He was mad.
She watched him crouch low in the glow of the flames, silhouetted in orange light. Prometheus, stolen to Olympus to thieve fire from the gods. He was magnificent.
He stood and slipped his wounded arm from its sling before taking the large, empty chair by the fire, removing the black slash of fabric that kept his wounded arm in place before extending his good arm toward her. “Come here.” The words should have sounded like a command, but were a request.
She could have refused.
But she found she did not wish to.
She approached, heading for the chair piled high with books, prepared to move them and make space for herself, but he caught her hand in his. “Not there. Here.”
He meant for her to share his chair. To share his lap.
“I couldn’t—” she said.
White teeth flashing in the firelight. “I shan’t tell.”
She desperately wanted to join him, but she knew better. She knew that if she were in his lap, touching him, she’d never resist him. She hesitated, desperate for clear thought. “I thought you were angry with me.”
“I am. Quite. Very, even.”
“Why? I did as you wished. I returned your name.”
He watched her for a long moment, those black eyes seeing everything. “Mara,” he said softly, turning her palm to him, running his fingers over the silk there, sending heat shooting through her as though she were wearing nothing at all. As though they were skin to skin. “What if we did not wear the mantle of our past? What if we weren’t the Killer Duke and Mara Lowe?”
“Don’t call yourself that,” she snapped.
He tugged her closer. “I suppose I can’t anymore. You’ve ruined my reputation.”
She stilled. “I thought you wanted it ruined.”
He tugged again, spreading his thighs, pulling her between them. Staring up at her with that serious black gaze that seemed to promise everything she’d ever wanted if only she’d give in to him. “I thought I did, too.”
Confusion flared. “But you didn’t?”
He captured her in his good arm, pulling her close, pressing his face into her skirts, his hands stroking down her legs, leaving heat and confusion in their wake. She could not stop herself from threading her fingers through his hair, hating that the gloves kept her from feeling its softness. From touching him.
He rocked his face against the soft swell of her, and whispered, “You gave up too much.”
She shook her head. “I righted a wrong. You were innocent.”
He laughed into the silk of her dress, the sound coming on a warm breath that sent a shiver of pleasure through her. “I am not innocent. The things I’ve done . . .”
“The things you’ve done are because of what I did to you,” she said, loving the feel of his hands on her, of his face against her. Of him.
“No,” he said. “Enough of that lie. I’ve told it enough for both of us. The things I’ve done are mine to bear. They are who I am. Who I was.” He looked up at her. “I was no prize to begin with.”
It wasn’t true, of course. “Nonsense. You were—”
“I was an entitled, arrogant ass. That night we met. The first time?”
She thought of him then, fresh-faced, with a quick smile. “Yes?”
“I followed you to your bedchamber. I assure you, it didn’t occur to me that we might forge a love for the ages.”
She smiled. “I assure you, Your Grace, I was not thinking such things, either.”
“Was I rude to you?”
She shook her head. “No.”
He did not meet her gaze, instead asking her torso, “Would you tell me if I were?”
Her hands slid down his cheeks, tilting his face up to hers. “It occurs to me that few men would concern themselves with such things,” she said, unable to keep the surprise from her tone. “Few men would care, considering that the night in question left you unconscious and thought responsible for a murder you did not commit. A murder that did not occur.”
He was quiet for a moment, thinking on what she’d said, and she resisted the urge to prompt him into speech. Finally, he said, “I am very happy that it did not occur.”
He tugged her toward him again, and she toppled into his lap. Into his arms, and she should have protested, but they both seemed to have lost their minds, and she found she did not care.
His arms came around her, and she could not help but say, “I don’t understand why you tossed out revenge.”
One of his hands slid into her hair, working at the pins that held it together. She felt the wild mass protesting its moorings as he slowly removed them. “I don’t understand why you gave it to me anyway.”
The single hand worked gloriously through her hair, massaging her scalp, sending waves of pleasure through her as her hair came down around her shoulders.
Perhaps it was the luxurious caress that made her tell the truth. “You freed me, but it wasn’t freedom.”