“What do you want to know?” he asked, his voice slightly hoarse as he stared anywhere but in her direction.
She drew in a breath. “You know everything about my past. About my father. But I know nothing about the person who has driven you to such lengths. Will you tell me about your father?”
Sin flinched, but there was a resignation on his face that told her he had guessed that would be the subject of her questioning. “Like what?”
“Were you close to him at any time?”
Sin sighed, his lips pinching as he pondered the question. “My mother died when I was a boy, just nine years old.”
She sucked in a breath. “I’m sorry.”
He shrugged, but that dismissive action wasn’t reflected in the pained green depths of his eyes. “She had been ill most of my life. I think she loved me.” He stopped talking for a moment, long enough that she could see how moved he was by the subject. “But I wouldn’t say she was ever able to truly be a mother to me. My father loved her. I know that to be true, but she had been dying for years. At some point, he cut himself away from whatever pain and anguish he felt. Within months of her death, he remarried. A woman he had been secretly having an affair with during the last few years of my mother’s life.”
His tone was so even, so emotionless, but Evelyn shut her eyes at the pain that bubbled beneath the surface nonetheless.
“As a child, you must have been so angry and confused!”
He shot a gaze her way, filled with surprise at her observation. “Yes. I hated the woman, didn’t want her around. I even tried to find ways to make her go away. And the feeling, I’m afraid, was mutual. My existence was only a reminder of the past to her. She wanted to start a new life with my father. She wanted to purge all memories of my mother away, whether that was by redecorating his home… or putting me out of her sight. So she did.”
Evelyn swallowed. “What did she do?”
He shrugged. “I was sent away to live with my mother’s parents in the country. It was a happy enough existence, I suppose, though I admit I harbored much resentment toward my father, toward my stepmother. And they virtually ignored me.”
“Oh, Sin,” she breathed and reached for him by instinct. She wanted to touch him, to allow him to feel her empathy and support. He met her stare, his eyes almost daring her to touch him. To care. She withdrew her hand before she could cup his arm.
“When I came of age, I was called to London by my father’s solicitor. I thought-” He stopped and she saw him fighting emotion again. “I thought perhaps he wanted me now. But he didn’t. He wasn’t even present at the meeting. I was given over a very large settlement. The man called it an inheritance, but it was payment for the neglect. And a way to buy me to stay away. At first, I considered marching up to the house and throwing the money in my father’s face, but I knew my stepmother would only take it to buy more ridiculous decoration for whatever room she was currently obsessed with.”
“You took it,” she urged when he stopped speaking. His breath was ragged now and it was clearly taking more effort to keep his emotions in check.
“I took it. I invested it. I tripled it in two years time. And threw myself into debauchery with all my heart.”
“Because you didn’t want to feel that pain again?” she asked, already knowing the answer.
“I suppose that is one way to look at it. Another would be that I’d had my fill of pain and feeling.” He gritted his teeth. “I earned every fuck. Every drunken row. Every damned pleasure I pursued.”
“Then why do you care that my father destroyed you father?” she asked. “Clearly, he did not earn your loyalty.”
Sin’s shoulders relaxed. “Perhaps not. But a year ago, he called for me. I came, I don’t know why. Curiosity, I suppose. My stepmother had tired of him and departed for the country home. And he wanted me. All of a sudden, he was sorry. He was wrong. I was a treasure he had lost. It was shit, of course.”
She winced.
“But I… I still wanted that. I spent time with him, I was beginning to find some kind of twisted understanding of his frailties when he died.”
“Because of my father, you believe.” She shook her head.
He nodded vehemently. “Damn right because of your father.”
For a long time, they sat in silence. Evelyn thought about Sin’s story, his past. The pain. And she realized something both shocking and exhilarating.
“You know,” she sighed. “You and I are very much alike, Sin.”
He looked at her with incredulity. “Are we?”
“Yes. It may not seem so on the surface. You are… well, you deal solely in pleasure. You don’t care about consequence or the future. You live for the moment you are in. And I am not like that. I am always waiting for fate, watching over my shoulder for when it will arrive and destroy me. But…”
Sin moved closer, watching her face. “But…?”
“But we are who we are for the same reasons. I lost my mother young, as well. My father may not have abandoned me in body, as yours did, but he never cared for my sister and I as a father should. I know the feeling of despair. Of wishing for more. Of disappointment. And anger. In some ways, we are the same.”
He reached out and trailed his fingertips along her cheek. “No, Evie, we are different in a very important way. You do not deserve any pain and would never cause it. And I have created it. For you. For others. Just to appease my anger.”
Evelyn reached up and caught Sin’s fingers, drawing them to her lips where she brushed her mouth across them. He sucked in his breath.
“But you have also brought pleasure, Sin.”
She leaned forward and pressed her mouth against his. She gave him comfort, she offered hope and she prayed he might take it as he took her. Stop tormenting himself. Stop hating everything in his past. If not for her, where there was no future to be shared, than for himself.
If he took the feelings behind the kiss, she didn’t know, but he devoured her mouth, pushing her back until she laid on the grass. His heavy body moved across her, pinning her down, filling her with heat that had nothing to do with the summer breeze.
“Evie,” he groaned as he drove his tongue between her lips. She sucked it, drawing him in deep, giving everything in her soul despite knowing that it was foolish to do so.
He inspired that. There was no denying the truth. When she was with him, she was willing to surrender everything. Because she loved him. She had for such a long time. She would always, no matter what lies he told or damage he did. That was why she couldn’t see him again after their affair ended.
Tears stung her eyes even as she tugged at his jacket, scraping her nails along the front of his shirtwaist and arching against his heat. His mouth moved down her throat, along the edge of her gown’s swooping neckline. He sucked against the fabric covering her nipple and she sighed as she wrapped her arms around him and held him close.
He shrugged out of his shirt with one arm as he continued to kiss her until she thought she could die happily in this very position. Then he went to work at unlacing the front of her gown. When he had loosened it enough, he tugged down, baring her breasts.
He kissed her again, flatting his bare chest against her own and stroking back and forth so that glorious friction was created against her hard nipples. She moaned, lifting her hips until she felt the hard thrust of his erection at the juncture of her thighs. Her body immediately gushed with hot wetness at the feel and the anticipation of what was to come.
He got to his feet with a curse, kicking out of the remainder of his clothes as she yanked her skirt up above her waist. She opened her legs for him as he came down between them and positioned himself at the entrance to her body.
He locked gazes with her as he slipped inside, inch by inch, until he was fully seated deep inside her clenching body. His full weight came down on her and he kissed her again before he rocked forward. She moaned against his neck as their pelvises ground against each other and caused a delightful shot
of pleasure that weighted her entire body.
He repeated the motion, over and over, always maintaining control over his cadence as he watched her face for the signs of pleasure. Evelyn was too wrapped up in sensation to try to hide them. She allowed herself every heated moan, every pant of breath. She showed him everything, perhaps even a piece of her heart, as she wrapped her legs around his bare backside and lifted her hips to meet each thrust.
The brink was coming. She tried to hold it off as long as she could because she could see Sin was waiting for her release before he found her own. Once he had, the moment would end. And there was something different about this joining. There weren’t any secrets between them any longer. She understood him.
But her body revolted against her mind’s desire. The coiling tightness between her legs began to unravel as her sheath quivered uncontrollably with release. She arched up hard, digging her nails into Sin’s back as she cried out with the force of her emotions and her passion.
He growled against the base of her neck and swiveled his hips one last, earthshaking time before he pumped inside of her and collapsed against her on the grass.
“I’m so sorry I hurt you, Evelyn,” he whispered as he pressed a kiss against her throat.
She blinked back more tears as she held him tightly and wondered what could come out of these days they’d shared beyond heartbreak and emptiness.
Chapter Ten
Sin swirled the drink in his hand in the darkness of his private office. The fire had burned down to almost nothing long ago, but he didn’t rise to increase the heat or light. He just stared at the dying embers, thinking how much they were like the coals of his hatred and pain. There, hot as ever, but close to death.
Sharing his past with Evelyn had brought those feelings even closer to that inevitable end than ever before. That reaction wasn’t one he had expected. But then again, he hadn’t ever expected to share his past. He never had before. All his friend, all his lovers, all the people he’d been close to in his life… no one had ever known the truth about his childhood. No one had heard him pour out his pain.
But he’d done it for Evelyn. It had seemed natural to share those things. Her empathy, despite her anger and hurt, had wrapped around him with warm, accepting arms. There had been safety in her eyes. A promise never to use what he’d told her against him.
And in her arms, after he made love to her on the hill, he’d found a peace unlike any he’d ever experienced.
But was there also forgiveness available in her soul? Was there a future?
He jolted at that thought. A future? He never thought of the future. Evelyn had pointed that out and it was true. The future was a foggy thing that might bring pain. So he lived in the moment.
Yet now he pictured that future he tried to avoid. And he could see Evelyn in it. In this home. In his arms. In his life. Forever. And those images didn’t seem wrong or out of place.
Sin knew she harbored some feelings for him. Her anger revealed how entangled she’d become in his life, in his heart. But would she accept an offer to stay here after the time they’d allowed was over?
There was only one way to find out.
He got to his feet and stalked into the hall. She would be dressing for supper now, in that blasted chamber separate from his own she’d demanded. He climbed the stairs two by two, focused on the goal. On her.
Outside her door, he hesitated. He’d never risked much in his life. Evelyn had pointed that out, too, when she said she never saw him as a gambling man. If he never put too much out, he wouldn’t lose anything.
And now he had everything to lose. But he knocked on her door regardless.
“Come in.” Her voice was muffled on the opposite side of the door and he girded up all his strength before he pushed the barrier open.
She was standing in the sitting area of the chamber, her maid smoothing the last few wrinkles from her gown. She looked up at him in surprise and within her eyes he saw everything he ever wanted. And everything he had avoided to keep himself from being disappointed.
To his surprise, he wanted to run. Turn tail and never look back. But Sin was not a coward, so he stepped forward instead.
“I would like a moment of your time,” he said, shocked by how his voice cracked like a young man’s.
She tilted her head in surprise, but nodded to the maid. “Thank you, that will be all.”
Sin stared at her wordlessly as the girl passed him, opened the door and closed it behind herself. When they were alone, Evelyn ran her hands over her waist reflexively.
“What is it?”
He shifted. How could he say this? He had no idea. He’d never been the kind of man to pour out any part of himself. He thought romantic drivel in books or poetry was nonsense. But now he wished he’d memorized something that he could say that would express everything that boiled inside him.
“Sin?” she murmured, taking a step toward him. Her concern was plain on her face. “You are pale. What is it?”
“I negotiated this deal with your father,” he burst out and immediately wished he could take the blurted words back.
She stopped moving forward. “Yes.”
“But I want to negotiate a new deal… with you.” He swallowed.
Her face fell. “We did that, Sin. And you have me for the allotted time, so there is no need to remind me of why I’m here.”
He shook his head. God, he was bungling this. “No, no. Please, sit down.”
She watched him with wary attention for a moment before she moved to one of the chairs beside the fire and sat. “I don’t understand, Sin.”
He scrubbed a hand over his face. “Neither do I. Let me start over.” He sat down in the chair beside hers and took her hand. “Evelyn, I don’t want you to leave.”
Her expression turned to one of utter shock and she drew away a fraction. He hurried to speak so she wouldn’t interrupt.
“I know I lied to you, I know I planned for something unspeakable and you may never forgive me for that. But I don’t want you to be where I’m not. I don’t want to wake up without you beside me. Please stay with me.”
*
Evelyn felt tears gathering in her eyes and she did not fight them. She was too much in shock at what Sin had said to her. Joy filled her, threatening to overwhelm her with its power.
But then the words began to sink in. And she realized what Sin said. And what he had not.
He had not asked her to marry him. He hadn’t said he loved her. He needed her, he wanted her. Those were powerful things. But he wasn’t offering her the things she needed.
“Wh-what would you have me stay here as?” she whispered.
He seemed confused. “As?”
“If I stayed with you…” His hands tightened on hers and her heart ached. “If I stayed, what would I be?”
He nodded as if he understood. “I would have you as my mistress, Evelyn. No other.”
Her aching heart now sank. It was as she feared. She quietly withdrew her hands from his. “I’m sorry, Sin. I cannot do what you desire. It’s simply not enough for me.”
“Not enough?” he repeated, his tone filled with shock and harsh disappointment. “What do you mean? I would give you a lifetime of pleasure. I would give you anything you desire, whenever you desired it.”
She smiled, though she felt anything but happiness. This conversation was like pulling her own heart out and stomping it into powder.
“But would you love me, Sin?” she asked, standing up and backing away. Being so close to him made this all the more difficult. “And if things became difficult, if you grew bored, wouldn’t you set me aside in exchange for a more pliable woman? No, Sin. I need more than you can give to me by making me your mistress.”
“I know you care for me,” he barked, getting to his feet quickly enough that the chair he’d been sitting on flipped over backward. “I see it in your eyes.”
She dipped her head. “Yes, I do care for you. I have pictured being with you for as lon
g as I’ve known you. In fact, those stories I wrote, the ones you enjoyed so much… do you know who I wrote them about?”
He shrugged, frustration evident in every line of his body. “Your fantasies?”
“You were my fantasy,” she whispered. “The stories were about you. And if you notice, many of them ended with the man telling the woman he loved her. Because she loved him.”
He staggered away, the full realization of what she was saying washing over him in a moment that was so clear that it was painful to look at.
“You love me?” he asked.
She nodded. There was no escaping that fact now. Not if she ever wanted him to understand why she was leaving. Why she had to go.
“I love you, Sin. Whether you understand that or not, whether you shun it or not, you deserve love. But there is one thing I’ve learned since I arrived here. And it isn’t about how to give and receive pleasure. It’s that I deserve love. And if you couldn’t give it to me, I would be as much a prisoner here as I ever was in my father’s home. So I can’t take your offer to be mistress.”
She turned away. “And I think, for both our sakes, that I should go tomorrow instead of on the designated day of our departure.”
*
Sin stared at Evelyn’s trembling back as despair threatened to bring him to his knees. This woman loved him, but she would rather give him up, give up the life he offered her, than be with him under the terms he had laid out for her. She would rather go back to her father than live with him as his mistress and nothing more.
He’d never known anyone else like Evelyn Greville. She was maddening and frustrating and stubborn. But she was also principled and good and willing to risk her heart to admit she loved him.
Loved him. Despite lies. Despite whatever dark things lived inside him. Despite the fact that he pushed her to her limits and beyond. Did he deserve her love? He didn’t think so, despite her assertion to the contrary.
But he wanted to deserve it. Because he loved her.
“Evelyn,” he breathed as that realization pushed him back. When had it happened? When had he begun to love her amidst all the desire and utter respect he had for the person she was. Was it while they were still in London? Was it the night she lifted her chin and took his offer of passion? Was it the first time she surrendered to his touch?
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