Mismatched Under the Mistletoe - Jess Michaels Page 0,50

looked steady until she exited the ballroom with a great gasp of air.

She did not want these feelings that rose up in her chest, powerful and harsh. She didn’t want the confusion and guilt and thrill that they brought with them. And she certainly didn’t want to experience them as she stood in the middle of her late husband’s ballroom with friends surrounding her, watching her every move.

A few partygoers approached the ballroom from the direction of the retiring area. Despite the masks, she recognized one of them as Lady Abigail. A woman Cav had seemed to show some interest in. Jealousy rushed back through her instantly, and she pivoted away.

She needed to not be here until she could gather herself and act like the rational adult she was. She staggered down the hall in the opposite direction. She wasn’t thinking, she wasn’t making logical decisions, she was just…running. Perhaps not physically, but in every other way one could do that.

She turned and threw open a door without thinking. As she entered the chamber, she stopped. She’d blindly made her way to the library. The place where Cav had first kissed her days before and unleashed this torrent of unexpected feelings and experiences.

Why had she come here, of all places, in this big house?

But she didn’t leave the room. Instead she stepped inside and moved to the very spot she’d been standing when he kissed her that afternoon a lifetime ago. She shut her eyes and she could picture it now. See the tension coiled in his body as he tried to protect her from what would be unleashed if she allowed it.

Did she regret what they’d done? Right now, when she felt spun upside down, did she wish she had walked away instead of lifted her mouth in offering to him?

“No,” she said out loud. And she meant it. She didn’t regret one moment. When she thought of the alternative…of not experiencing all the pleasure he had given her, she could not wish things had been different.

“Emily.”

She didn’t open her eyes for a moment even as she heard Cav’s voice say her name. Even as she heard him quietly shut the door behind him.

He was here. Of course he was here. He was always here, wherever here was, when she was weak or weary or unsteady.

“You are upset,” he said softly, gently, like he was approaching a spooked mare. “I have not seen you so pale in a very long time. If I’ve caused you grief, please let me help. What is it?”

She opened her eyes at last and forced herself to look at him. She had looked at him so many times, in so many lights and ways, and he had never been so handsome as he was in that moment. His mask covered half his face, but his dark blue eyes still mesmerized. His well-defined jaw had been freshly shaven for the ball, and she longed to cup it, trace the line there, brush her own cheek against it. His hands, so strong and big but also so gentle, were gripped against his sides as he awaited her answer to his question. He leaned forward slightly, like a bull ready to charge forward toward her, catch her if she were to falter.

“Emily,” he repeated. “You are frightening me.”

She swallowed. “I-I can’t do this, Cav. I’m not…like you. I can’t turn off desire or emotion back and forth from one room to the next. I’m apparently incapable of not connecting my body to my—” She cut herself off and dropped her gaze from his. “—to anything else.”

His eyes went wide as he stared at her for a beat, for two. Then he reached up and tugged the mask from his face. He tossed it aside in frustration and took a long step toward her. “Is that what you think I do? Separate my emotions from my body?”

She was breathless now that he was so close. Just the flutter of her hand and she could touch him. Kiss him. Ruin everything once and for all.

“That is what rakes do, is it not?” she asked. “You must be practiced in it, for you do it so well.”

“No,” he said, his voice suddenly low and dangerous. “I’m not. What I am practiced in, Emily, is tying them together and then hiding it so that no one will ever see. You will never see. I’m practiced at loving you and knowing you will never love me in return.”

Her mouth dropped open and