The Rogue's Proposal (10 page)

This was Luke. Sensual, seductive, but changeable and confusing. Watching him walk
away from her last night had broken something inside her.

She was trying to steel herself, to build impenetrable shields around herself so that
he wouldn’t be able to hurt her. Because God knew, she’d been hurt enough by Henry
to last a lifetime. The problem was, Luke could melt down those steely walls quicker
than she could build them.

Behind her, Luke blew out a breath. She felt movement, then he was sitting beside
her, his presence strong and masculine, and there it was. That melting. That feeling—no,
the certain knowledge—that whatever he asked, she would want nothing more than to
give it to him.

His hand was still on hers, engulfing her much-smaller fingers in his own.

“Emma—” He broke off, shaking his head. His fingertips played with the lace at the
edge of the long sleeve of her nightgown.

She glanced at him. He was wearing his shirt as always—in fact, she had never seen
him shirtless—and drawers. The bed linens were partially draped over his lap. With
his dark blond hair curling to his shoulders, his blue eyes, his shirt open at the
collar, showing a hint of pale flesh, he looked like he could be etched in marble.
He was beautiful—a blond Adonis.

God, how she wanted him.

She looked away.

“I shouldn’t have done that last night,” he said.

She lifted her chin, gave him a defiant look. “Shouldn’t have done what? Kiss me or
leave me afterward?”

“Kiss you.”

“You did notice that I didn’t complain?”

“Yes, I did notice that. But you should have.”

She shook her head stubbornly. “I refuse to listen to more of that nonsense about
the incompatibility of angels and devils. I told you—I am no angel. You’ve seen that
I am no angel. This is a silly excuse. There must be something more.”

“You have never begged,” he said softly. “I promised I wouldn’t touch you unless you
begged for it.” His fingers tightened around hers.

“Another excuse,” she said. “If I were to beg, it wouldn’t matter. You’d still be
afraid. You’d still run away and drown your fear in drink.”

He stiffened. “You don’t know what you’re talking about.”

“Don’t I?”

Silence for a long moment, then he turned to her, his fiery blue eyes capturing her
gaze. “I meant it when I said I could offer you the heights of pleasure. I meant it
when I told you I’d take you to that pinnacle if you begged for it. But now, and I
swear I am not using this as an excuse, I know without a doubt that you’re too good
for the likes of me. I didn’t understand that at the beginning, but I do now.”

“You’re going to drive me mad,” was all she could say. Because no one in the English-speaking
world would say that Emma was too good for Lord Lukas Hawkins. The truth was, her
social status was far below his. He was the son of one of the noblest families in
England, both his feet firmly entrenched on the highest rung of society’s ladder.

By contrast, her family’s money—even when they’d had money—was new money earned from
trade and looked down upon by society. Everything her family had—from the admission
to the elite boarding school in Hampshire to the two Seasons she’d had in London—they’d
had to fight for, to claw through upturned noses and haughty set-downs.

She pulled away from him and stood, moving toward her clothes. They needed to go.
Today was an important day.

But he stopped her. He came up behind her and set his hands on her shoulders, turning
her around. “Listen to me, Em. I’m trying to explain myself. Be patient with me. It
isn’t easy.”

She stilled, staring up into his face, at his unshaven jaw, his straight, aristocratic
nose, his burning blue eyes gazing down with an intensity that simmered through her
bones.

She didn’t say anything. She waited, gazing at him. Probably, to him, she appeared
completely still and calm, but her insides were roiling.

“You deserve gentleness,” he finally said.

She made a scoffing noise.
Gentleness?

“You deserve tenderness and care.”

“Good God, Luke—”

He pressed a finger to her lips, cutting her short.

She’d been going to say that in the past week, he’d showed more tenderness and care
toward her than anyone had in her life.

“I can’t give you any of that,” he said.

“Yes, you—”

Now his hand covered her mouth entirely, and his free arm wrapped around her waist,
pinning her in place so she couldn’t have backed away even if she wanted to.

“Let. Me. Speak.”

She ground her teeth. But she allowed him to speak, even though it took several seconds
before he began again.

“You are a beautiful lady, and you deserve someone who will offer all those things,
and more. You’re intelligent and assertive, and you could get anything out of this
life if you set your mind to it. You’re a woman who deserves permanence and consistency.”
He shrugged. “But you’re also very naïve.”

She made a noise of disagreement, but his palm pressed harder over her mouth.

“You don’t understand what kind of a man I am.”

She narrowed her eyes at him. She knew more than he thought.

“I am not the sort of man who would ever offer permanence to a woman. I can’t give
you any of those things you need. And”—he took a deep breath, his broad chest rising
and falling behind the shirt—“my tastes in the bedchamber do not coincide with yours.”

How on
earth
would he know what her tastes in the bedchamber were? She hardly knew them herself.

Slowly, cautiously, he removed the hand covering her mouth. As soon as she could,
she snapped out the question, “And what, exactly, are your tastes in the bedchamber,
my lord?”

His eyes narrowed. The arm wrapped like a steel band behind her back didn’t budge.

“Would you like details?”

“Yes.” She narrowed her own eyes back at him.

He tilted his head, his gaze seeking hers, as if trying to pry under her skin and
see what hid there.

Then he looked down. “God, Em. Are you really going to make me talk about this?”

“I need to know.” She pressed her hand against his chest, her palm flat and firm.
“I need to know this big, jagged secret that you hold so close it cuts you inside.”

He gave a humorless chuckle. “A big, jagged secret? And you think I have just one?”

“Start with one,” she whispered.

He was quiet for a moment, then he nodded, not quite meeting her eyes. She’d never
seen him so shifty-eyed before, and it made something twist inside her.

“I have done things to women that would horrify you.”

She stood firm. “What kinds of things?”

His eyelids sank down. His chin tucked into his chest. And yet his arm remained clasped
in a solid curve around her waist.

“I’ve taken them two at a time. I’ve shared with other men. I’ve participated in orgies.”

She released a measured breath. This came as no great surprise. She knew as much,
from their encounter with that awful Smallshaw man.

But Luke wasn’t finished.

“I have…I have been cruel to women.” His voice twisted with anguish. “I don’t want
to be cruel to you.”

“You have never been cruel to me, Luke.”

“But”—he shook his head bleakly—“it is how I am.”

“Are you talking about the ruination of that girl you told me about before?”

“That is just one example. Her name was Mary.”

She gazed at him, waiting for him to continue.

“She was a servant at Ironwood Park. Eighteen years old. I was twenty and had just
given up on Cambridge. I came home, argued with my brother, as usual, and was generally
restless and ill-tempered. I was planning to return to London, when I discovered Mary.”
He looked directly at Emma and said in a low voice, “She was all angelic sweetness
and innocence. Rather like you, Em.”

She frowned at him, feeling her brows pulling tightly together.

“I seduced her most thoroughly. I made it a game to have her in every room of Ironwood
Park. That’s all it was to me. A droll game. Very soon, we were caught in flagrante
delicto. If you’d asked me beforehand, I would have predicted it, and I wouldn’t have
cared. I had no concern for the repercussions to her should we be caught. Of course
Trent, being Trent, said I should do the gentlemanly thing and offer marriage. I refused.”

Emma took a measured breath, but her gaze didn’t leave his face.

“I turned my back on her and left Ironwood Park, leaving her to her fate.”

“What happened to her?”

“She was sent away. After that…I don’t know.”

Emma stared at him, wondering why none of this shocked her as much as it should. Jealousy
and anger swirled through her. A part of her hated him on behalf of Mary. But she
still wanted him just as much as ever.

What was
wrong
with her?

After a long silence, he said, “So do you see why you should run from the likes of
me? I’ve done it before and I’m more than likely to do it again. There is an evil
that resides inside me, Emma. You mustn’t take that risk.”

Slowly, Emma shook her head. “You have taken responsibility. You feel remorse for
what you did to that girl. I hear it in your voice.”

He blew out a breath. “People who care about me always end up regretting it. Invariably,
I will hurt them. And I am the worst to women.” He closed his eyes. “I seduce them.
I take wicked pleasure from their bodies. Then I escape.”

Just like he did from her, every single night. It seemed Luke made a habit of escaping.

“Is that what you want, Luke? To seduce me? To take wicked pleasure from my body?”

He hesitated, then his expression darkened. “Yes.”

“Tell me how.”

He started to turn away, but in a move quicker than she’d ever have thought possible,
especially with her emotions in this roiling state, she whipped her arms out, wrapped
them around his waist, and clasped her wrists behind him, trapping him in the circle
of her arms.

He looked down at her with stormy eyes. She pressed her body against him, feeling
all his hard, masculine ridges pressed to her. Fire kindled under her skin, aching,
needing…

So many emotions crossed over his face she couldn’t keep track of all of them: pain,
shame, desire, others she couldn’t define. But then he stilled, his gaze clearing
and his eyes growing so intensely blue they glittered like sapphires.

“You’d be bound,” he said, his voice rasping. “On your knees. Or on your stomach,
your legs spread, so I could see all of you.”

Emma’s breath caught and refused to leave her body.

“I’d blindfold you so you’d be unable to see what I’m doing to you.” His tongue swiped
over his top lip. “So you’d feel sensations you’ve never felt in places you’ve never
felt them. I would teach you how to pleasure yourself and then I’d watch you do it.”

He paused. Emma didn’t move. Her breath was still caught somewhere between her lungs
and the back of her throat.

Ever so quietly, he continued. “Most of all, I want to hear you lose that control
you hold on to so tightly. I want you to scream for me. I want you to beg for release.
Sob for it.”

Through the roar in her mind, Emma vaguely heard the sounds of the outside world.
A carriage rattling over cobbles. A baby crying somewhere in the hotel. A slam of
a door.

“I am bad, Emma,” he said softly. “Bad, wicked, and depraved.”

Something released in her, and she finally let out the long breath she’d been holding.
She gazed evenly into his eyes. “You are not evil, Luke. Everyone has those kinds
of desires. They are
human
.”

The vehemence of her voice surprised her. And Luke recoiled as if she’d punched him.
The glitter in his eyes faded as he tore his gaze from hers. “If you don’t believe
my depraved fantasies to be evil, then what about what I will invariably do to you
afterward?”

He’d escape afterward. Leave her debauched and alone. Or at least he thought he would
be compelled to do so, because of this evil he believed resided within him.

But what if he was wrong?

Oh, Lord, it was an enormous risk. But she wanted him badly enough, she was willing
to take it. “What if I told you I didn’t want to think about afterward? That I don’t
care if you were to walk away? That I am a grown woman who can make her own choices,
and I choose
you
?” She pressed closer to him. “I want to exist in the present, Luke. I want to stop
worrying about the future.”

His eyes widened, then narrowed. He stepped infinitesimally closer to her. “You say
you believe everyone has dark desires? Then tell me about yours.”

She stiffened. “That’s unfair. I haven’t had the same opportunities as you. I’m inexperienced.
I don’t know—”

“But you still crave something. What is it you crave? Did your husband give it to
you?”

Her chest felt so tight. “No,” she breathed.

Luke reached up and swiped the back of one of his knuckles down her cheek. “What?
When you were lying there on your back and performing your marital duty, what did
you crave?”

She was breathing hard now. Panic swarmed in her chest. There were certain things
a person never revealed, to anyone.

“Tell me, Emma. Tell me what you wanted.”

“It was only three months,” she whispered. “I was so new to…to experiences of the
flesh. I didn’t know, exactly.”

“But you had an idea.”

“Yes.”

“Tell me.”

“Luke,” she breathed. “I’ve never told anyone this. Ever. I’m not sure I can…”

She’d hardly admitted them to herself. And when she had, she’d pushed them, deep and
hard, into the farthest recesses of her soul.

“Tell me.” His voice was firm and commanding. Her knees felt watery. She took a shaking
breath.

“I wanted…” She stopped. Licked her lips and tried again. “I wanted him to try something
else.”

“Something other than lying on top of you?”

“Y-yes.” She couldn’t look at him. She was mortified, but there was so much more than
mortification swirling through her. Something delicious was unfurling in her belly,
and she was flushed and hot—not only on her face, but also all over, inside and out.