The Redemption of a Rogue, стр. 15
“I’ve always been an active sleeper,” she said, her voice still heavy and sleepy. “Warren never slept with me during our marriage because I talked in my sleep and moved too much.”
Oscar pursed his lips. The very idea that a man wouldn’t want to curl himself around this woman all night every night, tradition or discomfort be damned, was…ridiculous. He’d hadn’t often thought of Huxley when he was a member of Oscar’s club. He found himself disliking the man a great deal now.
“An active mind is a good thing, I think,” he said. “You must work on a great deal while you sleep if you are so lively.”
“You’re very kind to say so, rather than chide me about disrupting your rest or upending the household with my screams,” she murmured, and she lifted her head to look up at him.
Their faces were too close now. Just the slightest of angling and he could kiss her again. Everything in him wanted to kiss her again.
Which meant he had to get out of this bed.
“Now that you’re well—” he began as he moved to part from her.
To his surprise, she grabbed for him, her fingers clinging to the lapels of his dressing gown. Color filled her cheeks, but she didn’t release him. “Oh, please. Please don’t go. Could you just…stay a little longer? Just let me try to go back to sleep before you—before you leave.”
It was a bad idea. The worst idea. The longer he lay here, their bodies pressed together, the more the throb of wanting this woman built deep within him. Collected hard and heavy in his cock.
But how could he refuse her when she was trembling in his arms, begging him for just a touch of human kindness? How could he refuse her when the last thing he wished to do was leave her bed?
“Very well,” he said softly, and reached down to tug the covers up. He pulled them over them both and shifted a little lower on the pillows.
She settled her head on his chest, her dark hair fanning over her shoulders and his hands like satin. They lay there together in the silence. She was awake, he could tell that from her breathing. He was never going to sleep in the state she was putting him in.
So it was to be torture. And he wasn’t certain he could survive it, truth be told.
When she moved her hand again, the fingers flexing against his chest, he couldn’t help the shuddering sigh that escaped his lips. She lifted her head a second time, looking up at him in the dimness, her gaze glittering. “You are…a very good man.”
He flinched at that assessment. “I am not.”
“You are,” she insisted. “How many other men would have intervened on my behalf at the brothel, let alone taken me home and given me shelter and help once they learned my predicament? I do not think one out of ten would have done anything more than take advantage of my plight.”
“Use it to bed you, you mean,” he murmured, and watched as his fingers threaded through her hair. Had he meant to start doing that?
She swallowed hard and then nodded slowly. “Yes, I suppose that’s what I mean. They would have—they would have wanted repayment of some kind…for their help.”
He remained silent, all his control straining against his chest, straining against his dressing gown. Surely she must feel that as she was tucked against him. Surely she must know he was no better than those men she referred to in this speech about his supposed goodness.
“Imogen,” he said, his voice rasping in the quiet. A warning, he hoped. Though it sounded more like a plea in the dark. A needy sound of desire and pleasure and everything he needed to rein in.
She shifted against him in response, her breath shaky as she slid her hand beneath his dressing gown entirely. Her hands traced his pectoral, fingers tangling in his chest hair.
“Why did you kiss me tonight?” she whispered.
“Because I’m not a good man,” he retorted swiftly. “No matter if I try to help you, I’m not a good man, Imogen. You mustn’t forget that. I’m ruthless and cold and unfeeling.”
The last one wasn’t entirely true. He was feeling a great deal right now. It was just all pulsing desire as she let her hand trail along his side and pushed his dressing gown open even wider.
“Be careful,” he grunted, reaching up to catch her hand and hold it still against his hot skin. “Be very careful, Imogen. You push me too far and I might just take exactly what you said those other men would have wanted.”
She stared up into his face, holding his gaze for an uncomfortably long time. He wanted to look away, but he couldn’t. Not when those amber eyes held him steady.
“What if tonight I want that too?” she whispered. “What if when you kissed me it made me forget, just for a moment, everything else? And what if I knew that if you did even more than kiss me, it would erase it all just for a little while? And I want it to do just that, even if it’s wanton and foolish and shortsighted.”
He stilled, focusing on her face. They were opposites in some ways. She was asking him to shatter her with pleasure, strip her control away to make her forget. He had always clung to control as a means to feel…better.
Those two desires could absolutely work in tandem. Wrong or right. And did wrong or right matter in the quiet of her bedroom? With a woman who knew exactly what she was asking? A woman he wanted with a power that startled him. If he took, maybe that driving need would also fade and he could focus on matters at hand.
It could be helpful to both of them.
At least that was what he told himself as