Reaching an arm out behind her, he swept all of the papers she was working on off the bed to create room. The fact that she didn’t seem to care told him all he needed to know about her desire. He laid her down gently on the bed, opening her wrapper to find her dressed in only a chemise. He grinned at his find.
“Were you ready for something?” he asked, quirking a brow at her, enjoying the flush that filled her cheeks.
“No,” she obviously lied. “I was just trying to be comfortable.”
“Mm hmm.”
She lifted her nose in defiance. “You’re here, aren’t you?”
“I was only checking on you to ensure all was well.”
“All is well,” she challenged, and he couldn’t help his slight chuckle. He loved her spirit, loved how she didn’t back down from him, how she seemed to be the one woman in the world who did not care that he was a duke and bowed to his every whim, instead meeting him as an equal more than anything.
Many men wouldn’t like that. Perhaps if he had been raised as his brother had been, to be the duke and take on all of this responsibility, he would have thought the same.
But he had been allowed freedoms his entire life, leaving him well prepared to take what was offered to him now.
“Evelyn,” he said in a singsong voice as he leaned down and surprised her with a kiss on the nose, “are you trying to talk us out of this?”
Her eyes widened and she let out a choked, “No.”
“Good. Then perhaps we should stop talking, shall we?”
“I think that’s a very good idea,” she said, her voice just above a whisper.
Here, now, was the only place she submitted herself to him, giving up the control he knew she enjoyed holding onto.
And he would take it.
He placed short, soft kisses down her neck, loving the moan that emerged from her in response. He adored her exuberance, in this and everything else she did in life. She didn’t back down from anything.
Hell, he had told her he thought his father might have been murdered, and she had taken that as a challenge to solve instead of running as far away as possible, as most women would have done.
He kissed her again, tilting her head back for better access. Her legs widened of their own accord to provide him room to fit between them as he leaned her back on the bed.
He wanted her. So badly. More than he had ever admitted to himself. Which made the fact that she was his and available to him every day, every night, even worse.
His hands skimmed over her waist, lifting the chemise as high as he could. He tried to lift it over her arms, but it became caught between them, and eventually he became so frustrated with it that he took the delicate lace between two hands and ripped the entire thing in half.
Evelyn stared at him, mouth open in shock. “I liked that one,” she said, and he grunted in return.
“I’ll buy you another one,” he said. “Hell, I’ll buy you as many as you want.”
Her hands attacked him in equal frenzy, pushing his wrapper off his shoulders, pausing for a moment when she realized he wore nothing beneath.
“And you said I was the one waiting for this,” she accused.
“I sleep like this,” he defended himself, shrugging.
“You do not.”
“I do.”
“What if someone needs you in the middle of the night?”
“I put my wrapper on.”
“But—”
