Page 37 of The Duke's Only Desire

But she so desperately wanted him to do exactly that. He’d brought her to bliss tonight, yet a hollow feeling in her belly told her there could be so much more pleasure they could share.

Her arms wrapped around his neck. “Stay with me,” she whispered. “Make love to me.”

He rested his forehead briefly against hers and rasped out hoarsely, “I can’t.”

“But you can.”

Then, so softly, she barely heard him, “I won’t.”

He released her and slipped away into the darkness.

*

Shay returned tohis bedroom and closed the connecting door between their rooms, leaned back against the door, and squeezed his eyes shut, both against the vision of her body that had branded itself onto his mind and his steely erection whose painful throbbing wouldn’t be soothed tonight. At least not the way he wanted.

He raked a shaking hand over his face and let himself pant down the blinding desire still gripping him. What the hell had he been thinking to touch her like that?

Touch her?A pained laugh choked from him. He’d done a hell of a lot more than that. Even now he could still taste her sweetness on his lips, could still smell her floral scent clinging to his clothes, could still hear her whispered whimpers and moans. His hands clenched and opened over and over to ward off the memory of how her bare flesh had felt, so soft and warm, deliciously pliable, trembling in eagerness for more. And the way she’d come against his hand, how her body had tightenedaround his fingers…how exquisitely her body would have milked every drop from his if he’d had his cock inside her instead of his fingers—

He pounded his head back against the door. God help him, how much he had wanted that, how desperately he’d yearned to be with her in exactly that way.

Andnevercould be.

He would never be worthy of her body, her softness, or her love. He didn’t merit even the stolen touches taken tonight in his desire to give her pleasure, to prove to her how much he wanted her. To think he could do that without wanting to possess her completely, nearly doing exactly that when she pulled him down to her in the bed and begged him to make love to her—

Christ.Now he was lying to himself.

What had stopped him tonight wasn’t his guilt over John’s death. That had only been part of it. What had truly stopped him was knowing that the room wasn’t dark enough to hide his scars, the leathery, misshapen, mottled flesh that extended across his shoulder, down his chest and over his abdomen…all the way down to his right hip and thigh.

He saw her reaction in London when she first glimpsed his face, heard the way she’d gasped in shock. And horror. He’d terrified her, and that had been only half his face. If she saw the true damage the fire had done, she’d find him nothing but abhorrent. She would never touch him or caress him, would never let him cover her body with his to make love to her. And the way she would stare at him then—

He reached behind him and threw the bolt, locking her away from him.