Seven Years to Sin(43)

Alistair took a step closer. “Unlike the boy, I can take it. Better yet, I want it. There is no part of you I don’t want.”

“Why?”

“Because my hunger for you is unrestrained, so you must be also. In all ways.”

Jess felt the urge to pace, but resisted due to long training. Ladies did not pace. They did not reveal anything other than serenity. They existed to ease a man’s burdens, not add to them.

Yet Alistair—the most thoroughly masculine creature of her acquaintance—was the only individual with whom she felt comfortable sharing the shadowy aspects of her soul. She knew, with unaccountable near certainty, that he would not think less of her as others might. He would not alter his treatment of her. Darkness was known to him. He’d lived within it, embraced it, and seemed all the stronger for the experience. It still amazed her to think of how driven he was, how ruthlessly focused he could be, how far he was willing to fall from grace to avoid failure and be self-sufficient.

At too young an age, his innate sensuality and stunning countenance had exposed him to the lascivious interest of those who were jaded and immoral. Knowing it was his responsibility to see to his own future, he’d taken what advantage he could from an untenable circumstance. But at what cost to him?

“Jessica. What are you thinking about when you look at me in that manner?”

She was staring at him, enthralled by his dark beauty and the undeniable edge to him. She hadn’t the knowledge to understand the “way about him” that Beth had referenced, but she was a woman nevertheless, with all the primitive instincts of her gender. He exuded a raw sensuality that was nothing less than addictive. When she wasn’t with him, she wished to be. That depth of craving had frightened her for the last sennight, knowing as she did that nothing permanent could ever exist between them.

Her world was not his; his was not hers. They were traveling the same road for a brief time, but their paths would diverge. She could not stay in the West Indies forever, and he would not long tolerate London Society, whatever he might say to the contrary. His hunger for her was not the only thing unrestrained about him. He was a bold and brazen man, vibrant and powerful. The ton—whose mores she’d been well trained to epitomize—would stifle and bore him.

No, she didn’t have the knowledge Beth possessed … but Alistair did. He, too, had spoken of their liaison as fitting within a brief span of time. Quickly come and as swiftly gone. Room enough only for fondness and gratitude. She had to trust their greater counsel in this.

“I admire you,” she said.

Although he appeared unmoved, she sensed the stillness that gripped him. “After all you know about me?”

“Yes.”

There was a weighted pause. “You are almost certainly the only person aware of my past transgressions who would say that.”

“Yet you did not hesitate to be honest with me. You must have had some faith in my ability to be open minded.”

“I was not without apprehension,” he confessed, his jaw taut. “But yes, I believed you would be more likely to overlook my sins than hold them against me.”

The recent emptiness in her chest now filled with something warm and tender. “I would not have believed it of myself.”

She lacked the words to explain what she was feeling. It was something akin to victorious, and it was so much the opposite of the defeat she’d felt when leaving the deck, it seemed impossible that one emotion could so swiftly follow the other.

Her mind was her own.

There was no denying that her body had been damaged and her emotions could so easily be overrun by fear. But her mind remained uncorrupted. She was capable of judging Alistair with criteria outside the narrow scope to which she had been taught to conform. For all his strenuous efforts, her father had failed, because she did not think as he did. There were pieces of her he hadn’t been capable of reaching. The freedom inherent in that revelation was profound and deeply moving. And Alistair had made the discovery possible. Without him, she might never have faced a choice capable of enlightening her. She had never before been presented with the option of accepting something that was unacceptable. Her world did not have such decisions in it.

Alistair remained still as a statue as her world tilted on its axis, his handsome features hard set.

She saw through his exterior and understood; he hadn’t yet accepted his choices. Not the way he so readily accepted her.

With great care, Jess untied the ribbons of her bonnet and removed it, setting it carefully atop the seat of a chair. En route to the door, she skirted Alistair, but though he turned to watch her, he didn’t stop her. She knew he’d follow her if she left and thought herself lucky for that.

She engaged the oval-shaped brass latch and heard his sharp inhalation behind her.

Jess walked to the bed and sat carefully on the edge of the mattress.

The feral look that swept over his handsome face made her quiver with heated expectation. But it was quickly masked, leaving behind an unusually austere countenance.

“As per our wager,” he said, clasping his hands at the small of his back, “I must remind you of the impropriety of your presence in my locked cabin.”

A wide smile curved her mouth. Until now, there had not been an opportunity to play the reversed roles they’d agreed to adopt. “Do I look as if I care about propriety?”

“Have you considered the consequences?”