Loving Rose: The Redemption of Malcolm Sinclair (Casebook of Barnaby Adair) (12 page)

He did, and started along the corridor, not immediately realizing that she was there.

Standing in his path.

This, Rose decided, was better than she’d hoped. Better than speaking with him in his library. Pinning him down when he had a whole room to move in . . . no; the confines of the corridor were to her advantage.

Head rising, clasping her hands at her waist, she waited where she’d halted, in the middle of the corridor in a spot where a hall chest on one side and a side table on the other narrowed the space even further.

He noticed her and paused. After a moment, he came on. From the steady weight of his gaze, something she could feel even through the dimness, she was certain he’d guessed that she wasn’t about to let him pass until she’d said all she intended to say.

He halted before her, and she could almost hear his mental sigh. He arched a brow. “Yes?”

No name, she noted, but she didn’t let that deter her. Fixing her gaze on his shadowed eyes, she drew breath and stated, “I want to thank you—properly—for what you did today—”

He cut her off with a brusque wave. “You already did, as I recall.”

“No, I didn’t. Not properly.”

“The thanks you tendered were more than sufficient. There’s no need—”

“There’s
every
need.”

His eyes locked with hers. Rose felt the weight of his will, felt it pressing against hers almost like a physical force, but she wasn’t about to give way. She held her ground and gave him back stare for stare, her determination against his stubbornness.

His lips thinned. After a pregnant pause, he drew in a tight breath. “Mrs. Sheridan.” His voice had cooled, but the cutting edge that might have been there was absent; he wanted to force her to retreat, but he didn’t want to hurt her. “Allow me to explain that I didn’t act as I did today to garner your thanks. I acted as I did because it was the right thing to do, and I neither need nor want your gratitude—”

“You
irritating
man!” Rose finally lost her temper. Over the past weeks, she’d grown well acquainted with his constant self-abnegation, but this time, she wasn’t having it. “Has it never occurred to you that people thanking you is something
they
need to do—and that you are supposed to accept their thanks with due graciousness, thereby excusing them from feeling forever indebted to you?”

Even as the words echoed between them, she recalled his confession of days before, heard his halting words in her mind:
“I’m not very good at dealing with other people. I don’t—habitually don’t—think of how my actions will affect others, how what I do might impact on them.”

She watched his expression blank, then his gaze fell from hers, and she realized she’d hit the nail on the head. He honestly hadn’t known, hadn’t seen . . . Her own expression easing, her voice lowering, she went on, “You do it all the time—you refuse to accept even the mildest, smallest expressions of thanks. You slide around them, avoid them, but, even more, you constantly downplay the good you do. You dismiss your actions, deny their importance—you denigrate the contributions you make to the lives of others . . .” All of that was true. Confused, she stared at him. “Why?”

He didn’t immediately meet her gaze, but then his features hardened and he raised his eyes to hers. “If you’ve quite finished . . . ?”

The words . . . weren’t cold. There was emotion beneath them, roiling and churning, but ruthlessly suppressed.

When she blinked at him, trying to sense, to see further, to understand, he looked away and shifted to edge past her.

“No.” Brazen, Rose sidestepped and blocked his path. That brought them face-to-face, close, his coat brushing the knot of her shawl. “I haven’t finished.” Anger—at him, because of him—and a host of other emotions pounded in her blood. “There’s this.”

Raising her hands, she set her palms to his cheeks, hauled his head down two inches, and pressed her lips to his.

Damn him—he wasn’t worthless!

She kissed him, pressed her lips to his, determined to express the feelings he’d denied, her heartfelt thanks, yes, but also to acknowledge the relief he’d brought her, and her appreciation of all the countless minor acts of kindness he’d lavished on her and the children.

He might not know how to deal with others, but he was trying, and he wasn’t failing.

That much she could tell him—and given he wouldn’t listen to her words, she told him with her lips.

Ignoring the strange feel of his scars against her right palm, she boldly did something she’d never done in her life and poured her heart and soul into her kiss.

Bold, reckless, but, on a host of levels, so very necessary.

And he responded.

Her heart leapt—literally jumped in her chest—when she felt his lips, so unexpectedly smooth and giving, ease against hers.

Just for a heartbeat.

But then he stilled, stopped, caught himself.

Oh, no—she wasn’t having that.

With smooth deliberation—a determination, a decision, he wouldn’t miss—she stepped into him and kissed him harder.

The dam broke.

Rose rejoiced.

And Thomas lost all touch with the world.

Stunned, amazed, he was swept up and away on a tide of feelings, of emotions whipped along by a desperate yearning, one he hadn’t even realized lived within him.

Where had all this come from? How had she set it free?

He didn’t know the answers. All he knew was the feel of her lips moving on his—demanding a response he could no longer not give.

All he sensed was the warmth of her body, touching his, holding out a siren’s promise of succor amid the desolation his life had become.

No longer his to command, his lips parted; effortlessly—without thought or intention, much less any exercise of conscious will—he took control of the kiss, and then he was kissing her with all the pent-up longing, all the suppressed need he’d been holding back for the past months.

Ever since he’d first seen her.

Distantly, he heard a muted
crack
and realized his cane had fallen. Where, he didn’t care. Of their own volition, or so it seemed, his arms rose and closed, gently yet possessively, about her.

About Rose.

Some lingering uncertainty made him wonder if she would pull back, but no—she sank against him, into him, equally caught in the tide of the moment.

In the passions, so recklessly freed, that flowed, unrestrained, between them.

With victorious abandon, she surrendered her mouth, and he claimed. Feasted. Supped, sipped, then, at her insistence, plundered, and she took, gave, and incited, her palms and fingers firm and clasping, holding, steering, directing.

Not easing. Not letting go—not even for an instant.

He’d known sensual pleasure in the past, but this was something more—something finer, something elementally precious.

Their mouths melded and she was with him every step of the way, urging him on when he wanted to pause, to savor, wanting more, taking more, driving them both to utter distraction.

The kiss grew wild, beyond all control. The physical communion swelled, expanded, and captured them, drowning them both in unexpected heat.

Their tongues tangled and danced, dueled and lured; their lips captured and teased.

And desire flared. An elemental force, it swirled up from within them, twined with their passions, and ignited.

The flames bloomed—within him, as well as in her.

He’d thought he’d lost it, that fundamental fire, but no, it was there. It had been slumbering, smoldering as barely nascent embers, until she’d fanned the blaze.

She pressed closer and the flames roared.

The conflagration consumed him, rivers of fiery need streaking down his veins. He tightened his arms, drawing her fully against him; angling his head, he took the kiss further. Deeper.

Metaphorically taking her hand, he led her on into the flames.

Rose followed him eagerly, no thought able to stand against the joy of knowing he wanted her. That was no longer in question; the hard rod of his erection pressing against her stomach was testament enough to the reality of his ardor.

He wanted her, and, good Lord, she hadn’t truly realized just how much she wanted him. Hadn’t realized that her reactions to him were simply symptoms of this—this greedy, ravenous, driving need.

Sliding her hands up, she speared her fingers into his hair and, up on her toes, met his tongue with hers, delighted and thrilled by the unfettered engagement.
This
was what she’d truly craved.

This closeness.

With him.

Heat and passion, need and urgency, merged and swirled through her, then pounded through her veins. Desire consumed her and cindered all thought. The only impulse remaining was
more
.

Thomas couldn’t find his feet in the raging tumult of their needs. The realization struck out of nowhere; the resulting stab of panic, of being so hopelessly out of control, jarred him—fleetingly, momentarily—but it was enough.

Enough for a shaft of clarity to pierce the fog of their mutual desire and remind him of who they were.

Him, disfigured as he was on so many levels, and her . . .

Was this, her passion so warmly and freely yielded, real? Or was she offering him all this because she felt she must, because he was her employer? In return for his protection.

Some part of his logical, rational mind scoffed at the thought—she was the one who had refused to let him past—but the rest of his reeling self, so much more vulnerable than he’d ever been, wasn’t—couldn’t be—sure.

That uncertainty—the possibility that she might not truly feel as he assumed—made him think. Made him realize . . .

Realize the line they’d both stepped over, the barrier they’d breached, indeed, all but eradicated.

They were exposed, both of them . . .

He dragged in a deeper breath and drew back from the kiss.

Forced his lips from hers, pulled back against her hold and raised his head.

She blinked her eyes open, and through the dimness met his gaze. They remained intimately close, their lips inches apart, their breaths mingling.

For several heartbeats, he looked into her eyes. Then, unable to help himself, he raised one hand and, gently, his senses aching with the need to touch, to know, he slowly ran the back of one finger down her perfect cheek.

And felt.

So much more than he ever had before. The clash of unfamiliar emotions rocked him.

He drew in an unsteady breath, his chest swelling against the lush curves of her breasts.

Even as his senses settled, he felt beyond unsteady, as if some internal mooring had been ripped away and he was drifting.

Still out of control.

No longer in control.

No longer the man he once had been, and unsure of the man he now was.

In this arena, too, it seemed.

But he knew what must be—he still had to pay his ultimate penance, and until he did, his life was not his own.

He didn’t even know if, after, he would have a life to live.

He didn’t want to let her go, but . . . slowly, he eased his arms from about her and set her back on her feet. Losing her warmth rocked him again, but he clamped down on the impulse, sharp and intense, to reach out and draw her back.

Dazed from the kiss, she’d stared—unsure, uncomprehending—at him, but now he saw confusion fill her eyes.

She opened her lips, but he spoke before she could. “That was . . . inappropriate.”

She blinked. After a heartbeat’s pause, in a strange tone, she parroted, “Inappropriate.”

He suddenly saw that he’d misstepped again. “Not on your part,” he hurried to explain, “but on mine.”

She searched his eyes, her confusion only growing.

Giving in to the urge, he raked a hand through his hair—an act revealing so much weakness, so much uncertainty and vulnerability, that the logical part of him was utterly appalled. “It’s not you.” Lowering his hand, he briefly waved between them. “This, what’s grown between us”—something not even he could now deny—“can’t be. Can’t come to anything, not because of you but because of me.” He forced himself to add, “Because of the man I am.”

She tilted her head, her gaze never leaving his eyes. After a moment, she asked, her voice, still affected by desire, sultry and low, “And what sort of man are you that I cannot desire you?”

He knew he couldn’t hesitate. “I’m a man with no future, a man with a soul blackened beyond redemption. And, as such, I’m no suitable man for you.”

Rose held his gaze and weighed his words. Saw, sensed, in the steadiness of his gaze, in the unyielding cast of his features, that he believed them—that they were his truth.

She wasn’t sure they were hers.

On one level, she understood what he was doing—that despite their mutual, clearly mutual, needs and wants, he was denying her, and them, for her own good.