“Cam,” she began, but he pressed his thumb over her lips, stilling them when she would have continued.
“Hush,” he said. “I know you do not want to marry me. I know you do not trust me, and I cannot blame you. Lord knows I have not acted the part of the gentleman since I have met you. I have been selfish and greedy, and I have not given a thought for your reputation. But I can make amends. Aylesford is my friend. He will make certain his mother says nothing, and the marchioness will be silenced as long as we wed. This scandal does not need to happen. All you have to do is sayyes.”
She could not quell the smile curving her lips behind his thumb. “Cam.”
His thumb was rubbing over her lower lip slowly, languorously. “Eugie, I beg you.”
Warmth flickered to life, pooling in the form of molten desire between her thighs. Just his touch brushing over her mouth. Just his nearness. His scent flitting over her. That was all it required.
“I love you,” she said against the fleshy pad of his thumb.
He stiffened. “I beg your pardon?”
“I love you,” she repeated. “It is just as well that I stole your heart the night of the welcome ball, because you thieved mine then too. We can take care of each other’s hearts now. Because I have decided there is nothing I would like more than to be your wife.”
“You do? You will?” His grin was breathtaking. He was gorgeous.
And then his lips were on hers. The kiss was hard and fast, one of possession but also one of discovery. “I will,” she said into his mouth. “And I do.”
“Thank God,” he said on a sigh, and then she was in his arms in truth.
They were around her, surrounding her, closing over her with such tight strength. And she clutched him back with just as much need. They kissed and kissed, smiling as they did it, and then Eugie’s feet left the carpet.
They were moving in a circle. For a heady moment, she actually believed her happiness had given her the delusion of weightlessness, but then she opened her eyes and realized Cam was spinning them. Their gazes locked, their mouths fused.
When he slowed them to a stop and returned her feet to the Aubusson, they swayed together, grinning at each other like drunken fools.
“If you were insistent upon that damned cottage of yours, I was going to find you there,” he growled then. “Because you are meant to be mine, Eugie Winter.”
“I am not certain I will be a good enough wife for the Prince of Proper,” she said against a sudden fear of inadequacy. “My reputation is darkened with scandal. And I have been known to act recklessly beneath the mistletoe with the Earl of Hertford.”
“You are the perfect wife for me,” he reassured her solemnly. “And together, we will restore your reputation. You will sit society on its arse.”
“Are you certain?” She studied him, worrying. This was still so new, so strange.
“I have never been more sure of anything in my life, darling,” Cam said. “There is but one more thing, however.”
She looked up into his beautiful face, love for him radiating through her. “What is it?”
He grinned back at her. “I insist you act recklessly with me as often as possible. Mistletoe is not a requirement.”
Epilogue
There was onesight Cam loved more than his wife lingering beneath the mistletoe, he decided, and it was Eugie on her knees, those luscious red lips he could not get enough of wrapped around his cock. The Countess of Hertford was going to kill him with pleasure before she was through, he was certain of it.
But damn, what a way to die.
“Eugie,” he said on a groan, his hands finding their way into the silken strands of her hair.
He intended to tell her to stop.
To carry her to the bed and take his turn ravishing her with nothing but his lips and tongue. But his wife’s mouth was driving him to the brink of sanity. And when she hummed with satisfaction and took him deeper, he felt the sinful vibration of that sound in his ballocks.
He was helpless to do anything but grasp handfuls of her mahogany curls and push farther into the warm, wet depths of her heat. One of her hands gripped him at the root, and the other was caressing his thigh, her nails digging into his bare skin with almost painful pleasure.
“Damn it, wife,” he gritted, surging into her mouth again, this time reaching her throat.
She withdrew and settled back on her heels, looking up at him with her slick red lips as his erect cock stood between them, shiny from her saliva, a bead of moisture leaking from his tip. “You do not like it?”
