“That you are going to do all in your power seduce me this evening?”
Georgiana’s eyes sparkled with happiness.“Does that not sound like a delicious adventure?”
It did.
Magnificently so.
Nor could Julian claim to be in any way averse to the idea of having a woman openly show how much she wanted him.
Annabel’s coldness toward him during their marriage had stripped his emotions until they felt raw and exposed, with the result that he had begun to doubt his ability to still be attractive to any woman.
Those feelings of uncertainty had included questioning his ability to make love to any woman and be able to give her pleasure.
Georgiana’s honesty about her desire for him had given that all back to him.
But he also knew it would be pure madness to allow her to seduce him.
Because he knew he could never settle for kissing Georgiana only once.That he would want to do so again and again.That he did not want to stop at merely kissing her.That he wanted all of her.To kiss.To caress.Totaste.
He had lain awake every night since her arrival, unable to sleep despite the physical release of his self-pleasure.He ached to kiss and suckle Georgiana’s nipples, to lick between her thighs, to drown in the taste of that nectar.
Indeed, any previous doubts he might have had concerning his ability to make love to a woman had been well and truly dispelled during these past few days of working closely with one who showed no hesitation to reveal her desire for him.
The same woman Julian desired more than any other.
More than he ever had his own wife?
Oh yes.
There wasn’t a single doubt in Julian’s mind that the love he had once imagined he felt for Annabel had been purely that.A fiction, encouraged and fanned by a display of false emotions toward him on Annabel’s part.
The reason he knew this, beyond a shadow of a doubt, was because he now knew himself to have fallen deeply in love with Georgiana.A woman so different from Annabel, in both looks and nature, that the deep love he felt for her made a nonsense of anything he might once have thought he felt for Annabel.
He now believed, as did Georgiana, that he had been deliberately duped as to Annabel’s true nature.
He was still gathering information as to why she would have done such a thing.Indeed, so far, he had only had his inner conviction and Georgiana’s that this was the case.
A great part of that belief was fueled by the fact Annabel had taken nothing with her when she disappeared apart from the three pieces of jewelry Julian had presented to her as a wedding gift.Admittedly, the necklace, bracelet, and earbobs were worth many thousands of pounds, but the Moreland emeralds, locked away in a safe at the offices of his lawyer, were worth far more.
But perhaps that was the point.Theywerelocked away, and only Julian could access them.
Whatever the reason, the only things Annabel had taken with her were those three pieces of jewelry.
She certainly had not taken Julian’s heart.
By the time Annabel left, she no longer held a place in his heart or his thoughts.Indeed, Julian’s initial emotion when she disappeared was relief at no longer having to even try to love a woman who no longer made any pretense of loving him.
Georgiana had not expressed feeling love for him either, but the warmth of her actions, every sincere word she spoke, revealed that she cared deeply about him.
It was enough.
For now.
“It does indeed sound like a grand adventure,” he finally answered Georgiana.“Except—” He stopped speaking when she placed two fingers gently against his lips.
“There will be no exceptions,” she told him firmly.“We are going to enjoy each other’s company and let the evening take us where it will.”
Julian knew, as he gazed into those beautiful blue and determined eyes, that he would happily allow Georgiana to lead him and his heart exactly where she wished them to be.
