Her eyes flared slightly, her lips parted, and his cock reacted as though she’d reached down and slid her fingers along the entire length of it. Christ, what the devil was wrong with him? He enjoyed women but had never lost his head over one, yet something about her called to the baser instincts in him, the Neanderthal who wanted to claim and protect—and yes, strike down any other man who touched her.

He’d been a stranger to jealousy until her, and now that the emotion had introduced itself, he didn’t much like it nor did he understand why it was gadding about. She was correct. He knew her not at all. To feel anything toward her other than mild curiosity was foolish beyond measure.

Other women wore masks in his place. A few had still never removed theirs. But the mystery of them didn’t intrigue him. She did. Immensely. Irrevocably. Intensely. He wanted to know everything about her, inside and out.

No, he did not. He wanted to seduce her, bed her, forget her. As easily as she apparently planned to forget him. And there was the rub, the reason seduction was required—because he wanted her begging for it, recalling him with her final breath no matter how many gents came after him.

She claimed to want to be bedded, and the way she’d said it with no emotion whatsoever, as though it was a given that he’d jump to do her bidding, had at once intrigued and angered him. Aiden Trewlove did not bend to the will of the nobility. Unlike his mother, he would not be used for their pleasure. He might provide pleasure, but it was always on his terms and his terms alone. He knew nothing at all about his mother but had gleaned enough about his sire to know the poor woman probably had little say in the arrangement. The same could not be said of him. He was always in control, always in charge, always had ultimate say.

He might not have had any choice in what they did with him when he was born, but by God, he had absolute control now. No one dictated his actions, save himself.

He wondered if the woman standing before him had once had no choice either, if perhaps it was the reason she was here, because now as a widow she had the power to determine her destiny and her activities. So she sought what she’d never had: passion.

For surely she wanted more than an emotionless coupling.

“My knees are quite steady,” she finally said, and he couldn’t prevent himself from grinning at how long it had taken her to recover from his vow and to come up with a retort.

“I intend to turn them to jam.”

Her pink tongue darted out and licked the lower lip he fully intended to devour shortly.

“You’re quite cocky.”