Page 85 of A Match Made On Duchess Square

“Oh, Gwen. I’m so sorry.”

She burrowed closer to him. “My entire being feels light and free every moment I am with you. My heart smiles at the mere mention of you. It soars whenever I see you, especially when you are around your sons. The three of you are such a good team. I adore watching you and them together. You are father, protector, and mentor to them. You are everything to them and they love you so much.”

“There’s room for you, too,” he said, knowing how much Jordan and Robert cared for her. “We all want you in our lives.”

“Your sons were so charming to me on the day of the Felicity Merriweather incident. I will admit to being jealous of her.”

James chuckled. “Why? What a disaster she turned out to be.”

“But you had seen her three times, and I thought there might have been a fondness growing between the two of you.”

“Never.”

“I realized that when you walked in and found Felicity shrieking at me. I was so relieved you had dismissed her from contention. She could have raged at me for another hour and I would not have cared. She did not deserve you.”

“She was never in serious consideration. None of the prospects you chose for me were ever going to win my heart when it had already been claimed by you. Each time I saw you, I fell more deeply in love.”

“Andrew often proclaimed his love for me. He said it constantly, and I believed him.”

“And you are worried I am about to do the same, insist I love you and then abandon you? Is this why you are afraid to commit to me beyond one night? I am not him,” James said with conviction and a little frustration for the damage the heedless fellow had done to her.

“I know you are nothing like him, although it took me a while to come around to the realization. You are everything he is not. Since the moment I met you, you have always been true to your word, always there for me when I needed you. Do you realize what a burden off my shoulders it was to have you beside me tonight? Or how much I appreciated your support even though you did not believe in what I was doing?”

“I wasn’t going to let you search for Clement on your own.”

“See? This is you being protective and strong. I’m glad I failed to find you a match because I think…well, I hope to be that match. Just give me time to be comfortable with this drastic change in my life.”

“Oh, Gwen. Of course. I’ll be there for you whenever you are ready.”

“Being in your arms feels very right. I would not do this with anyone else. Surely you must know it can only ever be you.”

He hoped this would prove true, that her fear or reluctance to move forward would not destroy the wonderful future they could have together.

The animal part of him was determined not to lose her to Andrew Clement, or any other man.

Gwen was his. He would spend the remaining hours of this night proving it to her.

“So be it, love,” he said, resolved to educate her in ways of pleasure she had never imagined.

He had the advantage of experience and knew just how to make her body thrum. Ignite her passion. Have her purring. Writhing.

Soaring.

And then do it all again, because he could not think of anything more exquisite than watching her melt at his touch and come undone.

There was only one rule to which he would hold firm, and that was to do nothing to her that was irreversible. Her virtue was intact and would remain that way until he heard the words I love you spill from her lips.

In the meanwhile, he would be satisfied with evoking her breathy moans and cries of ecstasy by safe means.

Blessed saints.

Were they really going to do this?

Hell yes.

He wanted her. He wanted to marry her.

He rolled her under him and set about giving her the lessons she was aching to learn.