She closed her eyes. Leaned into his caress. Told a half truth. “You left me bound by my actions. By the things I’ve done to you.” She stopped, but his touch continued, drawing more words forth. “Not just twelve years ago. The night Kit met you in the ring. Tonight.” She released a long breath, hating the guilt that consumed her over what she’d done that night. She captured the hand of his wounded arm, held it tight in hers. “Tonight, I betrayed you, and you freed me.”
And I love you.
And I could give you the one thing you wanted.
She didn’t say it. Couldn’t.
Was afraid of what would come if she did.
Afraid he might laugh.
Afraid he wouldn’t.
Her eyes opened, finding his, hot and focused on her. “You think too much of me.”
“When was the last time someone thought of you, Mara?” he asked, his fingers sliding free of her scalp, tracing the rise of her cheekbones, the column of her neck, the ridge of her shoulders. “When was the last time someone cared for you? When have you ever allowed it to happen?”
He was mesmerizing. The barely-there touch on her skin, the soft skim of his breath as he spoke. She shook her head.
“When have you ever trusted someone?”
I would never have let him hurt you.
The words that had nearly destroyed her in the ballroom that evening whispered through her. The promise that even then, twelve years earlier, without knowing a thing about her, he would have protected her.
The thought devastated her with its temptation.
She shook her head. “I can’t remember.”
He sighed, pulling her close, setting his lips to her forehead and cheek, to the curve of her jaw and the line of her neck and the corner of her mouth. She turned to him, wanting to kiss him in earnest. Wanting to hide from the overwhelming thoughts he planted in her mind. Wanting to hide from him.
In him.
But he wouldn’t allow it.
“You once asked me how I came by the name Temple.”
She stilled, not certain she wanted the truth now. Not certain she could face it. “Yes.”
“It’s where I slept the night I arrived in London. After my exile.”
Her brow furrowed. “I don’t understand. You slept in a temple?”
He shook his head. “Under one. I slept under the Temple Bar.”
She knew the monument, mere blocks away on the eastern edge of the city, marking the place where the unfortunates of London toiled and lived, and she thought of that bright-faced young man—the one who’d shown her kindness and pleasure—there, alone. Miserable. Terrified.
“Were you—” She tried to find the words to finish the question without insulting him.
His lips twisted in a humorless smile. “Whatever you are thinking . . . the answer is likely yes.”
It was a miracle he could look at her.
It was a miracle he could be near her.
She did not deserve him.
“What happened after the first night?” She asked.
“There was a second, and a third,” he said, working at the buttons of her glove with one skilled hand, doffing the garment with the same efficiency with which he’d donned it. “And then I learned to make my way.”
He slid the silk from her fingers and she immediately placed the hand on his arm, feeling the muscles there bunch and ripple beneath the touch. “You learned to fight.”
He turned his attention to the other glove. “I was big. And strong. All I had to do was forget the rules of boxing that I’d learned at school.”
She nodded. She’d forgotten every rule she’d ever learned as a child in order to survive once she’d run. “They no longer applied.”
He met her gaze as the second glove slid off. “It worked well for me. I was angry, and gentlemen’s rules did little to assuage that. I fought on the streets for two years, taking any fight with money to pay.” He paused, then smiled. “And any number of fights without money to pay.”
“How did you come to the Angel?”
His brow furrowed. “Bourne and I had been friends at school. When he lost everything that was not entailed, he found himself down on his luck, and we decided to form an alliance. He ran dice games. I made sure the losers paid.” She was surprised by the turn of events, and he saw it. “You see? Not so honorable after all.”
“What then?” she prodded, desperate to know the story.
“One night, we went too far. Pushed too hard. And backed a group of men into an unpleasant corner.”
She could imagine. “How many of them?”
He shrugged his good shoulder, his hand sliding down the side of her thigh, distracting her. “A dozen. Maybe more.”
Her attention returned to him. “Against you?”
“And Bourne.”
“Impossible.”
He smiled. “So little faith in me.”
Her brows shot up. “Am I incorrect?”
“No.”
“Then what?”
“Then Chase.”
The mysterious Chase. “He was there?”
“In a sense. We’d been fighting for what seemed like an age, and they kept coming—I really did think we were done for.” He pointed to the scar at the corner of his eye. “I couldn’t see out of my eye for the blood.” She winced, and he instantly stopped. “I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have—”
“No,” she said, lifting her hand to the thin white line, tracing it with her fingers, wondering what he would do if she kissed it. “I just don’t like the idea of you hurt.”
He smiled, capturing her hand and bringing it to his lips, placing a kiss on the tips of her fingers. “But drugged?”
She met his smile with her own. “At my hands, it’s a different matter.”
“I see,” he said, and she loved the laughter in his voice. “Well . . . suffice to say, I thought we were done for. And then a carriage pulled up and a group of men piled out—and then I thought we were definitely done for,” he added. “But they fought on our side. And I didn’t care who they worked for, as long as Bourne and I lived.”
“They worked for Chase.”
Temple inclined his head. “So they did.”
“And then you worked for him.”
He shook his head. “With. Never for. From the beginning, the offer was clear. Chase had an idea for a casino that would change the face of aristocratic gaming forever. But that idea required a fighter. And a gamer. And Bourne and I were precisely that combination.”
She let out a long breath. “He saved you.”
“Undoubtedly.” He paused, lost in thought. “And never once believed me a killer.”
“Because you weren’t,” she said, this time having no choice but to lean in and press a kiss to his temple. She lingered on the caress, and he caught her close. When she pulled away from him, he moved to capture her lips.
They lingered there, tangled together for a long moment, before Mara pulled away. “I want the rest of the story. You became unbeatable.”
His bad hand flexed against her hip. “I was always good at violence.”
Her hands moved of their own volition, sliding across his wide, warm chest. He was magnificently made, she knew, the product of years of fighting. Not simply for sport, but for safety.
“It was my purpose.”
She shook her head. “No,” she said. “It wasn’t.”
He’d been clever and funny and kind. And ever so handsome. But he hadn’t been violent.
He captured her chin in a firm grip. “Hear me, Mara. You didn’t make me into that man. If I hadn’t had the seed of violence in me—I never would have succeeded. The Angel never would have succeeded.”
She refused to believe it. “When one is forced into a role, one assumes it. You were forced. Circumstances forced you.” She paused. “I forced you.”