Page 57 of Cocky August Rake

Not my lord.

Not then.

She had told him she wanted to be wanted.

And Devil take it, he had wanted her.

He had wanted every tremble. Every gasp. Every helpless movement of her body.

He had wanted to please her until she forgot why she had brought him into that room. Until she forgot who he was. Until she forgot all about The damn Domus Emporium.

He wanted to believe she had.

For several moments afterward, he had remained on his knees with his face pressed against her hip, his body still painfully hard.

Beneath his cheek, he had felt her pulse gradually slow. Kept her from collapsing as she sagged against him in complete surrender.

And when he finally dragged himself away from her skin, had seen the flush in her cheeks and that tender, unguarded look in her eyes, he’d believed she was every bit as shaken as he was.

Then she had reached for her robe.

And Rose had disappeared.

Miss Darling had taken her place.

Composed. Courteous. Smiling as she thanked him for his efforts and promised that next time, she would please him.

Next time.

As though this was something she had done a hundred times before.

Perhaps she had.

The reminder had struck with an ugly, twisting force.

He had known what she was from the beginning. He had stood in that private parlor surrounded by the evidence of it. He had known.

And still, some foolish, grasping part of him had wanted to believe that what passed between them was different.

He’d convinced himself he was giving her pleasure. That he was proving himself different from every other man who’d entered the Domus.

A noble distinction.

And damned convenient.

By the time the sun rose over the docks two mornings later, Reginald could no longer avoid the truth.

He was a hypocrite.

All his adult life, Reginald had denied himself because he couldn’t escape the certainty that intimacy came at a cost.

A debutante would expect marriage, a widow might mistake a night in his bed for the promise of something more. But prostitutes would cost the most of all, not in coin, but in pounds of his self-respect.

Something he couldn’t give.

It wasn’t the same with Rose. Damn his eyes.

She knew precisely what he was—and what he was not offering. She had sacrificed nothing, he had told himself. Asked for nothing.