virgin sacrifice, her eyes huge and shadowed in her thin white face, his hatred had become such a pulsing, living thing that in that moment he had only wanted to punish her, to give her back some measure of the pain she had caused him.

When he had first seen her drying her hair by the fire, she had looked so fragile, the ill-fitting gown nearly slipping off her too-thin shoulders and revealing the edges of her small breasts. Her unbearable vulnerability had aroused all his old protective instincts toward her, but he could not forget what she had done to him.

He could not reconcile his conflicting desires, to hurt her and