Page 32 of The Forsaken

“But for every experience you’ve known, Edgar, and every place you have visited in every person you have met, there is something you will never do and can never understand.”

He waited.

The lady did not disappoint.

“Women.”

Kerr burst out laughing. He laughed so hard tears spilled, his sides ached, and his body shook.

Andromena smoothed her hands over her lap. “Are you done?”

He held a finger up and continued, indulging in more amusement than he had known, possibly in his entire life.

Not only was he confident in his knowledge this woman cast aspersions on, a doubt he had never had and would never have, was about his skill with women.

She didn’t speak again until his hilarity ceased.

“As much as you think you know a woman’s body, and any pleasure she could find in the carnal, the truth is, you know just about as much as what it’s like to be a woman. Women, regardless of station, have no power, no influence; we don’t even have freedom of movement.”

He heard all of that. That was the philosophical piece. The one he was marveling at earlier.

But, to her point: he was a man. And no real man tolerated aspersions on his manhood.

His nostrils flared. “Don’t pretend you don’t know exactly what it’s like in my arms.’”

“Precisely.”

Holding his gaze, she nodded.

Her nod confused him. That word had even more.

My God, she was not hinting at anything, nor was she suggesting it; she was saying she felt nothing in his arms.

Logic dictated every aspect of Kerr’s carefully ordered existence, which was precisely why he knew laughter was the most rational response to such a claim. Yet, as a man whose prowess had just been publicly doubted, his blood rebelled. He sat suspended between two equally base impulses—beating his chest or turning her over his knee—and executed neither. It had nothing to do with gallantry. Even Lord Liverpool himself would not have swallowed such an insult in silence.

He took the rogue’s path.

Kerr spread his knees slightly and rested his palms flat on his legs. “Your body told a completely different story on Ermine Street.”

She made a choked sound.

The spitfire wanted to claw his eyes out.

Instead, she did the next worst thing. She ranted at him—about him. She heaped insults upon insults. A mish-mash between sailor-speak and the manner of faradiddles and fudge only proper ladies breathed. One moment his paternity was up for debate. The next, his intelligence—or lack thereof was questioned.

It was the most entertained he had been all night—and for many nights before. She was putting on quite a performance. Her hair combs had failed her completely, hitting the floor with a sharp plink. The longer she fumed, the more he noticed things he shouldn’t. Details he’d only taken casual note of before: the ripple of untamed reddish-brown tresses cascading about her. Those heavy curls set off a fragile, porcelain face that drove painters mad for their canvases. Right where her smile usually broke, a single brown freckle acted as a deliberate crosshair for a dangerous, full mouth—as if any man foolish enough to look needed help finding where the gold was buried.

His body responded.

In his mind while her lips lectured, he pressed his tongue to that speck. He tasted the warm, generous seam of her lips. He pulled her close, tasted all of her.

“You have an inflated sense of your own skills with women,” Andromena chastened.

Blood flooded his ears.

My God, she went too far!

Kerr locked his monster hands around her soft arms. “I am done listening to you,” he shouted. “I did not try to seduce you that day. I meant to abduct you. If I had truly kissed you, you would have done whatever I wanted. Whatever I wanted.”