One Good Earl Deserves a Lover
Page 65

In the silence that followed the statement, she could not stop herself from lifting her gaze to his. He was waiting for her. “All the dice were weighted. I owe you nothing.”
Her brows snapped together. “On the contrary, you owe me plenty. I trusted you to tell the truth.”
“Your mistake, not mine.”
“You are not ashamed of cheating?”
“I am ashamed of being caught.”
She scowled. “You underestimated me.”
“It seems I did. I will not make the mistake again. I will not have the opportunity.”
She snapped her head back. “You are reneging?”
He nodded. “I am. I want you out of this place. Forever. You don’t belong here.”
She shook her head. “You said you wouldn’t renege.”
“I lied.”
The unexpected words shocked her, so she said the only thing that came to mind. “No.”
Surprise flared in his eyes. “No?”
She shook her head, advancing and stopping a foot from him. “No.”
He lifted the dice again, and she heard the clatter of ivory on ivory as he worried them in his palm. “Upon what grounds do you refuse?”
“Upon the grounds that you owe me.”
“Do you plan to run me before a judge and jury?” he asked wryly.
“I don’t need to,” she retorted, playing her last, most powerful card. “I only have to run you before my brother-in-law.”
There was a beat as the words sank in, and his eyes widened, just barely, just enough for her to notice before he closed the distance between them, and said, “A fine idea. Let’s tell Bourne everything. You think he would force me to honor our agreement?”
She refused to be cowed. “No. I think he would murder you for agreeing to it in the first place. Even more so when he discovers that it was negotiated by a lady of the evening.”
Emotion flared in his serious grey gaze, irritation and . . . admiration? Whatever it was, it was gone almost instantly, extinguished like a lantern in one of his strange, dark passageways. “Well played, Lady Philippa.” The words were soft as they slid over her skin.
“I rather thought so.” Where had her voice gone?
He was so close. “Where would you like to begin?”
She wanted to begin where they’d left off. He could not escape now, not as they stood here, in his office . . . in a gaming hell, feet away from sin and vice and half of London sure to ruin her thoroughly if they were to find her.
And inches away from each other.
This was the risk she had vowed to take; his knowledge was the reward.
Excitement thrummed through her, promising more than she could have expected when she’d left the house this evening. “I should like to begin with kissing.”
Chapter Eleven
She might have wanted to begin with kissing, but he wanted to end with her naked, spread across his desk, open to his hands and mouth and body, like a country summer.
And that was the problem.
He could not give her what she wanted. Not without taking everything he desired.
Dammit. She was too close. He took a step back, grateful for his long legs and the firm edge of his desk behind him providing stable, unmoving comfort. “I do not think Bourne would appreciate my instructing you in . . .” He trailed off, finding it difficult to say the word.
The lady did not have the same problem. “Kissing?”
He supposed he should be happy she had not asked about the other thing she seemed to have no difficulty referencing. “Yes.”
She tilted her head, and he could not help but be drawn to the long cord of her neck, the soft white skin there. “I don’t think he would mind, you know,” she said after a long moment. “In fact, I think he would be rather happy that I asked you.”
He laughed—if one could call the loud, quick ha of disbelief a laugh. “I think you couldn’t be more wrong.”
Bourne would kill him with his bare hands for touching her. Not that it wouldn’t be worth it.
It would be worth it.
He knew that without question.
She shook her head. “No, I think I’m right,” she said, more to herself than to him, he sensed, and there was a long moment while she pondered the question.
He’d never known a woman to think so carefully. He could watch her think for hours. For days. The ridiculous thought startled him. Watch her think? What in hell was wrong with him?
He didn’t have time to consider the answer because something changed in her gaze, partially hidden by the glass of her spectacles when she focused on him once more. “I don’t think this is about Bourne at all.”
It wasn’t. But she needn’t know that. “Bourne is one of the many reasons why I won’t tell you about it.”
She looked down at her hands, clenched tightly in front of her, and when she spoke there was something he did not like in her tone. “I see.”
She shook her head, and he could do nothing but look down at her pale, yellow hair, the color of cornsilk, gleaming in the candlelight.
He shouldn’t ask. It didn’t matter. “What do you see?”
She spoke to herself, softly, without looking up. “It never occurred to me. Of course, it should have. Desire is a part of it.”
Desire. Oh yes. It was an enormous part of it.
She looked up at him, then, and he saw it. Part uncertainty, part resignation, part—damn him to hell—sadness. And everything he had, everything he was, screamed to reach out to her.
Dear God. He tried to put more space between them, but his massive desk—the one from which he’d drawn such comfort just seconds earlier—was now trapping him there, altogether too close to her as her big blue eyes grew liquid, and she said, “Tell me, Mr. Cross, do you think I might convince him to touch me?”