There was no going back now.
Chapter 13
Max stared into the dying flames flickering low within the great hearth of his study. He held his third drink of the night loosely in his hand, his legs stretched out before him. He scratched at the bristly growth of hair on his jaw. He had not shaved in days, and he felt in no particular rush to do so.
For the fifth night in a row he stayed in. It was a record.
The first two nights following that shattering kiss with Aurelia, he had gone out to all his usual haunts. He’d rubbed elbows with acquaintances, friends, strangers. He’d laughed, consumed copious amounts of liquor, and flirted with women. Rather desperately he had flirted with the fairer sex, trying hard to banish the memory of how perfect Aurelia had fit against him. How she had tasted of bergamot and mint. How she had shuddered and come apart in his arms.
Bloody hell. He lifted his glass and drank deep.
He had contemplated taking another woman to bed, but whenever he leaned in close to kiss one, he found himself pulling back. He could only see amber-brown eyes and olive skin. Every. Bloody. Time.
With a hissed breath, he rose and refilled his glass and then dropped heavily back into his armchair with a muttered curse.
He needed to forget her. Forget that kiss. Her smell. Her taste. Her wild responsiveness. He wasn’t about to ruin a lifelong friendship because he had an itch to taste what was beneath Aurelia’s skirts. Even he possessed a code. There wasn’t much he wouldn’t do, but virgins and best friends’ sisters were off limits.
He’d reached a decision. It was the reasonable thing to do. The responsible thing. Come morning, he would depart for the country. He hardly ever left Town during the Season, but given the circumstances, a visit to his family estate seemed the only recourse.
He would absent himself from Town for a few months. By the time he returned, Aurelia would either be gone for Scotland or engaged. He took another deep gulp from his glass and pushed the thought of Aurelia married to someone else from his mind. He refused to think of her unleashing her uninhibited passions on some other man. With a groan, he brought his hand to his cock and readjusted the growing bulge in his trousers. Clearly, his attempts to not think about her weren’t working. He eyed the decanter across the room, debating getting well and thoroughly soused.
A tentative knock sounded at his door. His staff was well aware of his black mood for the last week.
“Go away!” he bellowed.
A long moment followed before another knock came, a fraction louder this time.
He glared at his glass, contemplating tossing it at the door. “I said go away!”
The door creaked open and his butler stuck his head into the room like a turtle poking his head out of his shell. “M’lord?”
“Go away, Barton.”
“You’ve a caller—”
“I don’t want to see anyone tonight.”
“She says it’s an emergency.”
She? He straightened in his chair, his mind racing.
She wouldn’t dare . . . nor would he want her to. Of course, he would turn her away after a severe tongue-lashing. And immediately his thoughts took a dive into the gutter over what manner of tongue-lashing he would subject her to. Bloody hell.
“Send her in.”
She must have been waiting outside the door. Barton scarcely withdrew back out into the hall before she entered.
Disappointment stabbed him in the chest. It wasn’t Aurelia.