Kissing her had been an almighty mistake.
Kylemore settled back against the squabs and strove to preserve his appearance of detachment. All the while, an unrelenting battle raged against his most fundamental urges. His muscles clenched to the point of pain as he stopped himself lunging for her and finishing what he’d started. The promise he’d made her didn’t matter a damn. But his own ability to master his animal passions
did.
She’d been delicious in his arms, the fulfillment of every lonely dream that had tormented him over the last three months.
She’d been too delicious. If he took her now, where was his victory? He’d be irrevocably back in her thrall and she’d know it, the clever little cat. He had snatched her from her brother’s clutches to demonstrate his power over her, not to become her adoring slave once more.
Yet again, she confounded his most carefully laid plans. One kiss from the reluctant Verity Ashton, with her teasing, deceptively innocent violet perfume, and he was right back where he’d been with Soraya. Yearning. Longing. Needy.
Hell.
She’d brought him to his knees without even trying, damn her. He strove to keep the extent of his turmoil from his expression. Then he realized he needn’t worry whether his troubled emotions showed.
Soraya—Verity—wasn’t looking at him but staring out of the window at the darkening landscape. The fading light revealed she was frantic with misery and fear.
He beat back the twinge of pity that swam up through the murky ocean of lust inside him. She was in this predicament through her own fault. If he’d cowed her into submission within hours of setting out, well and good. The baggage deserved to stew in her iniquity. Perhaps the kiss hadn’t been an unalloyed disaster after all.
He shifted to relieve his discomfort. Hell, he had to have her. Desire threatened to scorch his resolution to ashes. Three months of agonizing abstinence howled at him to take her. Especially when for several heated moments, she’d wanted the act as much as he had.
Well, perhaps not quite.
He shifted again and tried to calm the tempest in his blood by telling himself he’d have her soon enough.
But he didn’t want her later.
He wanted her now.
He’d set out to prove the advantages were now his. What he’d actually proven was that he was as vulnerable to her as he’d ever been, confound her. Humiliatingly quickly, the kiss had changed from an act of domination to something else entirely, something he didn’t want to think about.
The irony was that the whole devastating encounter had in the end been remarkably chaste. They had kissed. That was all. He’d hardly even touched her perfect body. The body whose every curve and line was imprinted on his memory. With a stifled groan, he shifted again.
He’d sworn he wouldn’t take her until they reached Scotland. The delay was designed to extend her torture so that by the time he actually bedded her, she’d already suffered days of apprehension and self-recrimination.
So why did it seem the only victim stretched out on the rack right now was His Grace, the Duke of Kylemore?
The kiss had been extraordinary.
Bewitching. Intoxicating. Overwhelming.
Puzzling.
He’d almost say she hadn’t quite known how to go about the business at first. Which was ridiculous. Soraya’s clever, skilled mouth had already tasted every inch of him. His arousal tightened another excruciating notch as he remembered some of the things she’d done to him.
Good God, at this rate, he’d be a gibbering wreck before they even crossed the border.
He darted an angry glance at Soraya.
Verity. Miss Ashton.
She was close enough to fuck and she might as well have been in Timbuctoo. He couldn’t risk touching her again. His self-control had barely survived the last hour.
It was going to be a very long journey.
When the carriage rolled into the village of Hinton Stacey several hours later, night had fallen. Kylemore’s prisoner was still silent. But then, his mistress had never been the most garrulous of women. He told himself he didn’t care—he hadn’t abducted her for her conversation.
“Put out your hands.” He reached for the cords. He hadn’t tied her up after that scorching kiss, although he’d meant to.