A Scot in the Dark (Scandal & Scoundrel #2) - Sarah MacLean Page 0,60

to him as her breath quickened and her hand clutched his wrist and she panted her desire, and he held that gaze until she called out his name and they lost focus and slid closed and she cried out again and again, branding him. Taking him in the darkness.

Showing him the sun.

When those eyes opened again, they found him immediately, her hands threading into his hair, her lips pressing to his, her tongue sliding into his mouth in a kiss that laid him bare and destroyed him completely, summoning his pleasure, hard and hot and nearly unbearable against her.

He pulled his lips from hers, gasping for breath, somehow still hard and thick as though he hadn’t come, wanting to strip her bare and open his trousers and make her his. Here. Now.

Forever.

And then her hands were moving her skirts, and he wondered if he’d spoken aloud. Her fingers played at the falls of his trousers, touching lightly—too damn lightly—and it took him a moment to find the strength to stop her.

Until she whispered, “Oh, my . . .”

And he loathed the reverence in the words.

Women dream of men like you, darling.

But for a night. Not a lifetime.

“No.” He lifted his lips instantly, releasing her like she was hot steel, branding him.

Her gaze was wide with confusion. “But . . .”

“No.” He lifted her off his lap and set her back on her seat, so quickly that it took her several seconds to understand what had happened.

They were both breathing heavily, and he could not look away from her for a long moment, her bodice in tatters, her legs askew, weak from the pleasure she’d found in his arms. He knew she was weak because he, too, was weak. And aching.

She was so close. He could take her.

She’d let him.

He pressed himself back against the seat, willing himself to turn away. To look out the window. To look down at the floor. Anywhere but at her. But he couldn’t, because she was the most beautiful thing he had ever seen.

And then he made the mistake, lifting his hand to his lips, meaning to erase the feel of her there, forgetting that her scent would be on him like a promise. And the desire was more than he could bear. He tasted her, sucking his fingers deep, reveling in her.

Fire came to her eyes as she watched and he saw the truth there. He could have her. She would let him.

Christ, he wanted her.

Even now, even with her hairpins scattered and her long auburn locks falling down around her and the hound and hare, that had been shooting off the top of her head earlier in the evening, now drooping by her left ear.

She looked as though she’d been ravished.

By The Scottish Brute.

This woman wanted marriage and children and love, and those were not things he could ever give her. They weren’t things she’d want from him. Too big, too Scottish, too brutish.

Not for marrying.

Not anything like the man she deserved.

What had he done?

He had to get away from her.

He rapped on the ceiling of the carriage, slowing it immediately.

Confusion flashed in Lily’s beautiful grey eyes, as he began to strip his tattered coat from his shoulders—she would need it to cover her own shredded clothes. “What are you doing?” She looked out the window. “Where are we?”

“It doesn’t matter,” he said, tossing the coat to the seat beside her and opening the door before the coach even came to a stop.

“Alec,” she said, and he ached at his name on her lips.

He leapt to the ground and turned back. “You didn’t ask me the title of the Burns.”

She shook her head as though to clear it, the strange change in topic blindsiding her. “I don’t care about poetry.”

She was frustrated.

Just as he was.

“ ‘Ae Fond Kiss, and Then We Sever.’ ” Before she could respond, he added, “I’m sorry, Lily. For all of it.”

And he closed the carriage door.

Chapter 11

FEMALES!

FACE FEARS WITH FLATTERING FROCKS!

Lily did not wear a dog dress the next morning.

Though there were several canine day dresses to choose from, Lily found that she did not require any additional cause of embarrassment for the day. Instead, she wore a dress that she thought was quite flattering—a green silk intended to be worn when receiving callers, but callers where rather thin on the ground at 45 Berkeley Square, and so she’d rarely worn it.

When she’d fled to this place—which she affectionately referred to as Dog House—she’d brought the dress with