Free Kresley Cole - [MacCarrick Brothers 03] by If You Deceive Page B

drawing his hand away with a hissed oath. Why should he spend in his hand—instead of inside her once more?
    There was nothing to be done for it.
    Ethan would make her his mistress.
    With a resigned exhalation, he rose to wash and dress, determined to enter into some kind of arrangement with her this morning. As he set up to shave, he realized there were obstacles to this plan.
    The first? If she truly hadn’t been thinking to trap him, then she would be outraged by his accusation and disinclined to accept him.
    The second? He’d hurt her last night. Ethan recalled her responses, her exquisite body writhing beneath his, first in pleasure—but then in…agony.
    Now that the haze of the night had faded, he comprehended that the pain he’d given her would have been substantial. She had asked him to go slowly, yet he hadn’t taken the time to ready her. He’d been frenzied for release, stupid with lust. He’d taken her hard, rutting over her, when she’d been so delicate and fragile.
    Damn it, he hadn’t meant to hurt her, to make her…cry.
    Women’s tears did not affect him—this was simply a fact, a part of the coldheartedness others had seen in him since he was a teen. So why had seeing hers troubled him so much?
    There’d been a brief moment when he might’ve promised her anything to get her to stop.
    With practiced care, he grazed his razor past the jagged end of his scar. Another obstacle? Quin might actually care for the little witch. Or Ethan’s superior, Edward Weyland, might step in. The girl’s parents were probably shabby-genteel, land-rich and cash-
poor but still influential, if they were friends of the Weylands. Though none of them could force Ethan to wed her, they could bloody well irritate him on this subject.
    Yet everyone had a price—she’d been hunting a rich husband for a reason—and Ethan had already ruined her. Perhaps there were debts weighing on her family, or maybe she had sisters who needed dowries. Ethan was prepared to pay a fortune to make her his mistress, to slake himself on her for a time, and get past her. All he wanted was to put her up in a house close by, somewhere convenient to his needs, and in return, he could make her family’s problems go away.
    He drew the razor across his face again, then stared into the mirror, regarding the greatest obstacle to his plan.
    If I see the girl again, there will be no mask. For the first time in years, he studied his reflection. His scar was deep, stretching taut over the length of his right cheekbone, then twisting down the front of his cheek. Stitches had left uniform depressions at the edges. Every inch of the mark whitened starkly with any expression.
    Brymer had done his job well.
    That night, once Van Rowen had realized his mistake, he’d hurried to the stable and had grown sick at what Brymer had already done to Ethan. Dazed, Van Rowen had offered restitution or an exact reprisal to himself.
    But Ethan had had bigger plans for him and his wife—and for Brymer. When freed, Ethan had just gritted his teeth against the pain and blindly lurched to his horse. Sheer will had gotten him off Van Rowen lands before he’d blacked out in a ditch for two days.
    Just months later, before Ethan had been able to finalize his revenge, Van Rowen had provoked a drunken duel. He’d turned without drawing, dying in what was known as a “gentleman’s suicide.”
    As for Sylvie, Ethan had rendered her penniless, leaving her to rot in a slum.
    For some reason, Ethan had spared Tully. But his confrontation had left the man so shaken, Tully had promptly disappeared from the area and likely still lived in fear.
    And Brymer? Ethan had gutted him—his scarred visage the last sight the bastard had seen on this earth….
    Before he’d been cut, Ethan would have been a fitting match for the girl. Now she would probably laugh at his appearance. Hadn’t she professed herself—what had she called it?—an aficionada of male beauty?
    Ethan tried to