He waited for an answer. They both did, but none came. In the end, they both leaped out of bed, performed their ablutions behind a screen, and dressed as quickly as they could. That did not prevent Aaron from watching her with hunger as she moved. Neither did it stop her from looking back. Her gaze dropped to that large and very inconvenient part of him thrusting forward as he tried to button his falls. And his lingered on the curve of her bosom and the length of her leg as she retied her stockings.
“Do you regret last night?” he asked.
She looked up, her expression fierce. “Not for a second.”
“Thank God,” he breathed.
“Do you?”
“Not unless you do.”
She smiled. “Then we are agreed.”
“Yes.”
He held out his arm to her, and she took it. She stepped right up to his side and smiled. He felt his loins surge as she stepped close. The scent of her returned his mind to the night before, and he paused before opening the door.
“One kiss,” he whispered. “One last…”
She stretched up her face to his and he set his mouth upon hers. He moved slowly, trying to savor the moment, but he couldn’t stop himself from wrapping an arm around her back as he thrust inside her mouth. Damnation, he wanted to take her straight back to bed. His blood surged, he pressed her against the wall, and if he’d had the right, he’d have lifted her skirts as he… As they…
He didn’t have the right. He forced himself back as he smoothed his hand down her flushed cheek.
“Are you sure, Aaron?” she whispered.
“What?”
“Are you sure that love is not enough?”
He swallowed, his gaze canting away. “This is not love, Lilah. This is desire and by God, it is the most potent feeling I have ever experienced.”
Her expression darkened into sadness. “You still have no understanding of your own feelings.”
He winced. He did not want to be his father. He would not lose everything for love, and then endure decades of pain in his own home. And yet, he feared it was already too late. His heart might already be engaged, and she was perceptive enough to know it.
She sighed when he didn’t speak, then pushed him even harder. “What if it is love for me? What if I love you?”
She could not have cut him more deeply if she’d sliced him open with a knife. The last thing he wanted to do was hurt her. He should have refused her last night. An honorable man would have, but he’d been foxed, and she was so beautiful.
“You cannot love me,” he said firmly. “You don’t know me well enough.”
She arched her brows above eyes that seemed to mock him. “So last night was not, um, getting to know one another?”
He owed her the truth, such as he understood it. “Last night was pleasure.” How small a word for what he experienced! “The most exquisite of my life.”
“But it was not love,” she finished for him. There was definite mockery in her voice.
“It cannot be,” he said gently. “Because if it is, then we are both doomed to unhappiness. And I would never do such a thing to you.”
The humor that sparkled in her eyes cooled until her entire expression closed down. That cut him yet again.
“Lilah,” he whispered.
“Still an idiot,” she muttered as she pulled open the door. “But this time, I cannot blame you.”
When had he let down his arm? When had she stepped free of him? He didn’t remember, but now there was no remedy. She was already out in the hall, quickly walking past rooms where other voices stirred. Most were women’s voices, but a few had men’s. One door in particular opened as Lilah passed it. A gentleman stepped out, his hat pulled low over his eyes and his shirt points stretched high. He saw Lilah’s back, then turned and gave Aaron a jaunty grin. Aaron didn’t return it.
It sickened him to think that he had put Lilah in this position. She was walking the halls alongside these women as if she belonged here. She did not. And yet now, thanks to his inability to protect her, she would be damned as one of them.