Chapter 17 #3
In his eyes burned the same fire she felt inside herself. It should have thrilled her, but instead it frightened her. Not because it burned but because she wanted to be consumed until she was nothing but ash and glowing embers.
“I should not have doubted your abilities as a rake,” she said, trying for a lightness entirely at odds with the rushing of her pulse and the pounding of her heart. “They are quite…adequate.” She touched a gloved finger to the edge of her lips, which tingled.
He regarded her for a moment, his expression inscrutable. “Adequate,” he repeated. “How very differently I would describe it.”
“And how would you?”
His gaze took her in for a moment before he responded.
“Have you ever wished for something only to find it eclipsed even your wildest imaginings?” He put a hand to her cheek and stared into her eyes.
“I have tasted bliss and now must live with the crippling fear that I shall lose it as quickly as I found it.”
She swallowed, staring up at him as the words settled within her and wound through every vein.
It had been a mistake to kiss Frederick Yorke.
Not because she had not wanted to, for heaven knew she had. Because she had wanted it so much. His kiss had cracked open something inside her, a want so profound that she feared it had no nadir.
“What is it?” His brow furrowed as he watched her, the wound from wrestling still faintly visible.
She thought of the sack race and how disappointed Oswald had been with her behavior.
Her chest tightened. What would her behavior prove to him?
She had bristled when he had warned her against Mr. Yorke, but had she not proven him right since then?
“I must return to Trevenna,” she said.
Mr. Yorke’s brow knit. “Have I upset you?”
She shook her head and reached for her horse’s reins. She was besotted by him; she was upset with herself.
“Caroline.” Mr. Yorke took her by the hand.
She stopped and stared down at their hands, suppressing the desire to tighten her hold on his.
“What is it?” he asked.
She took a moment to breathe, then met his gaze. “May I be frank?”
His gaze grew more alert, and he released her hand, facing her squarely, as though preparing for the worst. “Please.”
She released a slow breath. “I do not know how to trust you—or myself, for that matter.”
His gaze flickered, and for a moment, she thought he might try to persuade her—to profess his feelings again and again until she believed him, until she lost her senses in a puddle of the bliss he had mentioned.
Instead, he simply nodded. “I understand.”
The simplicity of it startled her. No arguments or defense. Simple acknowledgment.
“I should not have kissed you,” she admitted.
“Well, you cannot possibly expect me to agree with you on that,” he said with a roguish smile, though his eyes watched her.
“It was rash.”
“Not on my part,” he said.
She took in a breath and let it out slowly, trying to control the desire to give in to her desires again, to make promises she could not keep. If she permitted her feelings and selfish desires to dictate her actions, she was no better than men like Brightmoor.
She was getting ahead of herself, and she needed time to breathe. To consider.
“If you must leave,” he said, “allow me to accompany you home. It is not safe.”
“I have made this ride alone dozens of times.”
“And what of me?” he said. “Will you leave me to my own devices in such a rugged and unfamiliar place?”
“I have no doubt you will manage,” she said with a half-smile. She was fairly certain Frederick Yorke could manage anything. She turned away, only for him to catch her hand.
“Forgive me,” he said, letting it drop again, a rueful smile on his lips. “I am…finding it difficult to let you go. You make it seem so easy.”
Her heart twinged. “It is far from that. But I think a bit of distance is in our best interests.”
He took another step toward her.
Her heart knocked against her ribs as she met his gaze, her own slipping to his lips. She could almost taste them, and yet with every moment, their exact feel and the way his hands had wrapped around her…it all seemed to slip further from memory.
“Do you?” he whispered, his eyes glowing dark with all the things Caroline most wanted him to do.
No.
Distance from Frederick Yorke was the very last thing in the world she wanted. She wanted to be lost entirely in his kiss, to let the wind take her thoughts and lift them away on the breeze, to allow herself to be carried on the tide of desire.
A tide that might swallow her entirely and irrevocably.
Their lips hovered an inch apart, their warm breath mixing in the space.
“Yes,” she said, her voice traitorously weak, even as every other part of her begged to be let free again.
There was a pause. One more inch, and she would be lost. Gladly, recklessly lost.
Just as her lips reached for his, he stepped backward.
“Very well,” he said.
Caroline forced herself to breathe, and they walked to their horses in silence.
When he helped her into the saddle, her heart leapt at his touch, and when he looked up at her, her body flushed. Wanting him like this felt perilously close to surrender, and she was terrified what she might lose if she did.