Goddess of the Hunt by Tessa Dare Page A

place. He eyed her warily as she wound her hair into a simple knot.
    “You were right about one thing.” She backed away from him.
    “We’re through playing games. I’m going to tell Toby the truth.”

    “We’re through playing games. I’m going to tell Toby the truth.”
    “So—do I tell him the truth?”
    Toby leaned over the billiard table and lined up his shot. A swoop of golden-brown hair fell over his brow, and he flicked it out of his way with a quick jerk of his head.
    “Tell whom the truth?” Jeremy asked. “About what?”
    “Henry.” Toby pistoned his arm. The cue ball hit its mark with a sharp crack, and the red ball caromed off the far bank and into a side pocket. “Do I tell him what I saw this afternoon in the orchard?”
    He stood up and leaned on his cue, regarding Jeremy with a cool gaze. “For all he teases Lucy, he’d not want her trifled with. She is his sister, you know. Or had you forgotten?”
    “I hadn’t forgotten.” Jeremy reached into the pocket and withdrew the red object ball. He placed it on the spot and stalked the perimeter of the table, deliberating his best shot. “Nothing happened.”
    Toby laughed. “Come on, Jem. I know the difference between nothing and something, and that was definitely not nothing.”
    Jeremy kept silent and leaned over the table to size up his shot.
    “You didn’t speak to her once during dinner,” Toby continued, “and she never so much as glanced at you. We’re in the drawing room all of ten minutes before she retires early, and you develop a sudden passion for billiards. Two people never work so hard at saying nothing unless they are avoiding something . Come on, Jem. What were you thinking?”
    Toby’s tone was glib, but each smooth word pricked Jeremy’s conscience. He primed the cue between his knuckles, sliding it back conscience. He primed the cue between his knuckles, sliding it back and forth. Hesitating.
    Damn. What had he been thinking? The answer to that question was plain. He hadn’t been thinking at all. He’d kissed Lucy. Not once, but twice—and he’d goaded her into kissing him back. He had known she’d be too stubborn to back down, and he’d taken advantage of it. Taken advantage of her . He’d pressed her up against that tree and savaged her like a brute. Then, in a moment of either utter madness or just plain idiocy, he’d allowed people to see . Not merely allowed it. Insisted on it. Made a public exhibit of his reprehensible behavior. Loomed over her like a buck guarding his doe in rutting season, staking a claim to his female.
    An animal. He’d been reduced to an animal. For the better part of a week, Lucy had picked at the threads of his self-control with every saucy look and reckless act, and his gentlemanly restraint had frayed perilously thin. Now the fabric of politesse was ripping apart, exposing the lust-crazed beast that lurked beneath. The naked, sweating beast that hungered, thirsted, craved, demanded, would not be denied.
    Good Lord. Even engaged in self-recrimination, he was tearing off his clothes.
    He pulled back the cue, the muscles of his shoulder straining against the seams of his shirt. Ivory cracked against carmine. The balls spun out into futile trajectories, missing the pockets completely.
    Lust. It had to be lust. That was the only possible explanation for this behavior—this complete lapse of conscience and control. It could be the only name for this need that quaked through him whenever she was near. The need to possess her. Claim her in some primitive, irreversible way and send every other man on earth some primitive, irreversible way and send every other man on earth straight to the devil, with Toby leading the procession.
    But there was something else. There had to be, much as he hated to admit it. If simple lust transformed him into a panting, feral creature whenever he came within ten paces of the chit, then logic argued for a simple cure. Increase the distance between