More pleasure, so that her face felt as if it were glowing brighter than the moon. ‘She doesn’t want me to be good at this,’ Lucinda admitted, as puzzled by that as Thirio was.
‘You said she had children of her own?’
Lucinda’s eyes darted to his and then away again. ‘Daughters.’
‘Close in age to you?’
‘Yes.’
He nodded thoughtfully. ‘So she’s either jealous of you, threatened by you, or both.’
Lucinda’s lips parted. ‘Why in the world would she be either of those things?’
He stared at her as though she’d lost her mind. ‘Have you looked into a mirror lately, Lucinda?’
She blinked at him, genuinely confused, and he swore softly under his breath.
‘Do you truly not realise how beautiful you are?’
Lucinda’s eyes widened in confusion. ‘Thirio, I’ve already told you, I don’t need to hear—’
‘Why would I lie? We’ve already established I’m not flattering you to get you into bed.’
Her stomach knotted at the very idea.
‘Let me guess,’ he continued. ‘They’ve insulted your appearance at every turn.’
Girls with your complexion can’t wear that. It’s unforgiving. Your waistline looks like a spaceship. Why are your legs so disproportionate?
‘They’re brutally honest,’ she conceded quietly, hating to relive those moments.
‘If they have been unflattering towards you, that’s not honesty.’
For the first time, in many years, Lucinda wondered if perhaps he was right. Maybe they had been mean to her for the sake of it. And was it possible jealousy was at the root of that? Lucinda’s heart was pure kindness and, therefore, such an idea had never occurred to her.
‘Thank you,’ she said unevenly, a smile crossing her face as she blinked up at him. ‘That’s very nice of you to say.’
Where her heart had turned to sunshine and smiles, his expression was a storm cloud suddenly. ‘But I’m not nice, Lucinda. You have to remember that.’
‘Why do you say that? Why are you determined to act like this awful, beastly ghoul when, in actual fact, you seem like a very nice person?’
He flinched the tiniest amount, his expression shuttering as he looked down at the papers, effectively closing her off. ‘Unfortunately, you don’t know what you’re talking about.’
Thirio felt like a top, spinning wildly out of control, and that was a sensation he hadn’t known for a very long time. Not since the morning after the fire, when his body was broken and bandaged with a hangover threatening to split his head in two. And a gnawing sense of grief and disbelief that he had caused the explosion that had killed his parents.
But this loss of control was different. This was more elemental. He felt that his body was driving him down a road he didn’t intend to travel. With every fibre of his being, he felt longing—longing for Lucinda, for pleasure, for laughter, for the obliteration and euphoria of sex. All things he had denied himself.
Beneath the table, he pressed a hand to his side, feeling the rough ruination of his skin through the fabric of his shirt, his touch a reminder, the scar a talisman to his guilt and fault, the reason he had forfeited his rights, long ago, to any kind of regular life.
But Lucinda’s presence was dangerous.
She made him want to forget. And, worse, to forgive himself. Except, Thirio Skartos didn’t deserve forgiveness. His parents’ blood was on his hands, and he would have to live with that knowledge for the rest of his lonely life.
‘There is one other factor we have not discussed.’ He leaned back in his chair, hands hooked behind his head.
One other factor.Lucinda had been dreading this. The night had stretched, long and, she had to admit, the best night she’d had in a long time. Not for any specific reason. In fact, her nerves were all over the place. But sitting across from Thirio Skartos, she felt morealivethan she’d felt in years. Only,‘one other factor’spoke of an ending. Of goodbye. Of not seeing him again until closer to the wedding. The separation seemed like the dropping of a blade. He had stirred her body to fever pitch and then walked away, but those feelings hadn’t disappeared. With every blink of her eyes she saw him, not as he was now but as he’d been on the terrace, face so close to hers. She felt his body, warm and strong, pressed against her, his hardness everything she’d ever needed.
‘You’ve proposed a late summer date for the wedding, but it has to be sooner.’