Page 72 of Dangerous Exile
“I must do nothing.” His eyes narrowed at her, his fury from yesterday instantly igniting into flames and surging through his blood. “With due regard, Lady Washburn, you may have saved my life, but then you threw an eleven-year-old boy onto a ship, injured, with no memory of his past. Everything of my life, of who I am now, is what I’ve built with my own two hands since then. Good and bad. I don’t need to be delivered from it, don’t need to be saved from it.”
“Oh.” Her hand flew up to her face, her fingers pressing against her lips. “I am so sorry, my sweet lad. So sorry for what path I sent you on. I don’t know how you will forgive me.”
“It is what it is.” The statement made, not offering forgiveness or condolences against her distress. Noble emotions that he doubted he’d ever be able to extend to this woman and her family. He inclined his head to her. “You will excuse me.”
Grabbing his lamp, Talen turned on his heel and strode out of the library, needing Ness. Her body, her arms around him. Needing him grounded to who and what he was. London. Harsh. Driven. Wary. Not to be trifled with.
Stepping into his room, he watched Ness sleeping on her side as he stripped down. The low light from the fireplace sent shadows across the top of her smooth breasts, her nipples just barely covered by the sheet he’d tugged over her when he’d left the bed. Her fingers moved on the empty mattress beside her, and her eyes fluttered open, drowsy.
Finding him standing next to the bed, she smiled and Talen crawled under the sheet, kissing her bare shoulder. At least the beds were comfortable here at Washburn. Thick mattresses that could cushion Ness from how hard he needed to drive into her.
Her hand lifted to land on his chest, her fingers curling into his skin. And just like that, the fury dissipated from his veins.
Ness looked up at him. “Is the dowager back?”
“She is.”
“And who am I marrying?” She pushed herself to sitting, the sheet falling down about her waist and exposing her breasts.
Damned distracting.
“You’re marrying Talen Blackstone.”
“Yes. And?”
He held back a wince. “Conner Josiah Bartholomew Francis Burton.”
The slightest smirk lifted the corners of her lips. “It is long.”
“It is.”
She nodded, her lips pursing. “But between us, it is Talen Blackstone I am marrying. Understood? You are Talen and no one else.”
“Understood and appreciated.” His head dipped, his lips moving down along her breast to her left nipple. Slipping it into his mouth, he swirled his tongue along it, marveling at how good she tasted. Always water to his thirst.
A mewl left her as she arched her back to angle herself better to his mouth and her fingers sank into his hair. “Did the dowager say anything else?”
“No.” He lifted his lips from her body for a breath. “But I told her.”
“Told her what?”
He moved onto her neck, finding the dipped burrow with his tongue where her collarbone, neck and shoulder triangulated, the exact spot that made the tiny hairs on her arms spike. “That I want no part of this family. No earldom. Nothing. That we are leaving on the morrow.”
“You what?”
His head popped up, his look finding her stunned face. “That I want nothing to do with this life.” He leaned forward, burying himself in her hair, his lips aching to be on her skin again.
She pushed against his chest, holding him away. “You just decided that?”
“I did.” His eyebrows angled inward as he found her gaze. “I don’t want this. This life.”
“Why not?”
“Why not?” He jerked away from her hands on his chest, his arm swinging up into the air around them. “I don’t want the monstrosity of this place. It only brings pain. It brought pain—death—to everyone that I cared about. Why would I want this? I don’t. There’s no reason for it. So I refused it.”
“But you can’t just refuse who you really are.” She leaned forward, her fingers finding the center line of his chest. “It is your birthright, this place, the title. You must take it.”
Her touch suddenly burning him, he jerked out of the bed, the full of his naked body pulsing in the flickering light of the fire, muscles twitching. “I don’t want it. Don’t want this. So stop pushing it, Ness.”