Daring and the Duke (The Bareknuckle Bastards #3)(67)

She’d only intended to answer the question he seemed so keen on asking her. What did she need? She needed him gone. She needed him to find the future he was looking for or the penance he required, and live his life. Far from her.

She’d only intended to leave the salve.

She’d only intended to know what she needed, finally.

And then she’d arrived in this dark room full of candles and mirrors and the scent of him, tobacco and tea, that combination she’d never been able to smell without aching for him.

Even as she hated him for his betrayal.

She should have left then. Should have ignored this room that seemed ripe for sin and sex. Should have ignored him.

But instead, she’d been lost to another memory, made without her consent. A memory that did not come with fear or pain or heartache, but with desire. Him without clothes—his trousers not even properly buttoned—not looking a thing like he did the last time she’d mended his wounds, doused in candlelight, fresh from a bath and covered with the badges from his earlier bout—a bout he might have won if he’d fought the way he should have.

He hadn’t. Because he hadn’t wanted to hurt the Garden any longer.

She loved and hated that in equal measures.

And so, now, when she thought of telling him what she needed, the most pressing need was no longer his leaving and never returning. Now, it was infinitely more dangerous, because it was the same thing she had needed the last time they had met in the darkness.

It was another kiss.

Another touch.

Another night.

One more.

And it did not matter that he might be a more terrifying monster than anything one could find in books.

He sensed the change in her as she took his face in her hands and stared down into his eyes—those amber eyes she’d loved so much and so well and so long, until she’d closed herself off, for fear that they’d haunt her forever.

But they were here, now, and for this night, they were hers.

“Take it,” he said.

Everything you need.

She kissed him again, her hands moving, no longer healing. No longer soothing. Wanting. Claiming. He sucked in a breath as she smoothed her hands down over his chest, gentling as she tracked past the bandages on his abdomen, his muscles rippling and tightening enough to remind him of his wounds.

He hissed at the ache, and she lifted her hands as though he’d burned her. “Did I—”

Ewan shook his head instantly. “Don’t stop.”

She watched him for a moment, unmoving. Uncertain.

“Don’t stop.”

She didn’t want to stop. She wanted to start and never stop. And hold this moment, this night, forever, keeping the past and the present and the impossible-to-ignore truth of them at bay.

A single word shattered through her.

Mine.

He reached for one of her hands and set it to the flat plane of his stomach below the bandages and above the line of his trousers, where muscles cut deep in a V and a trail of dark brown hair disappeared.

She swallowed at the image they made, her fingers on his skin. “I shall be gentle.”

“I don’t want gentle,” he said. “I want you.”

She gave him what he asked, her fingers grazing over him, toying and tracing a path down to the place where the falls of the trousers remained unbuttoned, forgotten after his bath. He sucked in a breath as she lingered there, transfixed by the shadowy spot and the thick, impossible-to-ignore ridge directly below, knowing that all she had to do was slide her fingers a touch farther and claim him.

Mine.

What a word. What a wicked, wonderful word.

Ewan lifted a hand to her hair, stroking over it, his fingers tangling in the riot of red curls. “Tell me.”

Her lips parted, plump and perfect. “Tonight.”

His throat worked, and she knew what he wanted to say. It wasn’t enough. She knew it. But she would worry about that tomorrow, when she would reinforce the walls she had built to keep him out, and return to the world she had built without him.

He nodded, the movement stilted, an agreement she knew he did not want to give. And one that freed her nonetheless.

She took it. And then she took him, sliding off his lap to come to her knees before him, loving the way his head tipped back on the chair as he let her go, his eyes going dark and hooded as he watched her, the straining muscles of his neck matching the straining muscles in his hands where he clasped the arms of the chair with white knuckles, refusing to reach for her.

Letting her lead.

And below, his straining cock, hard and glorious.

Mine.

Her hands traced down the placket of his trousers, measuring the outline of him, and she reveled in the way her touch undid him, the way his whole body drew tight like a bow. He was desperate to touch her. She could see it. But still, he held back. He took a deep, shuddering breath, and in that moment—in the revelation of his sheer will to let her control the moment, to let her claim it for her own—something woke inside Grace. Something that she knew would bring pain as much as it brought pleasure.

But tonight was for pleasure.

She came up on her knees, the movement adding pressure to her touch as she leaned in and placed a kiss on his pectoral muscle, turning her face and sliding her cheek over the warmth of him before setting another kiss at the base of his neck, where it met the long line of his collarbone.