He smirked—and underestimated his bite-size opponent.
She reared her leg back and buried her ankle-length half-boot in his shin.
Hartwell laughed. “You could have tossed a feather and hurt me more, you she-witch.”
Fleur leveled him another ineffectual kick. “I hate you,” she cried. “I hate you. I hate you. I hate you.”
And then, her shoulders still clasped in his hands, the lady sagged—and burst out crying.
Hartwell’s fingers curled and uncurled reflexively. “Oh, no,” he gritted out, over her noisy blubbering. “I’ve seen you woo Winterly at an auction, Byron on his final return to England, and every last damn fop, rake, and rogue, circling you like sharks. I’m not a trick monkey to dance attendance on you, Fleur McQuoid.”
Except this wasn’t the pretty cry of a lady using tears the way Fleur had used her lashes when she wanted what she wanted. This was raw, noisy.
An unpleasant sensation.
“Do you hear me? I will not fall for your tricks,” he hissed.
As quick as she had let them fall, her fake tears vanished. “You are horrid!”
Hart caught her wrist mid-slap. “Horrid for letting you make mistakes that will destroy you.” He laughed, this time one that was forced, angry, and ugly. “You still haven’t realized men are rotten and care about one thing and one thing only, getting between your legs.”
Deprived of her fighter’s fingers, the chit set her adorable toes into action against his shin.
Hart lowered his brow to hers. “If you aren’t careful, Fleur, you’re going to find yourself in some hidden corner, backed against a wall with one of those scoundrels rutting between your sweet thighs,” he squeezed out between his clenched teeth, enraged that he imagined himself in that place. But then he was overcome by a haze of bloodlust thinking about someone else there.
Fury burned through the sheen of tears in her eyes. “I wouldneverencourage your courtship!”
This time an honest laugh left him. “As if I would.”
“I would not be with you if you were the last man in the world and my life depended on it. Not if you built me the biggest library in the world.”
Ah, yes, his well-read, little bluestocking. She’d put her love of books above all else, and he was ruthless enough to use it as a weapon against her.
“What about if I gave you my copy ofDon Juan?” he jeered and jibed like the bullying boy he became around her.
Her shriek threatened all the crystal in the showroom. “You insufferable buffoon. Every moment I spend with you is miserable.”
With a snarl, Hart drew her up by her shoulders to meet his eyes. “Every moment spent with me is miserable?”
Fear was any rational woman’s response. “You may not require a monocle yet—”
“I do not,” he snapped.
“But if you need me to repeat myself, a visit from one of your Tremaine family physicians is in order. So let me clarify: you make my life bloody miserable.”
“Well, that makes two of us, Fleur. For you are hardly a stroll in the Pleasure Gardens, yourself.”
Her eyes reflected his own frustration, confusion, and anger. Their chests surged powerfully from the force of emotion.
And then, Hart finally took what he had been longing to since she’d climbed up on a knee to look him in the eye at Chilton’s. A low growl worked up his chest. Cupping a hand about her nape, Hart drew her in, angled her close, and kissed her.
Hart didn’t kiss virgins. He steered clear of them altogether. She was the first. She would be the last until he married. And whichever woman he chose from that list, he would stake his life on not a single one of them responding the way Fleur did.
Fleur kissed him eagerly, unabashedly, letting out little mewls. She pressed herself against him, writhing and twisting like she wanted to climb into his skin.
And more than he needed air in his lungs, Hart wanted to be inside her.
And he did notneedanything or anyone.