He never should have allowed himself to taste her. Never should have glimpsed the way her eyes liquefied and her plump lips parted and softened at the illicit motion of his mouth.
Her gaze ripped from what his lips did to her finger and caught his eyes. His primeval instinct—the same one that made him such an efficient killer—identified the heat he glimpsed beneath the innocent confusion. Her fear, a primal emotion, had become something equally as primitive.
The knowledge that he could fan that soft spark into an inferno set flame to his own blood.
He wanted to be the answer to the questions he saw building inside her. To allay her every curiosity and teach her things she’d never even thought to inquire about. To peel away the wet layers of her clothing and fit her naked body against his, and distinguish the moment when her shivers of cold became shudders of ecstasy.
To allow lust to consume them both.
It was as he’d warned his men when commanding them to avoid the opium dens and pleasure palaces of Asia. It was better to never take that first step.
Because once you tasted the smallest part of something so infinitely sweet, you’d want the rest of it with a fiendish, obsessive hunger. You’d give away every part of yourself to savor it again. Would beg, steal, or kill in order to obtain it.
Miss Philomena Lockhart was exactly that kind of unattainable pleasure.
And he’d just had his first taste.
Velvet shackles wound their way around his bones, locking his soul down with an ominous sound of finality. He’d always been a beast of greater appetites than most men. He understood that he needed too much and too often. He’d been careful, so fucking careful, when it came to drink, or gambling, or the myriad other things that men like him lost themselves to.
Even women.
It was because of his consuming need that he held himself in check, even to the point of denial. He was a large man, larger than most. It wasn’t just the strength of his temper he feared … it was the idea that he wouldn’t be able to temper his strength.
This, he realized, was a great deal of Miss Lockhart’s allure. The wrist beneath the grip of his hand was feminine, but not delicate. Her voluptuous, statuesque build intrigued him. She was strong, hearty, with more dips and hollows, more curves and handfuls, than the women he was accustomed to.
He’d thought that perhaps he could unleash the full force of his voracious lust on a woman such as her … and she’d be able to withstand it. She didn’t seem so fragile, so easily broken.
But that was wrong, wasn’t it? Someone had already tried to break her, and very nearly succeeded.
As though she could sense the direction of his thoughts, she gasped and slid her finger from between his lips, reclaiming her hand and enfolding it to her chest. Blinking rapidly, she rose to her feet.
“Thank you, Laird, for…”
Liam watched her grope for the words and wished he could help. Manners dictated that he rise when she did, but he couldn’t. Not with his body in the urgent state of arousal it was now.
“Excuse me,” she murmured, and rushed around him, flowers forgotten where they lay strewn in colorful chaos.
Liam glared down at the fragrant blossoms. He didn’t allow himself to watch her. Couldn’t afford to appreciate the sway of her ample arse as she hurried away from him. He didn’t dare stand. If he stayed here—stayed low—the predator within wouldn’t urge him to chase her as she fled.
Because he would catch her … and there would be no accounting for what he would do to her once he did. She would be a lamb in the jaws of a lion, and her fate would be the same as any other beautiful, innocent thing he’d dared to care about.
She’d end up dead.
For destruction was the destiny of those he loved. The cost of his glory. The counterweight of the stewardship over this ancient land. He was the result of untold generations of cruelty. And as the world became more civilized, he had less of a place within it.
Nay, he admonished himself, as the cold of the encroaching evening seeped past his flesh and into his soul, but did nothing to erase the shiver of yearning or the flavor of her flesh from his tongue.
He never should have allowed himself a taste.
CHAPTER SEVEN
Even though she’d changed into dry clothing, Mena couldn’t seem to stop trembling. Perched on a delicate chair next to the hearth, she held her hands out to the fire, though she knew that her quivering no longer had anything to do with the cold.
And everything to do with heat.
The fire she’d seen simmering in the eyes of the marquess as he lifted her finger to his lips. The heat of his mouth and the silken rasp of his tongue against her cold skin.
How could she—how had she—allowed that to happen? How had the gentle warmth evoked by his offer of protection suddenly flared into a conflagration of the senses that left her feeling—well, scorched?
Her finger still glowed with sensation, so much so that Mena kept checking it to see if he had, indeed, burned it somehow with his sweltering mouth.
Curling her fingers into a fist, Mena leaned back in her chair and pressed her closed hand to her heart. Damn her, but his lips had felt good—too good—and the branding impression of them singed along her blood and carried that heat all the way down to her—
A soft knock ripped her away from her disquieting thoughts. Standing on unsteady legs, Mena smoothed her hair and ran her hands down the front of her green and gold striped dress, making certain the lace on her vest wasn’t in disarray.
Jani’s brilliantly white smile met her when she answered, the effect almost startling against the brilliance of his attire. “Miss Mena, you have a letter, and I wanted to give it to you myself.”