“Exactly how I would have felt if Inspector Fellows had let you go to the gallows or back to the asylum,” Beth said softly.
“I never understood before. It’s like fear and hope, both warm and cold. All mixed together.”
“I know.”
He cupped his hands around her face. “But I don’t want to hurt you. I never, ever want to hurt you.”
“Ian, you aren’t your father. From what you and your brothers have told me, you’re nothing like him. You left Sally rather than hurt her. You protected Hart from Fellows, and you thought you were protecting Lily. Everything you’ve done is to try to help people, not harm them.”
He stood silently, as though debating whether to believe her. “I have the rage inside me.”
“Which you know how to control. He didn’t. That’s the difference.”
“Can I ever be sure?”
“I’ll make you sure. You said yourself he caused you too much misery and that you and your brothers need to be done with him. Please, Ian. Let him go.”
Ian closed his eyes. Beth watched emotions flicker across his face, the uncertainty, the stubbornness, the raw pain he’d lived with for so long. He didn’t always know how to express his emotions, but that didn’t mean he didn’t feel them deeply.
When Ian slowly opened his eyes, he guided his gaze directly to Beth’s. His golden eyes shimmered and sparkled, pupils ringed with green. He held her gaze steadily, not blinking or shifting away.
“I love you,” he said.
Beth caught her breath, and sudden tears blurred her vision.
“Love you,” Ian repeated. His gaze bore into hers harder than Hart’s ever could hope to. “Love you, love you, love you, love you, love you love you love you...”
“Ian.” Beth laughed.
“Love you,” he murmured against her lips, her face, against the curve of her neck. “Love you.” “I love you, too. Are you going to say it all night?”
“I’ll say it until I’m in you so hard I can’t speak.” “I suppose I’ll have to put up with that. It might be difficult, though I wouldn’t mind finding out.”
He paused. “Are you joking?”
Beth laughed until she slid out of the seat, but when she landed on the floor, Ian was right beside her. “Yes. I was joking.” She caught lan’s lapels in her hands. “I believe carnality is definitely called for. Perhaps we should send for Curry to pull out the bed.”
Ian got to his feet, tossed the cushions onto the other bench, and unlatched the hooks that unrolled the seat into a bed. “I don’t want Curry.”
“I see.”
Ian yanked the bed into place, then lifted Beth and laid her on it. He unlaced her boots with quick jerks, then unbuckled and unfastened every bit of her brand-new traveling clothes.
Moments later she lay back, naked in the chill air. Beth lifted one hand over her head, letting her br**sts arch forward, while lan’s gaze warmed her like a blanket. She bent her knee, scooting her foot to her hip so he could see between her legs. It felt delicious and exciting to lie back for Ian Mackenzie and let him look his fill.
“Do you still love me?” she asked. “Or is it only desire?”
“Both.”
Ian tossed off his jacket, cravat, collar, and waistcoat in a few smooth moves, and had his shirt unbuttoned at cuffs and throat before she could blink. She watched his vee of brown chest come into view, then his strong thighs as he kicked out of his trousers and underdrawers. The shirt came off last. Dark hair snaked down his chest, and muscles rippled as he tossed the shirt aside.
He didn’t give her much time to appreciate what she saw. He climbed up to the bed, on hands and knees around her.
“Carnality?” he repeated.
Her natural instinct to joke fled her. “Yes. Now. Please.”
Ian slid his ringers between her legs, swirling the moisture he found there. “Love me?”
“I do. I love you, Ian.”
He withdrew his fingers, sparkling wet, and licked one clean. “The best thing I’ve ever tasted.”
“Better than single-malt whiskey from the Mackenzie distillery?”
“I’d rather drink you than whiskey.”
“And you a Scotsman? You must be in love.”
“S’up.”
Beth clamped her lips shut, and they trembled. Ian lowered his head and licked between her legs. He savored that, eyes closed, than began to work on her studiously. The train moved back and forth in a steady rhythm, but the room seemed to spin.
“Ian, please.”
He rose on his hands and knees again, his rigid stem hanging heavily. “Spread for me.”
He didn’t wait, didn’t go slowly. He lifted her hips with one strong hand and shoved his way inside her. The train rocketed over a bridge. Ian moved. He rested his weight on his fists, his muscles tightening, his skin gleaming with sweat.
“Love you,” he said as he thrust. “Love you, love you, love you.”
“Ian.” He was hard and moving fast, and she opened to him, hot, slick, and wet.
His words trailed off into grunts, and soon the sounds she made were just as incoherent. He drove his hips, pushing hard, harder.
Ian dropped onto to her, the slick sweat on his chest meeting the heat of hers. He clenched his teeth and forced his gaze to hers.
“Love. You.”
The man who couldn’t look anyone in the eyes was making himself do it, no matter what the pain. He was giving her a gift, the greatest one he could, straight from his heart.