Because she wanted him, too.
She should not. She did not dare accept his suit. There was still so much she needed to learn about him. So many questions. But with his mouth devouring hers, she could not think of a single query to pose. Nor could she recall one opposition to becoming his countess.
The Countess of Hertford.
How strange, how silly to imagine herself owning such an appellation. A quivery sensation slid through her. A lightness mingled with heaviness, as though she were flitting outside her body and yet trapped within it, all at once.
She had never aspired to become a nobleman’s wife.
That was a dream of her brother’s, a misguided notion he maintained that they would all be happy if they could free themselves of the ties which bound them inextricably to their sordid past. Their father had been a cruel man. A ruthless man. A tyrant. And the basis for their wealth had been accumulated in all the wrong manners. Dev tried to make up for it now. They all did.
But the scars of the past lingered. Every now and then, the skin drew taught. The wounds opened.
Dev thought marrying into the quality would change things for them all.
She was not as certain it could, but when the Earl of Hertford’s tongue was in her mouth, she was not certain of anything. Even her own name.
“Cam,” she whispered against his lips, his name, a plea.
“Tell me yes,” he murmured back, and then he was sucking on her lower lip once more, licking into her mouth. His hands were roving over her body in a welcomed claiming. He found her breasts with one; another cupped her rump, angling her body to his so he could press his length into the heart of her.
She wanted to tell himyes.
Mayhap she should.
But the word would not arrive on her lips. Perhaps because she was so consumed in him. By him. With him. He sucked her tongue into his mouth, and an answering burst of need fired to life deep inside her. The act was so sinful, so carnal, and she had never experienced anything like it.
The Prince of Proper had untold wickedness. And she liked that, too.
In truth, she likedhim. She liked the wildness in him that had made him kiss her in the darkened hall that night. The way he had kissed her all the way across his bedchamber. The passion that had led them to fall together in his bed. She liked the tender way he touched and held her, the way he kissed her. She liked the way he looked at her, from across a chamber. As if she were the only woman he saw.
He made her feel that way, too. As if she alone stole his attention. As if she alone was the one he wanted, the one he needed above all others, and not just for her dowry but for her, on an elemental level. For herself as a woman. No man had ever made her feel thus. Not even Cunningham, though he had put on a grand show of affections in the beginning, all the better to manipulate her.
The reminder of her past and what it had cost her should have hit her with a renewed surge of bitterness. But instead, she felt transformed in Cam’s arms. For the first time, she felt as if she were clipping the weights of what had happened in the past.
She was lighter. Freer.
And she grew bolder. Braver. Her teeth found his lip and bit, drawing on him as he had done to her. Her reward was a groan, emerging from deep within his broad chest. And then, his hands clamped on her waist. He lifted her into his arms. She clung to him.
“Say you will be my wife,” he said again, as he settled her upon a settee with great care.
He handled her as if she were fashioned of finest china. As if she were something breakable. Something precious. And it made her want to weep and kiss him all at once. Instead, she remained where he had placed her, sitting on the edge of the settee, the skirts of her gown billowing around her.
Cam towered over her until he sank to his knees on the thick carpets, placing his hands upon her knees. “Eugie, please.”
Still, she could not form the word. “I am not ready, Cam.”
Her heart had fooled her once before. It could fool her again.
“Have you forgotten you could be carrying my babe?” he demanded, his expression turning hard.
As hard as stone.
It seemed as if she could cut her fingers on his cheek bones or the rigidity of his jaw.
“I am not,” she denied, though she had no reason to suggest she wasn’t. She understood that she would not be free of worry until she had her courses, and those had yet to arrive.
“You cannot be certain,” he countered.
