Prologue #3
When his tongue brushed her lips in a silent plea to let him in, she opened to him and allowed the kiss to deepen.
She’d heard women discuss kisses that had made them senseless, yet she had never understood the meaning…
until Joshua. He aroused something in her that no other man had come close to touching.
Desire stormed through her body as his hands traced her hips before traveling down to her buttocks to knead her flesh.
He groaned into their kiss as something unleashed within him.
Phoebe found herself on top of her desk with her skirts pulled up to her thighs and Joshua spreading her legs wide for him to step between.
Then his hands were in her hair, pulling pins and disheveling her coiffure as her untamed curls dropped to her shoulders.
The hard ridge of his cock strained against his falls as it met the soft folds of her undergarments where she pulsed with need.
His delicious kiss was consuming her. She tore at his jacket, desperate to feel more of him as his manhood grew harder, longer.
She could feel the alluring length of his sex demanding satisfaction, and the wetness at the juncture of her thighs prepared her for the experience he’d promised as his mouth ravaged hers.
Until the clock struck the hour and reality came crashing in. She pulled back from his kiss and he stopped. Their chests rising and falling as if they’d run all the way from the estate gates.
“We must stop.”
“No,” he breathed and dipped his head to kiss her once more.
She leaned back, pulling away from the kiss she wanted with all of her being. “I have to go get her; Ross will be waiting.”
“Let him wait.” His hands gripped her buttocks and he started to pull her closer, but she pushed against his chest and kept him at arm’s length despite her desire to feed the craving he’d awakened within her.
She peered into his intense, hooded gaze. “You don’t understand. He is a duke. Ross will not wait. She must get there now. If she is late, he will leave.”
Joshua closed his eyes and sighed before he released her and stepped out from between her thighs, his gaze lost to the place where his body had abandoned her own.
Phoebe quickly pulled her skirts down over her knees, her cheeks reddening as he helped her down from the desk.
How had this happened? How had she forgotten the reason they were here?
This wasn’t about the passion between them.
This was about a woman’s future. Her cousin’s livelihood depended on her meeting the Duke of Ross in the garden.
“Don’t,” he said.
“Don’t what?” She brushed the front of her gown, attempting, and failing to remove the wrinkles their passion created.
“Don’t sully what just happened between us in your mind. We are consenting adults.”
“You don’t understand,” she said as she picked up several pins from the desktop and began arranging her hair the best she could.
Joshua picked up her drink and downed it before saying, “Then help me to understand.”
“I cannot let her down. I know what it’s like to have a man control one’s future.
To depend on him to make plans for one’s financial stability.
I trusted my father to do what was best for me, and he left the business to my husband.
I trusted Richard to do what was best for me, and he drove Lady Atwood’s Millinery into the ground with his mismanagement.
I knew how to run the business but he refused to ask me for help.
Then he died leaving me with nothing. You of all people know the financial straits I was in at the time of his death.
“No woman should have to live with the threat of debtor’s prison, working on her back, or living on the streets because her husband refused to acknowledge she knew more about business than he did.”
Joshua ran a hand through his hair. “You’re right. I know how hard you worked to restore your family business. No one should be kept in the dark about something as important as their safety and security.”
She smiled at him ruefully. “Of course you do. I’m sorry. I just can’t let the same thing happen to my cousin that happened to me.”
“There is no need to apologize. The three of us planned for this night, and we will see it through. Together. As a team.”
She couldn’t believe her ears. He truly was the best of men. “We will meet you at the servant’s entrance. Then you can escort her through the back gate of the garden.”
“And once she is with him? Can I come to your room?”
The idea was so very tempting…but if he had taught her anything, it was that she couldn’t trust herself with him.
Because when his lips met hers, she had relinquished every bit of her control over to him, and that was a mistake she would never make again.
“Let us ensure that she secures her future and then we will talk.”
Phoebe rushed out the library door without looking back. She didn’t want to fall prey to his charms and the promise of what being with Joshua could be like. She had no doubt the experience would be life altering, and she didn’t think she was ready to relinquish control of her future to any man.