The Last Time We Met - By Lily Lang Page 0,9

his large, warm, ungloved hands on her neck, lifting the heavy mass of her hair aside. His breath was warm against the sensitive skin of her shoulders.

“Why?”

Dazed, confused, she stared at their hazy reflections in the rain-splattered glass.

“Why what?”

“Why should I help you?”

“What do you mean, why should you help me?” she asked, staring at his reflection uncomprehendingly. “They will hang him if you do not! You were fond of him once. You knew him when he was a child.”

And you knew me once, she wanted to say. You trusted me.

You loved me.

“That was a long time ago,” said Jason. “I’m afraid that’s not enough.”

“What do you want, then?” she whispered.

“Maybe I still want what I couldn’t have all those years ago,” he said. “You.”

His hands were on her shoulders, turning her toward him. She looked up into his harsh, expressionless face, the face she had once known better than her own. Her heart pounded so hard her blood was a low, dull roar in her ears. He brushed his thumb across her left cheekbone, leaving a trail of sensation. She drew a ragged breath.

“I want you, Miranda,” he said. “In my bed. And on the floor. And anywhere else I can think of.”

A wave of heat swept through her at the sound of his low, rasping tone. The words should scandalize and appall her, she ought to respond with indignation, and scorn, and offended pride. But she could recall no words of outraged virtue. She only stood there, her fingers shaking uncontrollably as she gripped the material of his evening coat.

It was not what he had said, or even the touch of his hand on her skin, that made her tremble so violently. It was the look in his eyes.

He lowered his head and kissed her.

For a moment she stood frozen in the circle of his arms, lost in a maelstrom of agony and longing so intense she thought she would die of it. Ten years had passed since Jason Blakewell had kissed her, but she had not forgotten a single nuance, a single sensation. How many nights had she tossed and turned, dreaming he was kissing her thus? How many days had she survived only by remembering the way his arms had felt around her? And now it was happening again. He was kissing her, holding her, his hands gentle on her skin, his mouth soft against hers, and Miranda, without thought, without volition, wrapped her arms around his neck and kissed him back.

He did not love her anymore. Whatever youthful passion he’d once cherished for her had died long ago, by her father’s hand and her own. He would not help William if she did not agree to give herself to him.

Some part of her even understood. He wanted to punish her father. He wanted to punish her, he wanted to hurt her, he wanted to destroy her. He wanted to prove once and for all, in claiming what had been denied to him when he was friendless and impecunious, he had left that other self behind forever.

Her every instinct for self-preservation screamed the obvious at her. It was not love, or even affection, that drove him now. Something darker and far crueler had aroused his passion, and she would find no safety in the arms that had once protected her from the world.

But he was here. He was warm and real and alive beneath her hands, and she had dreamed of him so often, had missed him for so long, her mind could not seem to reconcile all the long years of hopeless yearning with the reality of his kiss. She drew closer to him and the heat of his body surrounded her, warming her frozen limbs, warming her very heart.

She had no defenses against him.

She licked at his mouth, as he had taught her ten years before, and he made a sound in his throat and pulled her tight against him. She pressed closer, running her hands over the planes of his chest, wanting to tear open his shirt so she could nuzzle at the skin beneath.

But before she could reach for his cravat, he lifted his head a fraction and looked down at her through slitted eyes.

“Well, Miranda?” he asked, his voice passionless, as though they had been doing nothing more exciting than sipping tea for the past twenty minutes.

“Well, what?” she whispered against the warm skin of his throat. She had trouble gathering her thoughts, but at the same time she was strangely,