The Redemption of a Rogue, стр. 12
Needs.
“I’m so sorry,” she continued, completely unaware of what he was thinking.
She reached out and caught his hand again, this time with both of hers. She cocooned him with her warmth and his gaze slid to her lips.
Very kissable, full lips. He hated himself for noticing that in this moment of high emotion and tension. He hated himself for being able to divorce himself from what had happened with Louisa and instead focus on what his body drove for with Imogen.
“Be careful, Imogen,” he said, his voice rough with desire.
Her eyes went wide but she didn’t drop his hand. She just stared at him, her pupils dilating and her mouth slightly parted. She licked her lips before she said, “Why?”
He arched a brow. “You know why.”
The door from the kitchen opened again, and she dropped his hand and leaned back in her chair as the soup bowls, largely untouched by them both, were taken away and the next course was brought in.
He never stopped looking at her as this was done. Not when the servants left them alone, either. She held his gaze, too. That shocked him, truly. Most women he’d known in his life had been startled by his intensity. Few had matched it.
And yet this woman held her own admirably.
“Let’s eat,” he said softly.
She nodded. “Very well.”
Neither of them moved to do so, and he couldn’t help how his mouth quirked up a bit in the corner. He blinked first, not because he needed to, but because he chose not to have this erotically charged battle with her tonight. He swept up his fork and began to eat, and she slowly did the same.
He changed the subject to books and watched her shoulders relax. But whatever electric moment had happened between them was still there, throbbing like a heartbeat behind it all.
He wasn’t certain that could ever be forgotten.
After supper, Imogen stepped into the parlor with Oscar on her heels. She felt him there, watching her, circling her, and she had no idea what to do or how to feel about it. He had offered confession about the woman who had once been his lover and she recognized that was probably a rare thing. Something…oddly special to get a glimpse into the heart of a man like this.
But then everything had shifted, changed because she touched him. And even though they had spent the rest of the supper talking of books and music and food, she couldn’t pretend away the tension that arced between them.
He moved to the sideboard, and at last she could breathe because he was no longer marking and tracking her, like a hawk to her helpless rabbit. He poured them each wine, but as he pivoted and held out the glass, he frowned.
“I feel I owe you an apology,” he said, those intense eyes settling firmly on hers once more.
She took a sip of the alcohol, wishing it shored her up more than it did. “About what?”
“Louisa.” His gaze slid away and his frown deepened. “I think I may have been gruff about your questions. She is a…delicate topic.”
She tilted her head, watching him. This was not a man accustomed to discomfort and yet he was allowing himself to feel it in order to offer her an olive branch of some kind. One she wasn’t certain she was owed. After all, she had pried into a life that had nothing to do with her.
She smiled, perhaps the first real smile she had felt cross her face in weeks, even months. “Isn’t gruff part of your personality? Your magnetism?”
His brow wrinkled. “Is it now?”
She nodded. “It seems to be. I’m certain many a person has looked at you and thought, ‘what is that very gruff man thinking?’ and then you speared them with a glance and sent them skittering away in nervous terror.”
His eyes narrowed, and now she couldn’t help but laugh.
“Oh yes, that’s the glance.” She lifted a hand to her chest. “And my heart pounds, just as you intended.”
The corner of his mouth quirked slightly. Close to a smile, not quite one. She found herself wondering what he would look like if he did smile. Truly smiled.
“I am an ogre then, in your estimation. Is there a bridge I was meant to be guarding?”
“Not an ogre,” she said with another laugh. “Ogres are ugly, for one thing, and you must know you aren’t that. And cruel. Which I know for a fact you aren’t.”
At that, his expression hardened a little. The walls came back up. “A dangerous assumption, Mrs. Huxley. I suppose I can be as cruel as anyone else.”
He turned away and walked to the fire. He stirred it, not because the dancing flames needed it, but she thought he might. He didn’t like the playful connection, it seemed. It made him nervous. An odd thought that she could do that to such a commanding person with just a little playful teasing.
It made her want to press her luck, but instead she let out a sigh. “At any rate, you owe me no apology. I understand how the past one shared with another can be…difficult. Discussing it delicate, as you put it.”
He pivoted at that. “Can you?”
She nodded. “My husband has only been dead a little over a year, after all.”
He moved closer. “You two were close.”
“What makes you say that?”
“Because you can’t stand to have me call you Mrs. Huxley when you’re talking about taking another man to your bed,” he said. “That indicates some level of guilt at doing so. A betrayal you are loath to make. Hence, I make the guess that you were close. Perhaps you even loved each other, as seems to be the fashion in Society marriages at present.”
There was something bitter about his tone, but she couldn’t address it. Not when his words pierced her heart. Earlier