They made it to the main room the next time, where she settled astride him on the dilapidated settee after Ren made the mistake of sketching his name on her thigh. He’d put the idea of this position in her head with his bathtub fantasy, and curiosity had overtaken her.
What would it be like to ride you?
Though he’d been as excited as a lad with his first opportunity, he’d worried about this being new for Georgiana, about pain he couldn’t truly imagine—but she’d kissed away his concern.
Or rather, taken him in her clever hand and eased it away.
Here he was, an hour later, the taste of her, a flavor like ripe summer citrus, still blooming on his tongue, her touch lingering on his fingertips. He’d asked her after the second round if shereallywanted to be a duchess. Be mother to a rambunctious boy, wife to an aging duke. Take them on. Love them. Become Town fodder with two whispered words:I do.
Or maybe he’d asked her twice.
Yes, yes, yes,she’d said, sounding entirely sure about it.
“You have that worried look on your face again, Your Grace.”
Ren glanced up to find the object of his fascination before the hearth, an apple Henry had left behind half-eaten in her hand, her lush form laid out over the crimson counterpane they’d dragged off the bed. His sketch had gone in a dark direction, the counterpane now a ravenous sea pulling her away from him. He frowned and added the fruit, placing it at Georgiana’s feet because fingers weren’t the easiest to capture.
Resting on the floor with his back against the settee, he looked to the window and the slight tinge of pink beginning to show around the tattered curtain edge. “I’ve got to escort you back. The kitchen staff will be up soon.”
“Ten minutes,” she whispered with a yawning stretch that had his body springing to inconspicuous but vibrant life. She made him feel young, like life was full of potential. He was lonely; Henry was lonely. They needed her.
If he could only stop—for one bloody moment—imagining the half-moon birthmark on her hip. That charming crook in her tooth. He sighed and added them to the drawing.
“I told you all my secrets,” she said, after letting the silence settle. She was an extremely skilled diplomat, knowing just when to hit him with the hard questions. “While you’ve left things unsaid with someone who will soon be your wife.”
She’d told him about her unease with her body, astonishing him. How her generous curves had kept her from riding as she’d like. (He guessed she was at one time a demon on horseback.) How she’d wanted to hide what she couldn’t hide. He tried not to think about the men who’d begun to notice her at fourteen. She refused to name names.
Saddened by the unwanted attention she’d received at such a young age, by her vulnerability, he crossly wet his fingertip to smooth a too-bold stroke. Trying to capture feet, even beautiful ones like hers,wasn’t easy. Her lips were parted when he looked up, her cheeks flushed a deep raspberry.
She wanted him as much as he wanted her.
“Quit smiling,” she said, grinning herself. “A cat with a fresh bowl of cream.”
Placing his pad and pencil aside, he crawled on all fours to her, on the prowl. Georgiana laughed and curled into herself, but he’d wrestled enough in his lifetime, with Henry, never with a lover, to best her easily. “Cream, indeed,” he whispered, rolling her to her back and sliding between her legs.
They were a rare combination. A lock-and-key fit. He’d never had this, found someone he adored and desired in equal measure. Respect, love, and fascination tied up in the same package.
He dragged his thumb along her bottom lip. “I didn’t have a family like yours. No one there for me, actually. Seven sisters, I can’t grasp the unruliness or the joy.”
“Eight, including me,” she corrected, her smile growing. “Plus my brother, of course.”
“Nine,” he breathed, hardly able to imagine it
“And I’m a twin to my sister, Cece, though we don’t look that much alike.”
“I should love to meet her. There must be similarities in your beauty.”
She wiggled her hips, pleased, teasing him. He was hard against her, and she’d proven the least cautious of the two. It wouldn’t be long before they were tangled up again.
But this needed to come first.
“My first marriage wasn’t my choice, or hers, as I’ve told you.”
“Somewhat told me.” She nipped his jaw, her fingers tugging at his trouser buttons. He’d at least managed to drag them on earlier. As for Georgiana, she had an easy indifference to being nude around him.
He paused to kiss her, falling into it, like always. How could he not? He loved her against reason. “We were unsuited, differing temperaments and such. Too young. Selfish. Impulsive. Though I tried to giveher what she needed, her freedom, thereby leaving what I needed shut away in a closet in my heart. I’ll tell you more, someday, when we have days upon days together, just the two of us. Suffice it to say, I may move slower than you’d like me to, but I will share my life with you, myheart, every last piece. Until you’re as sick of ducal matters as I am. Sick of me.”
“Impossible,” she whispered.
