But he didn’t kiss her properly. Instead, he spoke, wretched man. “I have spent a lifetime watching men lie, Mara. Gentlemen and scoundrels. I’ve become a tremendous judge of truth.”
She swallowed, feeling his fingers at her throat. “And I suppose you never lie?”
He watched her for a long moment. “I lie all the time. I’m the worst kind of scoundrel.”
Now, as she hovered on the edge of the caress with which he teased, she believed it. He was a scoundrel. Worse.
But it did not stop her from wondering what it would be like to tell him the truth. To unload it like a bricklayer into a perfect little pile right at his feet. All of it.
And if she did? If she told him everything—all she’d done, and why? If she laid herself bare and let him judge her for her good deeds as well as her sins?
“Tell me the truth.” The words were a caress. A temptation. “Who have you healed, Mara?” and the echo of patience in them—as though he would wait an eternity for the answer—was enough to make her ache to tell him.
Nothing you could say would make me forgive.
His words from earlier echoed through her, a threat and a promise. A warning not to give herself over to him.
He wanted his retribution, and she was the means to that end.
She’d best remember that.
Truth was a strange, ethereal thing—so few ever used it, and it was so often only noticeable in the lies one told.
“No one of consequence,” she said, “I am simply good with a needle, as well.”
“I would pay you for the truth,” he said, and even as the words came gentle, like a caress, they stung, harsh and unpleasant. This was the game they played.
She shook her head. “It’s not for sale.”
He was not through. She could see it in his gaze. And so she did the only thing she could think to distract him. She came up on her toes, and kissed him.
Chapter 7
If he’d been asked to wager everything he owned on what would happen in that room that evening, he might have laid it on his kissing her.
He’d wanted to kiss her from the moment he’d taken her in his arms in that alleyway.
From before that.
From the moment she’d wrecked him with the hint that there might have been something more between them that night twelve years earlier.
From before that.
There was always an edge after a handy trouncing, one that did not go away until an opponent landed a strong, sure blow. The theory held true if the opponent was a woman, and the blow one of pleasure.
So he’d ignored the desire, sure it was no more than a need to ease post-fight tension. He’d experienced the edge enough to know that it would wane.
Except it hadn’t. It had roared through him as her hands had stroked down his arm in that dark alley, even as she’d worried his wound and sent pain coursing through him. And it had nearly consumed him as they rode to his town house—so much that he hadn’t been able to stop himself from asking her to join him inside.
The request had been salt in the wound, for he’d known that if she came, he would only desire her more. Her long legs and her pretty face and that hair that he itched to release from its moorings on a sea of auburn silk. And all that was nothing compared to the way her strength moved him. The way her sharp retorts and her smart words set him on edge. The way she made a strong, worthy opponent.
The desire had come to a head as she’d stitched his wound and kept her secrets. And when he’d finally touched her, it had coursed through him, undeniable and dangerous.
So, yes. He’d have wagered on kissing her.
But he wouldn’t have laid a penny on her kissing him. He would have miswagered, for it seemed that Mara Lowe was full of secrets, and willing to do anything to keep them from him.
Even kiss the Killer Duke.
And Christ, did she kiss him—her strong, soft hand tilting him down to her even as she lifted to meet him, capturing his lips with hers. Stealing his breath with the soft, tentative, devastating caress. Teasing him with the way her lips brushed across his, testing the waters. Questioning.
He willed himself still, refusing to touch her, to take control. Terrified that if he put his giant, brutal hands on her, he would scare her away. That she would run again. And then her mouth opened beneath his, unschooled and still so perfect, and the tip of her tongue edged along his bottom lip, a smooth, slick caress.
A man could only take so much.
His control snapped.
He caught her into his arms, a groan escaping from him, the sound low and likely terrifying for her, but he couldn’t stop it. He couldn’t stop any part of it, not as he took hold of her, as he tilted his head and lifted her to him, and found the perfect angle at which he could kiss her like she was meant to be kissed.
Like he’d dreamed of kissing her.
Claiming her.