“He’ll live. He’s hurting, but he’ll live.”

His face stayed grim, but the corners of his mouth softened with relief.

She added, “He deserved it, for what he did to Cora.”

At the mention of the girl, Rhys winced again. “She was under my protection. I should never have left her alone.” He cleared his throat and gave himself a little shake. “I’ve unloaded the goods from Bath, packed up my things from the cottage. And I’ve brought back the hounds.”

Her gaze fell. Two pairs of watery brown eyes looked up at her mournfully. A low whimper sounded from a canine throat.

“They’ll miss you,” she said.

“I’ll miss them.”

She opened the door wide, and the dogs rushed through, tumbling over one another in their race to the hearth. Even once the hounds settled, she kept the door open in invitation.

She allowed her shawl to slip from one shoulder. “It’s hours yet before dawn.” Shameless, she knew. But damn it, what use was pride? If he was leaving forever, she wanted one last night.

“Don’t.” His jaw tensed. “Don’t invite me in. Because it’s not in me to refuse, and I’d only be using you. The same way I used Myles this morning. I am angry as hell, and you’d be just another nameless person to pound. I’d work you hard and fast, until I forget who you are. Who I am.” He swallowed hard. “I’d be using you.”

Good Lord. If he was trying to discourage her, he was going about it all wrong. Meredith clenched her legs together as damp heat surged between her thighs. She’d never been so aroused, so quickly. What he described was exactly what she craved. One last hard, fast, unforgettable time.

Looking him bravely in the eye, she opened the door wider still. “We’d be using each other.”

That was all it took.

Before she could even catch her breath, he’d moved through the doorway, caught her in his arms, and slammed the door shut, flattening her against it. She was pinned between the hard door of oak at her back and the harder wall of hot muscle before her, and she’d never felt more completely, deliciously trapped.

He slid his hands to her hips and lifted her, pressing her against the door. Letting her shawl slide to the floor, she pulled frantically at the hem of her nightdress, hiking it to her midsection so she could wrap her legs around his waist. Linking her ankles, she pulled his pelvis flush with hers. They both moaned as the hard ridge of his erection ground against her bared sex. She was already so wet for him, and he was unbelievably stiff for her. No need for preliminaries.

He held her up with one powerful arm as he jerked his breeches open with his free hand. With one hard, quick thrust he entered her, slamming her spine against the door. She gasped, and he thrust again, delivering everything he’d promised. A good, hard, nameless pounding into lustful oblivion.

He bit her shoulder, and she raked his neck with her fingernails. He responded with a growl of crude, unfettered profanity, the likes of which she’d never heard inside a bedchamber. She found it wildly arousing. As the pleasure mounted and coiled in her sex, her limbs went slack. His strength supported her entire body as he drilled her to the door again and again, and she made herself boneless, just trying to stay afloat atop the violent, churning sea of lust.

“Rhys.” She slid her fingers through his cropped hair. “Yes.”

And then he stopped.

He froze, deep inside her, panting against the curve of her neck.

Her hips writhed with need. God, she was so close. Did he mean to torture her?

“I can’t do this,” he said, gasping for breath.

“What do you mean?” She cinched her legs about his waist. Her intimate muscles tightened around him, too, and he groaned with pleasure.

“I just can’t. Not like this.” He huffed against her neck. “The damned dogs are chewing my boots.”

With a gasp, Meredith twisted and craned her neck to see. Sure enough, there the two hounds sat at his feet, nipping at the tassel of his Hessian where it tangled with the hem of her shift.

She couldn’t help it. She laughed. And after a moment, he joined her, chuckling low against her neck.

He lifted his head to meet her gaze. They stayed like that for a moment, joined in body, both breathing hard, laughing with their eyes and speaking without words.

An unbearable sweetness bloomed in Meredith’s heart, filling her chest and spreading out to her limbs. They’d begun this in a frenzy of anger and desperation, and all it took was one minute of his skin against hers for benign normalcy to prevail. It was just as he’d been saying from the very beginning. Being together just felt so right.

With trembling hands, she stroked his hair. His eyes shone with affection and vulnerability, and she had a sinking feeling that they looked that way because they were reflecting the unguarded emotion in hers.

He swallowed hard, and she cupped his face in her palms. “Oh, Rhys.”

I love you, she thought. I am hopelessly in love with you, and you’re leaving me at dawn.

“Don’t say it,” he said. “I know.”

Still erect and deeply planted within her, he cupped her backside in his hands and lifted her away from the door. He turned, taking hobbled steps toward the bed, and gently laid her on the mattress without ever withdrawing from her body.

Easing her backward, he joined her on the bed, boots and all. The hounds, deprived of their amusement, returned to the hearthrug.

She was under him on the bed, completely surrounded by his strength and protected from the chill. And she’d never felt so afraid, so lonely and cold.

He tugged at the hem of her shift, pulling it up to her midriff. “Take this off. I want to see you. I need to see you—”

One last time.

The unspoken words gave her gooseflesh. But even though she shivered as she did it, she eased the chemise up and drew it over her head, casting it aside. She pulled at his shirt next, as he began to move within her again. Slowly, now. Gently.

By shifting his weight from one arm to the other, he helped her pull the shirt over his head. They were as bared as they could be without separating, and neither of them was willing to do that.

Balanced on one elbow, he traced the swell of her breast with his free hand.

“You’re so damned lovely.” His voice was a broken whisper, hoarse with yearning. “So beautiful.” Flexing his thigh, he slid deep, nudging her womb. “I should have known better than to dream you belonged to me.”

“But I do.” She cupped his cheek. “I am yours. Body, heart, soul. I lo—”

“Don’t.” He kissed her quiet. “I can’t bear it.”

When he thrust deep again, she lost the breath to speak. She kissed him instead, pressing her lips to his mouth, jaw, throat, ear … any part of him she could reach.

He caught her arms and pinned her to the mattress, levering himself up as he stroked home, again and again. She didn’t want this to ever end. Please don’t let this be the last time. She struggled to hold herself back from climax. If he left her unsatisfied, her knowledge of the male mind argued, his pride simply wouldn’t allow him to go.

But he was too much for her. Too big, too fierce, too tender, too wild. She couldn’t resist him. Never could. He rode her to a bright, gasping peak, then released a savage growl as he took his own pleasure in her.

When he collapsed, spent and panting atop her, she wrapped her arms around him and held him tight.

“Stay,” she whispered. Her tongue flickered over the salt of his skin. “Don’t go.”

“I have to go.” He withdrew from her body, then sat at the edge of the bed, refastening his breeches placket. “I have to see to this business with Faraday. This is what I do.”

“No.” She rose to a sitting position, gathering the bed linens around her. “No, this is not what you do.”

He reached for his shirt. “You saw me this morning. The whole village saw me this morning. That’s how I’ve spent most of my life, Meredith. Fighting. Brawling. Tearing things apart. I thought I’d finally left all that behind me, but …” He leveled a hard, unflinching gaze at her. “I would have killed him.”

“Perhaps. But Gideon tried to kill you first. That’s not the case with this Faraday person.”

“He’s a murderer.”

“You don’t know that. From Cora’s account, he could have been an innocent victim, just like your friend Leo.”

“Determining his guilt or innocence isn’t my job.” He gathered white linen in his hands and jammed his head through the neck hole of the shirt. “I’m there to hit first, and Bellamy will ask questions later.”

“You can’t do that. You won’t do that.” She held his cuff steady as he wrestled his arm into a sleeve. “All those battles and brawls over the course of your life—they all had one thing in common. They were all fair fights, evenly matched, with opponents who had it coming to them. You’ve never been a bully, Rhys. That’s why I was so taken with you when I was a girl.”

He scoffed. “When you were a girl, I paid you no notice whatsoever.”

“Precisely.” She smoothed the back of his shirt, draping the crisp linen over his rippling muscles. “Do you know how remarkable that is? Any other youth in your situation would have been looking for a target like me. I was little and awkward and irritating. I would have been so easy to torment. The stable boys, they always teased me when my father wasn’t there. They were so used to being pushed about by their superiors, and they wanted someone to push about, too. It made them feel important, in control. But you”—she stroked his back—“of all young men, you had every reason to make my life miserable, and you never did. You respected my father. You were kind to the grooms. You cherished those horses. And you let me be.” Haltingly, she raised her hand to his hair. “Call it foolish if you will, but … I loved you for it.”

With a muttered oath, he braced his elbows on his knees and let his head fall to his hands.

“Don’t you believe me? I still love you, Rhys. More than ever.”

“I know. I know. And I don’t know what’s wrong with me.” After scrubbing his face with one hand, he propped his chin on his palm. “You tell me you love me. I know in my mind that should make things better.” He looked up at her. “Shouldn’t it? I mean, it’s the one thing I’ve waited my whole life to hear. And now that you’ve whispered those three little words, my anger should disappear, and the hurting should stop, and rainbows should burst through the clouds and a choir of angels should sing.” His eyes glimmered with emotion as his fingertip traced the curve of her jaw. “Against all odds, this beautiful, clever, strong woman loves me. My life should be put to rights.”

“But it isn’t,” she said.

Shaking his head, he withdrew his touch. “It isn’t. You keep saying you love me. And it cuts deeper every blessed time. It hurts, Merry. I can’t understand it, but it hurts like hell. Those words … they make me want to hit things, lash out in anger.” He swore again, balling his hands into fists. “Something’s wrong with me. Too many things are wrong with me.”

“And I’m partly to blame. You can’t forgive me.”

“It’s nothing to do with blame or forgiveness. It’s about brokenness. I can’t risk hurting you.”

With a gruff sigh, he rose to his feet. “I should go.”

From the bed, she reached out and caught his hand. “Stay awhile. It’s not dawn yet. If it’s hard for you, we don’t need to talk.”

“Yes, we do. Need to talk.” He turned and crouched at the side of the mattress. His eyes were thoughtful as they roamed the knot of their joined hands. “I’ve done some good here, I think. The cottage is your father’s to do with as he pleases. I’ll see that his pension is restored. The men will finish the inn, and you’ll have the posting horses, I promise. And I’ll pay for the damage to the tavern.”