Chapter Five #2
“Do you have any idea…” He stopped. Drew a breath. Tried to remember that they were in a public ballroom, surrounded by witnesses, that he could not simply pull her closer and discover whether her skin tasted as sweet as it smelled. “Miss Hayfield. Eliza. Do you have any idea what you do to me?”
Her breath caught. He heard it, a soft, sharp sound that went straight to his groin.
“I… no.” Her voice was barely audible. “I do not understand any of this.”
“That makes two of us.”
He turned her through a complicated figure, using the movement as an excuse to draw her closer than propriety permitted. Her breasts brushed against his chest, just for a moment, just a whisper of contact, and he heard her gasp, felt her fingers tighten on his shoulder.
She was affected. Good grief, she was so affected. Her entire body was responding to him, trembling, flushing, softening in ways she probably didn’t even recognise. She had no defences against this, no experience to teach her how to manage the sensations flooding through her.
And he was responsible for all of it.
“You should not look at me that way,” he murmured against her temple, not quite a kiss but close enough that he could feel the silk of her hair against his lips.
“What way?”
“Like you want me to kiss you.”
She stumbled. Actually stumbled, her foot catching on nothing, and he caught her, pulled her close with an arm around her waist that was definitely not part of the proper waltz position.
For one endless moment, she was pressed against him from chest to thigh, her face inches from his, her breath coming in short, sharp pants that he could feel against his chin.
“I’m sorry,” she whispered, but she did not pull away. “I’m sorry, I do not know what is wrong with me.”
“Nothing is wrong with you.” His voice was hoarse. “Nothing. You are…”
He could not finish the sentence. Could not find words for what she was. Impossible. Intoxicating. The most dangerous thing he had ever encountered, and he had encountered a great deal.
“We should stop dancing,” she said, but her body said something else entirely, moulding against his as though she had been designed to fit there.
“Yes.” He did not release her. “We should.”
“People are watching.”
“They are.”
“My aunt is probably having an apoplexy.”
“Almost certainly.”
She laughed, a breathless, slightly hysterical sound that he wanted to catch with his mouth. “Then why aren’t we stopping?”
“Because I cannot seem to let go of you.” The admission cost him something, and he saw her eyes widen at his tone. “Because I have spent seven days thinking about this moment, and now that you are here, I find I am not as strong as I believed myself to be.”
The music was still playing. Other couples were still dancing, flowing around them in patterns of silk and candlelight. But William was aware of none of it, only the woman in his arms, only the heat of her body, only the desperate hunger clawing at his chest.
“You should run from me,” he said quietly. “Your aunt is right. Your instincts are right. I am exactly what they say I am, a rake, a libertine, a man who takes pleasure where he finds it and offers nothing in return.”
“Then why are you warning me?” Her voice was steadier now, though he could still feel her trembling. “If you are what you say, why not simply… take?”
“Because you are not like the others.” The words escaped before he could stop them. “Because when you look at me, you see something I am not certain exists. And I find I cannot bear the thought of disappointing you.”
Her hand shifted on his shoulder, and her fingers brushed the bare skin of his neck above his collar. The contact was accidental; he was almost sure it was accidental. But it sent a bolt of sensation through him so intense that his vision actually blurred.
“What do I see?” she whispered. “When I look at you?”
“A better man than I am.” He laughed, and there was no humour in it.
“A man who could be redeemed by the love of a good woman. A man hiding a wounded heart beneath his rakish exterior.” His grip on her waist tightened.
“I am not that man, Eliza. I am exactly what I appear to be. And if you let me, I will consume you without hesitation.”
“Perhaps I want to be consumed.”
The words hung between them, shocking and sweet and utterly devastating.
William stopped dancing.
The music continued, the other couples swirling past them, but he stood frozen in the middle of the floor, staring down at the woman who had just offered herself to him with an honesty that cut right through his chest.
“You do not mean that,” he said.
“Don’t tell me what I mean.” There was steel beneath her trembling now.
“I am not a child. I understand what you are saying. I understand what you are warning me against.” She met his eyes, and he saw something there that made his heart stutter.
“I understand, and I am still here. Still in your arms. Still wanting—”
“Don’t.” The word was harsh. Desperate. “Don’t say it. Don’t give me permission, because I swear, I will use it.”
“William…”
The sound of his name on her lips was nearly his undoing. No one called him William. Not friends, not lovers, not anyone who knew him. He was Hollowshade, or Your Grace, or occasionally Will to those who had known him longest.
But she said William, and it sounded like a prayer, and he wanted to answer it so badly he could taste it.
“The dance is ending,” he said, and his voice did not sound like his own. “I am going to escort you back to your aunt. I am going to bow properly. And I am going to walk away before I do something that will ruin us both.”
“And if I don’t want you to walk away?”
“Then you are even more dangerous than I thought.” He touched her face, just a brush of his fingers against her cheek, barely a second of contact, and watched her eyelids flutter closed. “And I was already afraid of you.”
The music swelled toward its conclusion. William forced himself to assume proper distance, to guide her through the final figures, to behave as though the last several minutes had not fundamentally altered something in his understanding of himself.
But his hand was shaking when he led her from the floor.
And when he delivered her to her aunt with a bow that was technically perfect but probably fooled no one, he saw in Eliza’s eyes a reflection of his own turmoil.
She wanted him.
He wanted her.
And for the first time in years, wanting was not something he could control.
“I will call on you tomorrow,” he heard himself say, and did not know where the words had come from. “If you will receive me.”
“I will receive you.” Her voice was quiet but certain. “I will.”
He left before he could say anything else. Before he could pull her back onto the dance floor, or into the garden, or anywhere private enough to finish what the waltz had started.
He needed air.
He needed distance.
He needed to remember who he was and why he had built his life around never feeling exactly what he was feeling right now.
She said my name, he thought as his carriage carried him through the dark London streets. And I felt it in my bones.
I am in such trouble.
The thought was not new. He had thought it before, that first night at the Worthington ball.
But tonight it felt different.
Tonight it felt like a promise.
Or perhaps a surrender.
He was no longer certain which.