Page 37 of The Forsaken

“Would you cease your caterwauling?” he growled. “I’m the one in hell. You’re on New Bond Street.”

The blinding rush of light chased away the dark, replacing it with a different kind of dark.

The wild-maned chestnut beast who’d been bearing down on her morphed into an even more ferocious creature.

Andromena blinked wildly until her vision completely cleared, only to realize who had saved her. The same man who had kissed her like she was the only woman in the world he yearned for. “Edgar?”

“I would bow,” he said. “If you weren’t draped all over me.”

She snorted. “No, you wouldn’t. You are no gentleman, Edgar.” Andromena leveraged herself to look him in the eyes better. “You…You…”

But the problem was that the moment she did, she lost her tongue, her head, and senses.

His dark eyes belonged to a hunter: haunting, and meant to terrify. Yet, the sudden shivers in her lower stomach and magnetic prickle across her skin were not those of fear, but breathless anticipation.

“Yes?”

She didn’t have a clue what he was yes’ing to.

One dark, menacing eyebrow took wing. “I believe you were saying something about me not being a gentleman?”

“Y-yes.” There that was—

Her breath hitched.

His hand, buried against the side of her skirts, stroked along her thigh.

Years of lessons on decorum demanded ladylike indignation and outrage. Or as her brothers prepared her for such insolence, a knee between the gentleman’s quite muscular thighs. What they had not prepared her for was legs like steel rods, and all the muscles within them, and how they rippled and moved and would in turn move—

Then, it happened. Not in a ballroom or theatre box with the romantic strains of an opera swelling around her, but on the cold, cobbled streets of London. Andromena’s lashes fluttered. Her eyes rolled back. And she had her first swoon because of Viscount Kerr.

It wasn’t to be borne!

With his next crass, jeering breath, Edgar proved why.

“You ungrateful chit! I’ve now risked my own damned neck, not once, but twice, to save your fool’s one.”

They were drawing a crowd.

The viscount seemed to note as much at the same time as she. This time, he placed his fury on someone who was not Andromena. He narrowed his predator’s eyes to menacing slits and flashed the same feral snarl at their gawking, but small audience.

It was hard not to be made breathless by the way he sent several men scurrying with but a single black look. The dapperly dressed gentlemen bumped and tripped over one another in a bid to dodge his wrath. And fully aware of his ruthless reputation, she would wager the sun, moon, and stars that not a word of what happened here would be whispered about, lest they find themselves a feast of the wolf.

Andromena, who normally went breathless only over gloves and gowns, found herself flushed and hot, and aware all over again of the Corinthian before her.

Edgar cursed. “You injured your bloody hand.”

He sounded so put out by the possibility she frowned. “I have not. I have three much larger brothers and three also very large cousins.” None of them is near in height and power to this specimen of a man. “I assure you, my lord. I’m very resilient.”

“Then what in hell are you doing with your fingers?”

At some point, she’d begun fanning herself.

Over him. Madness!

Andromena abruptly stopped.

She hated the effect he was having on her, but she also understood it. She was, after all, a flesh and blood woman who could not help but be impressed by the power with which he, a virile, feral man, commanded.