Page 100 of The Earl’s Forbidden Temptation

“She will not have you,” Rebecca warned. “And I shall not permit you to take her against her will.”

“I would never take her against her will.” His gaze remained fixed upon Darcy. “But no man in this room will touch her before she looks into my face and tells me she truly wants him.”

Rebecca searched his expression. Whatever she saw made her step aside.

Sebastian mounted the dais, outwardly controlled while fury, fear, and love tore through him beneath the surface.

The tableau had already begun to awaken around them. At one end of the dais, a gentleman knelt between a woman’s parted thighs, his mouth moving against her pussy as she arched upon the crimson sheets and released a low, broken cry. Nearby, two women kissed while a man’s hands traveled slowly over their bodies. Silk slipped from shoulders. Bare limbs tangled. The watching guests murmured encouragement as candlelight glazed sweat, jewels, and flushed skin.

Sebastian saw none of it clearly. The entire chamber contracted around Darcy. Viscount Beaumont stood before her, bowing over her hand with polished gallantry.

“Red.” Her name left Sebastian low and controlled, but command sharpened every syllable.

Beaumont straightened with a faint smile and reached to tuck a loose curl behind Darcy’s ear. “The lady has already granted me the honor of her company, Raine.”

Sebastian caught Beaumont’s wrist before his fingers could reach her.

“If you touch her,” he said softly, “I shall break your fingers.”

He did not raise his voice. He did not need to. The quiet certainty of the threat wiped the smile from Beaumont’s face, leaving shock in its place.

Sebastian released his wrist and stepped closer to Darcy.

Her gaze met his, hurt, fury, and defiance burning together in her eyes.

She turned from him with exquisite deliberation and crossed toward the bed. The blue silk floated behind her, revealing the shadowed curves of her body with every step. She seated herself upon the edge of the mattress, one knee parting the peignoir, and crooked a finger at Beaumont.

The gesture was slow, sensual, and devastatingly clear.

Beaumont stepped forward. Sebastian placed himself between them. He held Darcy’s gaze, his body taut with a violence he was barely containing. “Do you wish him dead?”

Darcy lifted her chin. “Why does the man who does not want me presume to dictate the person to whom I may give my body?” Her gaze did not leave his. Defiance sharpened her beauty, though pain trembled beneath every word. “You ended what existed between us with a letter. You left me to grieve it alone. How dare you ravage my heart and then stand before me as though you possess any claim upon what remains?”

Every accusation found its mark. She was right. Honor demanded that he step aside. He had relinquished every right to question her choices when he had reduced tenderness, desire, and friendship to a cold page signed with his title.

He could not move.

Not because she belonged to him. She did not. Because he belonged so completely to her that the thought of another man touching her felt like the destruction of the only life he now wished to live.

“I do want you.” The words tore from him, stripped of elegance and pride. “God help me, Darcy, I have wanted nothing but you from the moment you entered my life.” Around them, the chamber had fallen strangely distant. “You are in every waking thought and every restless hour of the night. I taste you when I drink. I hear your laughter in empty rooms. I wake reaching for you and remember, anew, that I am the fool who sent you away.”

He stepped nearer but did not touch her. “My heart is yours. My body has known no true hunger since it learned yours. Even the life I once believed sufficient has become unbearable without you in it.”

His voice roughened until the final confession was scarcely more than a vow. “I had pleasure before you, Darcy. I had freedom, friendship, every indulgence a man could want. I thought that was enough. Then I met you, and you made me want more from life than I had ever thought to ask of it. I have never felt more wholly alive than when I am with you.”

CHAPTER 33

Aslow smile curved Darcy’s lips, cool and edged with a cruelty so fragile Sebastian knew it had been forged for her own protection. Beneath the fall of dark hair and the provocative blue silk, she appeared magnificent to him, fierce as a blade and yet achingly vulnerable, her chin held high while hurt shimmered in her golden-brown eyes.

“How unfortunate,” she murmured. “I feel the same. But it will pass.” Her tone was steady, almost final. “We no longer have a connection, my lord. I have accepted it. Have you?”

The calm certainty of the question struck Sebastian harder than any blow. He stepped back as though the floor beneath the dais had shifted, and for one disorienting moment the lamplight, the silk-draped bed, and the watching figures around them seemed to tilt. She watched him without mercy, though he saw the tremor she could not quite suppress at the corner of her mouth.

“Darcy—”

She waved a hand, cutting him off, her eyes flashing with renewed fierceness. “You stand before me unable to tolerate the thought of another man touching me. I understand that feeling well, for the mere thought of another woman laying her hands upon you makes me want to snarl.” Her voice softened, but the challenge in her eyes sharpened. “What does it signify? What does any of it matter?” She leaned nearer, the sheer blue silk whispering over her skin, her gaze locked upon his. “Do you dare reach for me despite everything that stands between us? Despite duty, family, and doubts?”

“Yes.” The word was wrenched from him before thought could restrain it.