Tempting Fate by Kerrigan Byrne (best free ereader .TXT) 📕

Masculine allure.

Was that what sent handkerchiefs fluttering to his feet, and jaded, middle-aged women swooning into his arms?

Posh birds love a bit of rough, Raphael had once said to him on his way to a night of debauchery.

His eyes devoured Felicity as she seemed to melt into Lord Melton’s arms.

Would she?

Not bloody likely. Gabriel wasn’t a bit of rough, he was an entire mountain of it. His hands, his body, his heart, his vocabulary and comportment.

His need.

This was fucking torture.

The sight of Melton’s hand on the curve of her back. His arms directing her this way and that as they floated over the dance floor. Their bodies a whisper away from each other, her skirt comingling with his legs.

That should be me.

The thought clawed its way through his head, and he grappled the beast back into its cage.

No. It should not.

What sort of offer could he make a woman like her? What did he have to offer her? His past and his sins and the blood on his hands? The money he’d amassed by pilfering from her fellow nobles, or doing their dirty work?

Enemies that would seek to crush her. That might already be trying to do so.

A life of secrets and darkness?

No, she needed to be here in the light, waltzing beneath crystal chandeliers doing their utmost to match her innate illumination. She was a creature meant for this glittering place and these gentle lads.

And he could only hope to watch her from the shadows.

Gabriel couldn’t take much more of this. He needed to find out who posited a threat to her, kill them most brutally, and take to the wind once she was safe.

Before she could uncover his deception.

Perhaps she should marry Kessinger. The hedgehog was a gentle-looking man. He’d at least keep her on the pedestal she deserved.

Images of the viscount rutting on top of her made him turn to the table beside which he stood. He came within an inch of flipping the entire thing over, just to watch everything shatter and everyone scream.

Thinking better of it, Gabriel escaped to a small private garden whose doors had been flung open to air out the increasingly warm ball room, but the entry had been roped off to deter guests.

He burst into the cool, familiar night, gulping in lungsful of the cool evening air.

Fuck. Fuck. Fuck. He needed to break something.

Someone.

He didn’t belong here. Not in this world. He wasn’t worthy to touch the silk hem of her gown.

Plunging his fingers through his hair, he gave a frustrated tug. What was he doing? What had he been thinking? How had he allowed himself to be pulled into this strange world wherein he slept beneath her roof and followed her around like some protective overgrown puppy?

All because he’d pathetically craved her presence for so long. Yearned to speak to her. To touch her. To be a part of the world in which she lived, and was presented with the inexplicable opportunity to do so.

He should have known this would be a disaster. He wanted all the eyes that touched her to be gone, to keep her only for himself like some primitive savage.

He’d vowed that once he’d dismantled his father’s organization, he’d no longer be a beast. That his only revenge could be to refuse the legacy intended for him.

But here he was, wanting to rip a man apart with his teeth. To truss up a woman— with or without her permission— carry her back to his den and…

And…

And what? He’d never be able to degrade such an angel with the wicked— fiendish— acts his body yearned for.

And he’d no experience with the act. No skill or reference.

Just unspent lust and unfulfilled need.

A prickling of his skin alerted him to an interloper silently approaching from behind.

Gabriel’s hand reached beneath his jacket to find the blade secured to his back before turning to face the very subject of his tormented reflections.

“It’s unbearably hot in there.” Felicity feathered a glove over her flushed brow. “What a splendid idea to escape.”

He shook his head, pointing to the door. “You should go back inside. It won’t do to be caught out here together. If you’re overheated, we can take refuge in the public gardens—”

“I can’t face the public gardens.” She frantically looked about, finding a hedge to the side of the door that blocked a cozy pergola from view. Retreating to it, she sank to a bench and bent forward as far as her corset would allow, breathing heavily, her face pinched with tension.

Struck with concern, Gabriel went to her. “Are you unwell? Do you think whatever is plaguing Mrs. Winterton has found you?”

She shook her head, still visibly fighting for breath.

“Then what is it?” He hovered over her, his hands itching to examine her, but for what, he couldn’t begin to define. “Should we take you to Dr. Conleith?”

His ruse would be over, but that didn’t matter if she were in danger.

Again, she gestured in the negative, holding up a hand for his silence as she fought some internal battle he could only watch.

Finally, after a minute or two, she dropped her forehead into her hands and let out an eternal breath. “It’s over… It wasn’t as dreadful as it can be.” The words muffled against her gloves.

He sank beside her, his heart, already galloping with his own turmoil, now racing with concern for her. “What is over? What is wrong?”

The eyes that met his were so haunted he could barely stand it. “Do you ever feel like you’re empty, Gareth? Like you’ve run out of words and wit and energy? Like your smile is so heavy and yet so brittle, the muscles can no longer keep it aloft? And all this because people took that smile from you… demanded it from you, even when it seems you have less to give than most?”

The bleak note in her voice stole his ability to speak.

The side of her mouth quirked at him. “Of course not. You don’t smile in the