Owen watched her sleep as they traversed through the streets of London. She listed to the side, her cheek pushed against the carriage wall, her lips parted slightly as she breathed deeply.
She’d fallen asleep almost instantly. By the time he’d finished overseeing the securing of his mount to the back of the carriage and joined her inside, she was fast asleep. Explanations could wait. They had waited this long. He’d let her rest.
The carriage stopped and he opened the door before any of the grooms could reach it. Turning, he reached inside for her and settled her in his arms. She murmured unintelligible words and burrowed into his arms. Her hair fell loose over his hand, the tendrils soft and silky.
Dawn suffused the sky with gentle shades of pink and orange, washing out the lingering gray of twilight as he carried her up the steps of his town house.
Mrs. Kirkpatrick emerged, poised to greet them. He shook his head at her, indicating for her to hold silent and not wake Annalise. She stepped aside for him.
He took the steps two at a time. Once in his bedchamber, he kicked the door shut softly behind them. He lowered her to his bed and carefully slipped off her cloak. Next came her boots.
Finished, he took two steps back and watched her, mesmerized at the unguarded view of her. She sighed and curled onto her side, her hand slipping beneath her cheek. She looked so innocent. Sweet and peaceful and beautiful in his bed. He never wanted her to leave. He wanted her in his bed every night.
He glanced over his shoulder to the door. It was morning. There were things he needed to do, but weariness tugged at him. He couldn’t recall the last time he had slept.
Bending down, he tugged off his boots. Next came his cravat and jacket. He eased down on the bed beside her, studying her as she slept, appreciating the dark fan of her eyelashes on her creamy cheeks. He knew when she woke she was going to tell him what had scared her into running away, but that didn’t scare him.
He closed a hand over the one that lay limply between them.
He laced his fingers with her slighter ones. Even smaller than his, the fit was so right. Perfect.
He marveled at the tightness in his chest, the warmth that pervaded him just staring at her. She did this to him. No one or nothing else had since he’d left home for India over four years ago. He wasn’t going to lose this feeling again.
He wasn’t going to lose her.
When he woke, it was hours later. A thin thread of light glowed from around the edges of the damask drapes. He quickly glanced to his side, almost as though he feared she had left him again.
But she was still here. His breathing instantly eased.
She’d moved onto her back. One arm was flung above her head, the other stretched out to her side. She slept like she did not have a care in the world. He smiled.
She sighed and her breasts pushed enticingly against her bodice. The slight stiffness of his cock became an insistent throb. Rolling to his side, he ran a finger along her jaw, savoring the skin that he knew to be soft.
His hand moved, drifting unerringly to the hem of her dress, which had risen to her knees in sleep. He tugged it upward, meeting her stocking-clad knee. He teased the inside of her knee there.
She released a small breathy sigh and parted her legs wider in unspoken invitation. He sat up, watching her face closely as his fingers moved along the inside of her thigh toward the slit in her drawers.
Her features loosened, her lips parting in a low moan as he cupped his hand over the very core of her. The heat of her filled his palm. She thrust her pelvis, pushing herself into his touch.
He eased a finger inside her, reveling in the sweet warmth of her surrounding him, tightening around him. He ached at the thought of his cock there, buried in her.
Her fingers clenched the counterpane and her spine arched off the bed, her legs widening even farther.
Her eyes fluttered open, glazed with a desire that fed his own, stoking the fires low in his gut. The rich brown gleamed like pools of dark chocolate. He came over her to lose himself in her eyes as his fingers plied her soft folds, adding another finger to plunge in and out of her slick heat.
“Owen,” she breathed, her hands coming up to grip his shoulders.
“Annalise,” he rasped a beat before he kissed her. She tasted of lemons and that indescribable taste that was hers alone. Her fingers dug into his shoulders as his tongue parried with hers.
He groaned, his hand moving for his breeches, never breaking their kiss as he anxiously freed himself. She cried out against his mouth as he drove into her. She lifted her legs to take him in deeper.
He slid his hands to cup the rounded swell of her bottom, holding her for his penetrating thrusts. She quivered beneath him and he knew she was close.
“Come, follow me, sweetheart,” he encouraged, not wishing to reach his climax before she achieved her own.
Her head came off the bed, her hair wild and dark all around her. Just as her eyes. So very deep and dark, they pulled at him and spoke to his very soul.
He reached between them, finding her pleasure spot, the tiny sensitive nub buried in her woman’s folds. She whimpered at his first touch. He pressed harder, rolling the sweet, little pearl as he drove into her.
Her arms came around him, her mouth open and arousing as hell against his neck as she released a sharp cry.
He groaned, spilling himself deep inside her. He collapsed over her, satisfied in a way he had never felt before.
“I’m crushing you,” he muttered, pushing himself up on his elbows on either side of her.
“I don’t mind,” she whispered, her hands coming up to frame his face, holding him, pinning him with her mesmerizing eyes.
“Annalise?” He smiled down at her, feeling that familiar tightness in his chest.
She held his gaze. A curtain fell over her eyes. Something he couldn’t decipher.
Wariness filled him. He started to pull away, but her hands tightened on his face.
“I—” Her voice broke suddenly, and that stark emotion in her eyes . . .
He suddenly understood it. She was afraid.
“What, Annalise?”
“I’m married.”
Everything inside him froze, revolted. She wasn’t married. She couldn’t be.
“No.” The word dropped like a stone between them. “You were a virgin—”
“The marriage wasn’t consummated,” she was quick to reply.
“Obviously,” he growled, her words sinking in. A dark terrible fury rose up in him. He climbed off her and dropped down on the bed beside her.
She rose to her knees, smoothing her rumpled skirts down. “Owen, please . . .”
“When were you going to tell me this, Annalise?”
She’s not yours. She can never be yours. It was the only thought that rushed through him. Dark and clawing and deep.
She shook her head, and offered up the lame excuse, “I don’t want him . . . If I could go back and undo it . . .”
“But you can’t,” he said harshly, as much to remind her as to confirm it for himself.
Moisture gleamed in her eyes. “You are right. I can’t go back and unmarry him. I can’t change how naive and trusting I was. So desperate for love and approval that I could believe a man wanted me for more than my immense dowry.”
He had wanted her. Owen blinked hard, demanding, “Is that your plan, then? Commit adultery so that he will grant you a divorce?”
“What? No.” She shook her head, looking genuinely surprised. “Nothing about this, about us, has been a manipulation. You are the only thing real, the only good thing that I have ever had.”
He snorted. “Nothing you say can be trusted.” Bile rose up inside his throat as the knowledge sank in that she was not free to be with him. She belonged to another. He forced the foul taste back down and turned, walking a hard line across the room.
“There’s more . . .”
“More?” He stopped and released a harsh, ugly laugh.
She nodded. “I’m the Duchess of Bloodsworth.” He watched her throat work. “He was the man you saw me with on the street.”
He closed his eyes in a hard blink, opening them to look at her, perhaps seeing her for the first time. He didn’t know her at all.
“The Duke of Bloodsworth? And yet he permitted you to leave with me?” The bile was back. “What game are you two playing at?” He shook his head, swallowing down the bitter taste. Coldness washed over him, numbness. “You certainly lowered your standards to let me in your bed.”
“No. Don’t say that.” She shook her head, her eyes enormous and pleading, almost reminding him of a child. Since the start, he knew she was hiding something, but he had not imagined this.
He had not imagined she was hiding the one thing that would keep her from ever being his.
Turning, he strode from the room.
“Owen!”
He continued down the corridor, the sound of his name on her lips like a knife to his back.