The Redemption of a Rogue, стр. 53
“It’s neither,” he said.
“Why would you do that?” she asked. “Especially after lecturing me about reaching out to Aurora! Why would you immediately leave our bed and march off to find a man who wants me dead?”
“Because I hoped to get some information out of him,” he growled, and yanked away from her. “I hoped that we might come to some kind of understanding that could help you.”
“But he punched you,” she said.
“He cheated at cards,” he explained, but there was something in his eyes that let her know it was more.
“Oscar,” she snapped.
He glared at her. “You can’t manage me, you know.”
“You need to be managed, apparently.” She shook her head. “Why did he punch you?”
“Good Lord, you are unstoppable.” He shook his head, but he didn’t sound angry at that fact. “In my attempt to wheedle the truth out of him, I have…likely only raised his suspicions about me. I let emotion take over and I revealed too much of my hand, my strategy. I…lost control.”
She wrinkled her brow at that idea. This man didn’t lose control. He didn’t get swept away by emotion. He was careful not to do either of those things.
“What do you think he’ll do?” she asked.
“I’m not sure,” he admitted. “Perhaps nothing. Perhaps he’ll decide to do more than punch me in the face. Either way we’ll have to make some contingency plans. He might start watching me after today, which means I’ll make arrangements for you to be moved somewhere safer. Perhaps out to the country, after we see your friend in a few days. I’ll have Will take over the club until this dies down.”
“I suppose I understand that,” she whispered.
He nodded. “We’ll do what must be done.”
“What I don’t understand is why would you risk yourself in this way? Why would you run after a man we already know is violent and vile? One who could ruin you or worse?”
His eyes lit and he caught her elbow, hauling her a little closer, molding her against his chest as he towered over her in a way that should have been intimidating. But it wasn’t. Because this was Oscar, and she knew who he was. What he was. She knew his edges, as well as his curves and she knew she never had to fear him.
“Why do you think I did it, Imogen?”
She gasped at the implication. The tension that had been hanging between them, forever unnamed but for desire, seemed to increase even more. There was hardly space to keep them apart. His lips so close she could feel the heat of them linger on her own.
“Oscar,” she whispered, and felt him tense as his arms came around her.
“No,” he murmured back, and then his mouth found hers.
Oscar wasn’t proud of the tactic he had employed against Imogen, but what choice did he have? His overly emotional response had caused trouble not just with Roddenbury, but now he’d been on the verge of the kind of confession to Imogen that would be incredibly dangerous. If they brought their hearts into this matter, there would be no end to the damage.
So he kissed her. But when her arms wound around his neck and she gasped out a moan against his lips, strategy was forgotten. Everything was forgotten but her, just as it always was. The woman could do that, more than any other before her. She could tie him up in knots with her smile or laughter, or just by looking at him from across the room. And yes, that had everything to do with how much he wanted her. And it had everything to do with so much more than desire.
But he pushed that away. He had to push it far away. Concentrate on the element he could control. The element he could accept and separate as something different. Something less dangerous.
Even though it was just as potent. When Imogen’s fingers bunched against his back, when she lifted toward him with a mewl that vibrated on his lips, his body’s response was more than potent. What he felt was powerful, changing. A need unlike any other because in the past need had been about pleasure. This need was specific to this woman in this moment, and nothing else in the world mattered.
So he backed her across the room, toward the settee they had abandoned a few moments before. He tangled his fingers into her hair, holding her steady as he lowered her onto the cushions. When his weight covered her and she lifted against him, he nearly came unmanned right then and there.
But this was about regaining control, not surrendering it further, so he resisted the urge to just take, and instead continued kissing her as he hitched her skirts up. When his fingers brushed the fabric of her stockings, his nails lightly abrading her skin through the silk, she jolted beneath him and let out a gasping cry that hit him directly in the cock.
God, how he wanted her. In his blood, in his skin, in his mind and every inch of his body. Only having her would stave off the need, and only for a short while. That desire would return, as hard and as heavy as the first time, within hours, sometimes minutes.
“Fuck,” he muttered against her throat, and then he began to kiss lower. He let his mouth glide over her breasts, still hidden beneath her pretty gown. Over her stomach as he slid to his knees on the settee before her. Down to her thighs as he dragged her to the edge of the couch and pushed her dress up onto her stomach.
Her tugged the slit on her drawers wide and sucked in a whiff of her