“I am not confessing to anything.”
He gave her a wicked smile. “I wonder ifIshould play?”
Willa went on alert. “What do you mean?”
“To prove to you my attentiveness. How many points for a call?”
“Three.”
“And for begging my intended for another chance?”
Their gazes locked.
“I don’t know if we should give points for that,” she answered, her throat suddenly tight. He sat closer than she had realized, and she did not mind.
“You are right,” he agreed. “It shouldn’t be a game.” His gaze went to her lips, or was she staring at his? She couldn’t take her eyes off them as he said, “However, will you let me try again? You have my complete attention now.”
He certainly had hers.
There had been a time not so long ago when she’d dreamed about what it would be like for him to kiss her. There had been a line in one of his poems that had caught her attention...My lover’s kiss is like no other, an answer to my soul.
Willa had never been kissed. Not once.
The night before their betrothal, she had anticipated he would kiss her. She’d practiced using the back of her hand. Her greatest disappointment had been leaving her own ball, still uninitiated in that practice that seemed the most common of all things between men and women.
But he could kiss her now.
Everything about him, from the laugh lines around his eyes, to the afternoon growth of his whiskers, to the scent of him, of horseflesh and rain and man, it all swirled around her, drawing her still nearer to him.
“Another chance?” his well-formed lips whispered. “Willa, will you marry me on the morrow—?”
The door opened.
Willa reacted by practically jumping to the other side of the settee and coming to her feet. Matt rose with more polish.
“Your Grace,” her father said in his heartiest voice, and offered a bow. He was not a tall man. Both of Willa’s parents were small in stature, but Leland Reverly could fill a room with the boom of his voice. “What a pleasure. No one told me you were here until just now.” He looked between the duke and Willa and then grinned. “Having a moment, eh?”
There had been a time when Willa would not have been allowed to be alone with anyone. Her father sounded happy to throw her at the duke.
“We were just discussing the wedding, weren’t we, Willa?”
She found herself nodding.
Yes. Yes, she would marry him... because she really hadn’t known how to confront her father and risk his wrath... because maybe all she’d really wanted was a sign from Matt that he knew she was there... that she mattered.
And because she really wanted a kiss.
Was she being foolish?
She didn’t know. But right now, it seemed like every muscle in her body, including deep-seated ones, hummed with awareness of him.
And it had happened so fast.
Desire surprised her with its intensity, with its willingness to trust.
“You know the invite to the wedding breakfast has been deemedtheinvitation of the year,” her father said proudly.
“It will be a big day,” Matt agreed. “Although for me, the prize will be Willa.”
