He shrugged. “Very well.”
He aligned the balls once more and then easily executed the shot she had been struggling with. She frowned. It would have been much easier if he hadn’t made it look so effortless. But she had never stepped down from dragons before, even ones with perfectly constructed forearms. So she drew a shaky breath, set her drink aside and lined up her shot. She measured it carefully as he watched, eyebrow arched.
“Shoot or don’t shoot, Abigail,” he finally said with a chuckle.
“Don’t rush me,” she scolded, but she took the cue from him and then carefully leaned over the table, trying to recall the right angles. She said a brief prayer to whatever patron saint might help her make a trick shot and put a duke in his place, and then she let the cue fly forward, rapping the ball.
Everything seemed to move in slow motion as she did so. She stared as the edge of the cue hit just the right spot on the underside of the ball and it roared up and forward, only just clearing the second ball in the row.
She let out a little scream, triumph and pleasure all at once, and pivoted to face Nathan. “Ha!” she crowed as she moved toward him almost against her will. She pushed the cue against his chest gently. “There now!”
But she didn’t release the cue. She meant to, but instead she left her hand there, flat against his chest. His very firm chest.
She looked up at him and he down at her in the quiet, the private of this room where no one could see them, no one would judge. And she found herself staring at full lips. He had a little scar over the top one, barely there, but she still wondered about it. Where had he gotten it? What would it feel like if he pressed it to her mouth?
“Good show,” he whispered, then leaned a little closer. “Abigail,” he breathed.
He was going to kiss her. She could see it in every bit of his posture, every line of his expression, every way that his breath hitched and his pupils dilated. And damn her to hell, but she wanted him to do it. She wanted to feel his horrible arms around her and his wicked mouth on hers.
Which was why she backed away, putting her back to him as she fought to regain her breath. This was not happening. She couldn’t allow it to happen, not with this man of all men.
“While it’s very satisfying to best you twice,” she said. “I think that is enough stimulation for the night.”
She shook her head at the innuendo of those two sentences. What was wrong with her?
But he didn’t acknowledge it or argue against her pulling away. Instead, he ran a hand through his hair and nodded. “Of course. Well done, Abigail. Let me show you to the foyer and call for your carriage.”
She moved to the door without waiting for him to follow, though she felt his presence behind her with every step. He was too close as they meandered down the hallway, her hands shaking at her sides as they neared the foyer. His butler met them there, and Nathan said something to the man. As Gardner hustled off, Nathan motioned her toward the front parlor.
“Just until they bring the rig,” he explained.
She nodded and followed him into the room. She paced away from him, as far as possible so that the moment of weakness in the billiard room would not be repeated. To keep herself busy, she made a show of examining the portraits, just as she had in the first parlor where she had been left earlier in the evening.
She frowned at the painting she was met with. A young lady with thick blonde hair and beautiful, piercing blue eyes. The unknown woman wore modern clothing and the date of the painting was just two years before.
She glanced back and him and found he was watching her. “Is this…is this your sister?”
Nathan nodded slowly. “Yes. Ophelia.”
Abigail jerked her gaze away. “I know her name.”
“She…will be joining me in London in a few weeks,” he said, haltingly, as if he was trying to keep himself from saying something that might hurt her.
And, of course, he had, though for once it wasn’t his fault. Lady Ophelia had been one of the women Erasmus had pursued behind Abigail’s back during their marriage. He had intended, it seemed, for her to be his fourth wife.
She shifted as she looked at her again. Lady Ophelia was exquisitely beautiful. “So she will be at events,” she said.
“Will that be difficult for you?” he asked.
She pursed her lips. He was peeling her open with that question, revealing her vulnerability, her humiliation. She folded her arms to make it stop, but that was no barrier to his seeing stare. “No,” she lied. “Why would it be? Now, I’m sure I just heard the carriage pull up. I think it’s time for me to go.”
She hustled toward the door, but as she began to pass him, he caught her hand. His grip was gentle but firm and she stopped, heart racing as she looked up at him.
Just like in the billiard room, his desire was unmasked. It mirrored her own, much as she tried to fight it.
“Abigail,” he whispered.
“Gilmore,” she returned, back to his title as another attempt at a wall between them.
He arched a brow. “Nathan. I think you must definitely call me Nathan in this moment.”
“Wh-why in this moment specifically?”
“Because I’m going to kiss you,” he said. “If you’ll let me.”
She stared at him. She had spent a great deal of time painting this man as a villain in her mind. There were reasons for it, both valid and invalid. She’d also spent far too much of that same time fantasizing about him. Dreaming of him. Of exactly what he wanted to do.
And now, in the quiet of his parlor, when she felt vulnerable and uncertain…she again wanted exactly what he requested. And she wasn’t going to be strong enough to refuse him.
“Nathan,” she whispered as consent.
He bent his head, slowly, like he was savoring the fraction of a second before the kiss. His lips brushed hers, gentle at first, then harder. She pivoted more fully into his chest and wound her arms around his neck. The dam broke, months of tension and sparring washed away by the rushing water of desire and need and loneliness that he erased with his touch.
She parted her lips, a silent invitation that he took hungrily. His tongue swept in, tangling with hers as his hands gripped into fists in her skirts and held her tighter against his broad chest.
She could be washed away by this. She could be saved by this. She could be destroyed by this, and it would be the most glorious demise.
But the reminder brought her back to reality. She pulled away and he immediately released her, panting as he stared down at her with as much surprise and desire as she, herself, felt.
“I’ve wanted to do that for a very long time,” he said.
Those words wound past her heated physical reactions and settled into her mind. She wrinkled her brow at them. Until tonight, he had never expressed any interest in kissing her. Never looked at her with anything but contempt.
Her hackles lifted back into place and she glared at him. “I do not know what your game is, Your Grace, but I do not wish to play it. Good evening.”
She pushed past him, and this time he let her go without argument. She flounced to her carriage and nearly tripped hurtling herself in. Her heart pounded as she settled into place and the rig trotted off. Pounded harder when she pulled the curtain back a fraction and saw that Nathan had come out to the top step and was watching her go.