Chapter 9: What He Saw

I lay in the dark with my heart pounding and could not find one lie that would do.

"It was a dream," I said.

"I know."

"I don't even like him."

"You don't have to explain to me."

He lay on his back, one arm behind his head, looking at the ceiling beams.

I could feel the careful space he had put between us.

An hour ago I had been wrapped around him.

"Lucian Thorpe is going to marry Linnet Harcourt," I said. "I'm done with him. It was a stupid dream."

"All right."

He said it so mildly that I wanted to throw something.

I got up and found my dress on the floor.

My hands shook on the laces, and I could not make them work.

He came up behind me and tied them, quickly and without touching more than he had to.

When he was finished his hands stayed on my back for the length of one breath.

Then he took them away.

"I'll say something once," he said, "and then I'll leave it."

"Say it."

"At the wedding, you looked at my throat."

I went still.

"Not my face. My throat. All through the vows, the bite, the kiss. You looked at it the way a hunter does, working out where to put the blade."

My mouth went dry.

"I don't know why," he said. "I'm not asking. But I'd rather you knew I saw it. And I'd rather you knew I came to your bed last night anyway."

"You didn't come to mine. I came to yours."

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