The Redemption of a Rogue, стр. 24
He tilted his head. This woman had done nothing but surprise him from the moment she’d careened into his chest and altered the very carefully charted course of his life. She was facing dangerous and terrifying circumstances, and yet she still maintained humor and elegance in their face. It wasn’t out of some blindness to the situation, but it seemed her character was to make the best of whatever would come.
And she certainly confronted him without flinching. That wasn’t something many men did easily. Oscar had ensured that, by creating a persona meant to intimidate. But she was waving at his cock without hesitation and calling him a gentleman of all things.
It was extremely unsettling. Not terrible. Just…unexpected. And it made him want her more, which was outrageous because how was it possible? Wanting her had become a constant drumbeat in his head, distracting him from everything else.
He cleared his throat. “You say I have no interest in fucking you.” He used the lewd term on purpose, and she flushed at it, but didn’t turn away.
“You haven’t, despite multiple chances,” she said. “What else am I to assume?”
“Assume nothing,” he said. “Because you are very wrong. I want you, Imogen. I burn from wanting you. I cannot sleep from wanting you.”
Her lips parted and she sucked in her breath with the same little sound she made when he touched her pussy. God, how he loved that sound.
“Oscar,” she whispered, and he reveled in his name rolling from her lips.
“I have avoided you these past few days not because I didn’t want you, but because I fear I want you too much,” he continued, because he needed to say it. To lay it out on the line for her so she could make an informed decision about what to do next. He owed her that, especially considering what she’d been through. “I have avoided you because I didn’t want to…bully you into entering into an affair with me that you don’t…want. That you feel you must be party to because you owe me a debt of some kind.”
Her gaze softened and then slid down to look at him. His body. His cock, which was not helping the situation down there in the slightest. He felt hard enough to pound nails, it almost hurt.
“Would there be an expectation that I owed you, that it was a quid pro quo, if you…if you…” She huffed out a breath and her cheeks turned apple red. “…fucked me?”
He gaped at her a moment and then managed to get himself back together. “No. If we became lovers, it would be out of mutual desire. I wouldn’t want anything less.”
“Well, you know I…want you.” Her voice got softer on those final two words. “You must see it. You must feel it. You’re so much more experienced than I am.”
“And I hesitate in part because of that. If we’re to be lovers, you must know that I am intense.”
He looked down at her, his heart throbbing. To his surprise, she tipped her head back and let out a peal of laughter that echoed in the quiet room.
He pursed his lips, even though the sunshine sound of her laugh was fascinating beyond measure. “Are you mocking me, Mrs. Huxley?”
“Not at all,” she said, smiling up at him, as if his stern command meant nothing to her. He’d never met a person who reacted to it that way before. “I only laugh because the fact that you’re intense is fairly obvious. You acted as though that was new information and it is most definitely not.”
He shook his head. “Intense when I look at you at supper and intense when I take you to bed are two different things, Imogen. In bed I like things…rough. I might hold you down, I might scrape my teeth along your skin until you feel the faintest bite of pain along with the pleasure, I might slap your arse until it burns, I might…” He stepped forward and extended a hand, letting his fingers rest against her throat. “I might do this, but a little harder, as I pound into you.”
Her pupils dilated and she leaned into his hand, forcing his grip to tighten that tiny fraction that took it from gentle to something else. Her breath whispered from her lips in a soft sigh, and she nodded. “I…don’t have experience in those things, you’re right about that. But when you say them, I feel nothing but curiosity. Nothing but a desire that I suppose I should be ashamed of.”
He dropped his hand away from her neck and tilted his head. “Why? Why should you be ashamed about wanting the same thing I’ve already confessed I want? Why should you be ashamed about what you want at all? You have as much a right to pleasure as anyone else, Imogen. Don’t let anyone ever tell you otherwise.”
Her mouth twitched, her expression softened, and for a moment it was quiet between them. He had no idea what was going on in that mind of hers, but at last she stepped forward, closer yet again to him. Almost tight to his chest.
“How long would an affair last if we were to enter into one?” she asked.
He cleared his throat, trying to find words around the lump that had suddenly formed there. “You were looking for a protector.”
She nodded. “Yes. If I survive this—”
He flinched. “You will.”
“When I survive this,” she corrected gently, “my situation will still be the same as it was before. I need