Page 79 of A Lady’s Guide to Mystery and Mischief

“No. Even if he’d wanted to repair what was between us, I would never have allowed it. Some people don’t deserve forgiveness.”

“So you pledged yourself to a lifetime of work until—?”

“Until you came into my office,” Grey said. “Before that, I lived at my desk. I’d convinced myself that I would be far better off if I never loved again. I didn’t think it worth the pain.”

She wilted. “I wish I could tell you it was, but I wouldn’t trust my own advice.”

“Come now,” Grey said, offering her a halfhearted smile. “You don’t mean that. Romantics are, by definition, experts on these matters.”

“That makes you an expert too, you know.”

He scoffed. “I’m no romantic.”

“I beg to differ,” she returned. “You are romantic, and I have mountains of evidence to prove it. It was romantic of you to protect me from Mr. Jennings and romantic of you to dance with me at the masked ball. Not to mention all you’ve said to me.”

“Fine, fine,” Grey interrupted. “Maybe I do lean a little romantic.”

“All the things you’ve said,” Farah repeated, “and the ways you’ve touched me.”

Those words, simple as they were, changed the very air around them. In an instant, Grey was aware—of where they sat, the inviting darkness of the night, the thin cotton of her sleepwear. The tip of her tongue darting out to lick her lips.

“Farah—”

“Perhaps,” she said, moving to sit on her knees, “you could prove it one last time.”

Grey was a coward and a fool. That much was true. But he wasn’t enough of either to refuse what she was suggesting—to turn down any opportunity to be close to her.

“Here?” he rasped.

“Why not?”

Mere moments later, she was naked beneath him, his shirt protecting her from the cold ground, his focus wholly on her breasts. She glowed in the light of the moon, her hair splayed out about her, tangling in the stems of the herbs they lay in. Once he was satisfied that he had paid enough attention to each of her pebbled nipples, he made his way down, pressing languorous kisses to every part of her. He lingered at her inner thighs, enjoying her sounds of mindless pleasure and frustration. What was he without her? Who would he become if he could no longer have her like this?

“Grey,” she said, his name light on her tongue. “I know what you intend, but could I ask to you to please just—I need you inside me.”

“Whatever you want, love,” he said, reversing direction to kiss his way up her body. Lazily, wasting time they didn’t have, until his mouth covered hers in a kiss that was tender enough to break his heart a hundred times over. Reaching between them, he checked to make sure she was ready.

Hurting her wasn’t an option. It never had been.

“Don’t worry,” she whispered against his jaw, reading his mind. “You won’t hurt me.”

Carefully, he guided himself into her, his busy mind rendered silent and addled with pure bliss. Farah was warm and perfect and—she was love. She was the embodiment of the thing she’d been chasing, and she didn’t even know it.

“You’ve ruined me, Farah,” he said, pacing himself to match her gasps.

She arched her back beneath him, running her hands over his shoulders and down his back, responding with a cheeky, “Aren’t I the one who’s being ruined?”

“No,” he said, breathless. “Just me. Nothing could ever ruin you.”

She sighed, dragging her fingers through his dark hair as he pulled out of her in a tortuous stroke. “If you’re ruined, then I’ll rescue you from it.”

It was mindless teasing, of course, drawn from the throes of pleasure. But, God, what a gift it would be to put his broken heart into Farah Rafiq’s hands. What a luxury it would be to have her help put the pieces back together.

Things he could have if he wanted them enough. And he did want them—would have them.

Cowardice be damned.

Chapter Nineteen