Chapter 9 #2
His own heart suddenly thundering with the chance he was taking, he leaned forward, elbows on thighs so he could impress her with the truth.
And honestly, so he could catch that fresh flower scent in her hair he found so tantalizing.
“Did you ever expect you would react to me like you did at the ball?”
She abruptly stiffened. “I never...”
He just lifted a single eyebrow. She didn’t blush, but she looked damned uncomfortable.
“I wouldn’t have asked if I hadn’t reacted just as strongly,” he assured her, reaching across to take her hands, whether she liked it or not.
“I will be perfectly honest with you, Georgie. I have been attracted to you from the moment I saw you so deftly handling my scapegrace wards. I will not deny it. But when we stepped out onto that balcony, something completely different happened. I’m sorry, but I will not apologize for it, and I certainly won’t deny it.
Whatever else you believe about me, please believe that I am asking you to marry me because I like you, and. ..I want you.”
Taking a breath, she closed her eyes. But she didn’t pull away. And before her lids came down, he saw her pupils dilate. He saw her nostrils flare just that much and felt the heat pulse off her like a fire in winter.
His own body responded in the most primitive and understandable way.
Which meant that it was probably better he was seated and leaning forward.
He wasn’t sure she was ready to see just how attracted he was—or that he was ready for her to see.
She might have a pack of brothers and male cousins milling around her house, but he didn’t want to take the chance that she might not have figured out the working parts of a randy male.
“You cannot deny you feel the attraction as well,” he gently urged.
Her eyes opened, and he saw arousal, impatience, frustration. “I cannot,” she admitted.
He was relieved that she was at least honest about it. And then she yanked the rug out from under him.
Pulling hard, she freed her hands and lurched to her feet. He followed, only to find her pacing down the garden walk as if responding to a bugle.
“Georgie?”
She shook her head and walked for a few more paces. “This changes everything, of course.”
His stomach lurched just as abruptly. “What everything?”
Please God, don’t say you won’t marry me. He’d barely comprehended that surprise prayer before she whipped around and stopped, a martial light in her eyes that stopped him in his tracks.
“Get married. Go on your trip. But for the foreseeable future this marriage will be in name only.”
If he hadn’t stopped before, this would have done it. “What?!”
She took in a breath, hands clenched at her waist. “I have no intention of waiting here always pregnant and raising babies while you gallivant about the world,” she announced baldly.
If she hadn’t been clutching her hands together as if seeking purchase, he would have reacted quite a bit more strongly.
Well, he had told himself, he valued honesty. He wondered if it had to be quite so blunt.
“Why?”
She shot him an impatient look, as if trying to decide how to tell him he was an idiot. He probably was, at least about this. Besides, his cock was beginning to make demands again he didn’t want to ignore.
“Why?” he repeated.
“Because our marriage will be difficult enough as it is for a while. Especially if you keep taking these surprise trips. I will need to wade into your world and attempt to assume at least temporary command, comfort and support the little girls, and survive with a reputation as a wife who had been deserted at the altar.”
“It’s not—”
She gave him a little wave that reminded him again of her father.
“You know it and I know it. But believe me when I tell you that society will be more than happy to jump to its own conclusions. Especially since they will also be assiduously counting the months until we have a blessed event. It is a far more choice bit of gossip that I forced you into marriage for my own benefit, than that you did me.”
She was right, of course. He just didn’t want her to be. He wanted her to feel as consumed by her attraction to him as he was becoming to her. He wanted…
“I know ways to prevent it.” He hated the fact that he was sounding just a bit desperate.
That bit of brass earned him a glare that should have shaved two inches off his height. “Thank you, no. I don’t trust you.”
“You don’t trust me, or you don’t trust yourself?”
Her scowl just grew. “I am not the one who trapped another person into marriage.”
It took him a second to answer. Not because she had no reason to make that statement. Because she did.
“Is there a way past?” he finally asked.
Again, she had the courage to look him directly in the eye, allowing him to see the emotions that roiled in hers. “I hope so. Just not now.”
He nodded, wishing she would have given him a pat ‘yes,’ even if it wasn’t true. “Then what do you mean to do?”
She sighed and looked over to where pale purple wisteria seemed to rain off the back wall of the house. “Play the comfortable newlyweds in public and shake hands at our bedroom door. At least for the foreseeable future. I’m still not certain I even want children.”
“I must have an heir.” He couldn’t believe that came out of his mouth.
She gave him another shrug.
He tried again, already feeling ridiculous. “We must consummate the marriage, or it isn’t legal. You know that.”
That earned him more well-deserved disdain.
“Don’t be absurd. Consummation or non-consummation is not the issue.
Inability is the issue in an annulment. And I have no intention—or need,” she added, casting a quick glance at the evidence of his arousal, “—to call your...capability into question. I assume you wouldn’t want to, either. ”
And damned if she wasn’t exciting him by the very act of standing up for herself.
Basely he wanted to prove he could convince her otherwise.
He wanted to prove that he could overwhelm that reticence with just his mouth and hands.
He wanted to know how she knew that bit of law, but knew this wasn’t the time to ask.
Without realizing it, he had moved closer to her again, close enough that he caught that elusive hint of flowers that didn’t exist in that all-too-fragrant garden.
She lifted her face and stood perfectly still.
“We could still kiss,” he suggested, his voice already raspy with lust.
He saw her eyes go dark and her breathing hitch. But she didn’t move as he lowered his face to her, as he touched her lips with his, once, twice, longer, until she leaned in, until he wrapped his arms around her, his hand in her hair, his heart thundering, his brain dissolving into mush.
She was lush in his arms, so warm, so open.
Even untutored and new to it, she followed his kisses like a waltz on a dance floor, until her own arms finally came up and wrapped beneath his jacket to set fires along his ribcage and back.
His cock was ready to burst, and his lungs had forgotten how to work.
His body was too consumed with the naked, surging, primal need to mate. With this woman. With his woman.
It was the mewling sound he heard that brought him back from the edge.
He was inches from cupping her luscious breast in his hand when he heard it coming from her, not a sound of participation, but distress.
As if she found herself on the very edge of a very tall waterfall and couldn’t think of a way to step back.
Which was when he knew that it was up to him to do it for her. If he ever wanted her to trust him, he needed to earn it now. He needed to stop.
His cock was raging and his primal brain roaring out protests, but as gently as he could, he pulled back. Even as she instinctively went up on her toes searching for more, he set her just enough away from him that she would know he was abiding by her wishes, not punishing her.
But oh, sweet suffering God, it was a struggle.
Her eyes were closed, those long dark lashes fanned against her cheek.
That perfect chignon was pulled just a little loose, and her mouth was as plump as berries with his kissing.
And he thought he would never escape the scent of exotic flowers. Or want to.
“Georgie?” he said, leaning his forehead against hers, his breathing labored.
Hers was no easier. “You stopped.”
“I’m not sure if you’re offering praise or protest.”
Her smile was soft and dreamy. “I’m not quite sure myself.” Opening her eyes, she pulled her head back so she could face him again. “You do that well.”
“Starting or stopping?”
“Both. Thank you. You have set my feet on the road to trust.” She screwed up her face. “Oh, bollocks. I sound like a Minerva Press novel.”
And then she pulled herself out of his arms, her breathing still a bit labored, her hand to her chest. She shook her head, as if to clear it. “I am still not sure whether you are good for me or not, Grey, but I suspect there’s nothing left but to formalize this thing.”
“I agree.”
“After I see my grandmama.”
All the way home he was plagued by the fear that that would set things back all the way. Then he thought of that kiss and couldn’t help smiling. Well. Maybe not all the way.
“Grandmama, what do I do?”
There she was seated on the little bench opposite her Grandmama’s six beehives, bees contentedly swooping and humming about her and the mixed scent of the spring garden rich in the air. To add the perfect coda, she also faced an old woman bent over a lilac bush.
Anyone in society who had ever been tyrannized by the Dowager Countess of Clevedon would have walked right past the old woman in her comfortably faded round gown and cottage bonnet, deadheading the first of a dozen lilac bushes.
But then most of them had never been invited to her lush, oversized garden.
“Do you love him?” came the imperious voice.
“Love him? I don’t even know him!”