for purchase as she tried to pull him even closer. His tongue speared past her lips, tasting her, exploring her, sucking her, teasing her. All she could do was surrender, softening beneath his touch as her entire body began to throb with a need she hadn’t felt for years.
A need she recognized, despite the long separation from it. She wanted him to do more than kiss her. Right here in the library in the home she’d once shared with his best friend. With her husband.
And that thought tore through her mind and she yanked back.
“Cav,” she whispered against his still-seeking lips. “Cav. Cavendish!”
He pulled away and took a long step back. His blue eyes were dilated to almost pure black, and his hands shook as he shoved them to his sides. They were silent for what felt like an eternity, each looking at the other, the weight of what they’d done hanging between them.
“I’m sorry,” he finally said, “if I did something you didn’t want.”
She caught her breath. That was the worst part of all of this, in the end. It was something she wanted. She’d wanted him to kiss her, she’d taken enthusiastic part when he did. There was no lack of consent here. And that was wrong. But it felt so right.
“You shouldn’t be sorry,” she managed to croak out. “You did nothing wrong.”
He arched a brow at her, as if challenging her to go further down that path. But she couldn’t. Not right now when her head was spinning.
“I should—I should go,” she gasped. “I shouldn’t be here.”
His shoulders rolled forward and his full lips, the ones she knew the feel of now, pursed and went white and flat. “As you wish. I would not keep you.”
She paused, waiting for him to say something, anything. To make this right, just as he’d been making everything right for her for the last five years. But he didn’t. He simply allowed for that kiss to hang between them.
Since she didn’t know what to do with it, she staggered from the library, closing the door behind herself and leaning against it in the hall. She dragged great breaths into her lungs as she fought the strangest urge to just…cry. Tears of heartbreak, tears of confusion…tears of relief. She had kissed Cav and it was a relief, as if she’d been waiting for it for a long time.
“No, you’re just confused,” she said to herself as she marched to the stairs and upward. She needed to go to her room and calm herself. To touch herself, if need be, because everything felt hot and shaky, and perhaps that was why she was so confused about Cav. Whatever she planned to do, she needed to do it swiftly, before she ruined the closest friendship in her life.
Before she ruined everything.
Cav stood, staring into the fire. Trying not to stare at the door where Emily had just departed. More to the point, trying not to follow her out that door, catch her arm and kiss her all over again.
Kiss her. Christ, he’d been dreaming of doing that for a decade. Haunting, aching dreams that made him hate himself and long for her all at once. He’d promised himself he would never betray Andrew, and he hadn’t. But Andrew was dead now. Long dead, long gone. It was no less true just because it was heartbreaking.
Cav didn’t owe the man allegiance anymore.
He sank into the chair before the fire and scrubbed a hand over his face. Emily’s mouth had been so soft beneath his lips. She’d tasted faintly of tea and mint, of sweetness and passion. And when she’d gripped his lapels and lifted against him with that little sound of pleasure that came from deep within her chest?
It made him hard just thinking about it. Thinking about that proof that she had wanted him in that heated, powerful moment as much as he wanted her. But was it permanent or fleeting? That was the question.
After Andrew’s death, Cav had certainly considered what the future might hold. But her grief had been so powerful, so overwhelming, that he hadn’t pursued his heart. Instead, he’d let their mutual love of Andrew bond them into deeper friends. In truth, he valued that friendship as much as he’d valued the one with her late husband.
Perhaps he valued it more. Emily didn’t let many people near. She was friendly, of course, sunny and light and the kind of woman who would design an entire party over trying to