Page 64 of Along Came a Rogue

Her wide eyes flew up to his, so full of raw emotion in their blue depths that he caught his breath. For a moment, all she did was stare back, her lips parted in stunned disbelief, her breathing coming in shallow, little pants…Then she began to shake, so hard he feared she might fall to the floor.

“Darling, sit.” In a single stride, he closed the distance to her and took her arm to help her sink down onto the chair. Then he knelt beside her and took both her hands in his. Lord, how she shook! Grinning up at her, he raised her trembling hands to his lips and kissed them. “Stunned you, did I?”

“More than you know,” she breathed, so softly he barely heard her.

He chuckled. Her eyes glistened, and his chest tugged at the sight of her tears. At least this time, they were tears of happiness.

She desperately searched his face. “Why?” She choked out the words in breathless astonishment. “Why would you want to marry me?”

He reached inside his jacket—dear God, his own hands were shaking now!—and withdrew the ring box. “I swore to protect you and the baby, and that’s exactly what I plan to do.”

She remained perfectly still and silent as he opened the box and slipped onto her finger the sapphire and diamond ring he’d purchased because the stone was the same color as her eyes. Her hand trembled even more as she stared down at it, as if she couldn’t believe it was real.

“Marry me, brat,” he repeated, his own voice catching on the words as a knot tightened in his throat. “Make an honest man of me.”

Instead of laughing at his teasing words as he’d hoped, she soberly shook her head. “But—but you were going to Spain—your promotion—”

“I’m going to decline it.” Even now, the decision tore at him. It was what he’d been working for since that day he left the orphanage when he was ten and set out to gnaw and claw his way into a better life. But he knew this choice was the right one. Because he would now have Emily. “You were right, brat. I can’t protect you all the way from Spain.” Hell, he couldn’t protect her from the other side of Mayfair. Which is why he needed to marry her, so he could keep her and the baby close.

“Is that why, then?” she whispered, her eyes never leaving the ring on her finger. “The reason you want to marry me—only to protect me?”

His smile faded. “I think it’s a damned good reason.” Had she really expected love? Admitting he loved her was certainly not one of the speeches he’d practiced last night. He’d barely gotten used to the idea of getting married. To throw love into the mix…Good Lord. Yet he drew a deep breath, held it a moment, and admitted, “Emily, I lo—”

“No!” She shook her head and yanked the ring off her hand with fingers shaking so violently he wondered if she might drop it. She shoved it back at him. “I won’t, Grey. I won’t marry you!”

Her words stabbed like a knife into his heart. He stared at her, his breath gone from his lungs, utterly bewildered.

During their time together, he’d seen her affection for him—he knew it! No woman could fake the caring with which she touched him, the vulnerability when she gave herself to him so tenderly, or the passion when she seized her pleasure from him. Two days ago, lying in the bed still warm from their lovemaking, the little minx had wanted to marry him, he’d been certain of it.

But now…

“Emily.” Her whispered name was filled with pain and uncertainty.

His hand closed over hers as she pushed the ring against his chest, to keep her fingers wrapped securely around it. Because if she gave it back—Christ!

Each beat of his heart pounded with the grim force of a death knell. Her rejection left him just as stunned as she had been when he’d proposed, just as shaken with disbelief. And filled with confusion. The world had tilted beneath him until he no longer knew which way was up.

He shook his head, not wanting to believe…“Don’t you want to be with me?”

She stilled, and the anguished pain in her eyes answered truthfully even as she lied, “No, Grey—no, I don’t.”

“Why the hell not?” he growled. He was angry—furious!—that she’d lie to him now, of all times, and the burning anger mixed with the pain of rejection in his chest. “I care about you, Emily, more than you know. Enough that I am willing to lay down my life to protect you and the baby.”

She shook her head. “That isn’t—”

“Then what is it?” he demanded.

When she didn’t answer, he cupped her face in his free hand. She closed her eyes as if his touch pained her. The sinking feeling seeped through him that she was once again keeping secrets from him. And that this secret might just destroy him.

“We’re good together, brat,” he murmured, touching his lips to hers and feeling her inhale jerkily. “So very, very good…and not just intimately, you know that.” He kissed her again. If she wouldn’t confess the truth on her own, then he’d seduce it from her if he had to, one torturous kiss at a time. He nibbled at the corner of her mouth, and his tongue slid over the seam of her lips to coax her to open to him. “I’ve never met another woman like you.”

When she parted her lips hesitantly beneath his soft cajoling, he swept his tongue tenderly inside, increasing the intimacy of the kiss until she trembled, until the hand at his chest stopped pushing him away and instead clung to him. A pang of victory pulsed through him, followed by an immense wave of relief. A heavy sigh heaved from him. She was his…finally.

“If I had known five years ago the woman you would become,” he whispered as he swept his mouth along her jaw to her ear, “I never would have let you go. Not even then.” He smiled against her ear as she shivered from the soft flick of his tongue against her earlobe. “Although my career would have definitely suffered.” He laughed at himself as he took her earlobe between his teeth and sucked gently. At the shivering response he elicited from her, warmth blossomed in his chest. The warmth of possession. “With you to distract me, I never would have become a major.”

She froze, her body stiffening against his with a catch of her breath. Then she shifted away. He leaned in, following her like the pull of a magnet, but she turned her head and pushed at his chest once more. Hard enough this time that she slid out from underneath him and out of the chair, putting half the room between them before his surprised mind thought to reach for her.

He looked down at his palm in utter bewilderment. A fresh wound ripped through his chest, and he flinched with pain. In his hand, she’d left the ring.