Page 81 of The Countess Caper

“You’re really not upset?”

“Roarke, I held you up with a pistol.”

“That tiny antique? I’m surprised it even works.”

She wrinkled her nose because he was not wrong. “That’s not the point.”

“If you’re going to go about breaking the law and threatening unscrupulous men, you should have a working weapon.”

He wasn’t suggesting she stop holding up carriages. Which any reasonable person would be excused for requesting. Demanding even. He only wanted her to have better resources on hand. He did not seem to want her to change back to the Tessa who floated through art galleries and tea parties and danced until dawn in Vauxhall Gardens.

And she loved him for it.

She loved him.

Damnation.

Well, that was certainly inconvenient.

One did not fall in love with one’s husband. Especially when the contract practically forbade it. He did not want a wife. Not really.

And that mattered not at all to her inconvenient heart.

She wanted him to stay with her at Magpie House. To sleep in a room overdecorated with grapes and sit in chairs by the fire when the damp wormed its way through the walls. She wanted to wake up next to his warmth, the hardness of him along her body, his breath in her air.

She wanted.

Him. Only him.

And wanting was so dangerous.

But she had already decided she would be brave tomorrow. Tomorrow was for words and decisions. Not tonight. Not now.

She slipped her hand in his and tugged him between the mulberry trees and the wild roses climbing along every available surface. Under a curtain of ivy, back into the house and up the stairs toward her bedroom. Whatever happened after tonight, she wanted a memory of him in her bed. The smell of him on her pillows. The indentation of him in the soft and not particularly comfortable mattress.

His eyes flared, not looking away when she walked backward, pulling him in her wake. The air was charged, heated. She lit a single candle, just enough to see him by, not enough to break that feeling of a safe and secret cocoon just for the two of them. Her fingers trembled. He clasped her wrist, taking the candle and the matchstick from her. Lighting it, placing it on the windowsill, and then turning back to her.

She dropped her shawl, and then pulled the ribbon at the neckline of her night shift. It held most of it together, not being particularly new. She did not mind this time, for it fell to her feet, and his gaze raked over her. Lust prickled her skin. He rubbed a hand over his jaw. “Come here.”

She hesitated, only to see what he would do. Only to feel that thrill, that knowledge inside of her body. His touch before he even touched her.

His voice dropped to a harsh demand. “Come here, Tessa. Or I’ll come to you.”

She nearly moaned.

“Is that what you want?” he asked, prowling toward her. The evidence of his arousal pressed against the fall of his breeches, hard, insistent. She wanted to touch him, to feel him, taste him.

She lowered to her knees.

He stilled, cursing under his breath. “Tessa.”

“You come to me, Roarke,” she whispered. She licked her lips.

“You’re trying to kill me, devil.”

She looked up at him through her lashes. He was just a little unsteady as she approached her, clearly leashing his control the way you would leash a tiger—carefully, with a firm hand. Hers fumbled at his buttons, but only for a moment. The fierce desire in his face emboldened her. Heat gathered, pooling wetness between her thighs. She pressed them together. He groaned. She finally worked the buttons free and dragged his breeches down to his ankles. He kicked them free, standing over her, proud, naked, silk over steel.

She’d never felt smaller.