He closed the distance between them, catching her waist in his large hands and pulling her against him so their bodies were flush, from breast to knee. His scent invaded her senses, seductive and delicious. She had nowhere to look but into his countenance.
He was serious. Frowning. “You are beautiful, Vi.”
He was wrong. She was not beautiful. Violet shook her head. “I am too tall.”
“I can reach your lips without having to bend down too far,” he countered.
“My hair is dark.”
“It is the glorious ink of a summer’s midnight sky.”
The silver-tongued devil. What could she say to that? She thought for a moment. “My nose is turned up and covered in freckles.”
“We have already established I love your freckles.” He was cupping her face in his big, warm hands now.
And she was melting like butter beneath his touch.
He kissed the tip of her nose as if to demonstrate his affection. “Your nose is perfect. I’ll not hear a word against it.”
She bit her lip to quell the sudden delighted giggle that rose within her. “My mouth is too large.”
“Your mouth”—he stopped and kissed her lingeringly, before pulling back once more—“is just the right size for mine.”
“I am no bloody good at crocheting.”
“I prefer knitting.” He winked.
She huffed a sigh. “My forehead is too high.”
“Directly proportionate,” he argued. “Any shorter, and your beauty would not be balanced.”
Violet stared at him, her self-deprecation turning into a dearth. “My bosom—” she began, only to be interrupted by his mouth yet again.
He kissed her hard, ferociously. “Do not, for the love of all that is holy, speak about your bosom, Duchess, or I shall have you in the grass with your skirts around your waist and my fingers parting the slit in your drawers. And I will tear open every one of the buttons on this borrowed bodice with my teeth.”
His intensity and his words both stole her breath. “I would not object to either of those scenarios,” she was bold enough to say, “but I do suspect the Duchess of Carlisle may disagree with the damage you intend to do to her beautiful gown.”
His blue gaze burned into hers. “I would buy her a dozen replacements if necessary.”
She was tempted. Oh so very tempted. But in the end, the prospect of having to explain to the duchess what had occurred to her dress—or to somehow invent a fiction that would be believed—proved too much for her.
“Perhaps we ought to steer ourselves to a safer subject, lest you ravage the poor Duchess of Carlisle’s beautiful gown,” she suggested at last.
He exhaled on a heavy sigh, his hot breath blowing over her lips. “Very well. I hope I have proven my point.”
His point? She had gotten so caught up in the moment she had almost forgotten what it had been. Ah yes, that she was beautiful. Shefeltbeautiful. She saw herself for the first time as he did, and it imbued her with a deep, potent sense of power. Not a plain, shrinking violet after all, but a brilliant blossom all her own.
A new Violet altogether.
“You have,” she said softly, unable to resist giving him another quick, hard kiss. “Thank you.”
“You have nothing to thank me for, Vi.” He kissed the corner of her mouth, before releasing her and taking a step back. “You have always been beautiful. You merely needed to see it for yourself.”
If she had not already fallen in love with this man, Violet would have fallen in love with him then and there, with the sun bathing him in a golden glow, with his handsome face and his angular jaw covered in rich, dark whiskers, and his full lips and, Lord in heaven, those eyes…
In fact, as she stood there before him, sun drenching her in warmth, Griffin looking at her as if she were a goddess come to walk the earth among men, the pulsing, freeing sensation of freedom bursting open inside her, she did fall in love with him. Again. Deeper. Her heart ached.
She swallowed down a lump that had become lodged in her throat and blinked away the sting of tears she refused to shed. Somehow, in the least likely of manners, she had found the man for her. He had not been a horticulturist who lived by his mother’s rule. Instead, he had been a man who was scarred and broken, yet caring and determined. A man her brother was intent upon sending to prison.
