Page 58 of If the Duke Demands

With a frustrated groan, he again punched the pillow and gave up completely on sleep.

The click of the opening door disturbed the silence of the room, followed by the rustle of soft movement.

He blew out an aggravated sigh. His valet was a good man and dedicated to his service, but tonight Sebastian didn’t want the fire banked or the drapes drawn. He wanted to be left alone to wallow in his misery. “What is it, Barlow?”

When the valet didn’t answer, Sebastian bit back a curse and sat up, the coverlet falling down around his hips—and froze.

Miranda.

She stood by the door, ethereal like a ghost in the soft shadows, wearing a wide-brimmed hat and a driver’s coat that covered her from neck to shoes. But he would have recognized that pert nose anywhere, along with the determined lift of her chin and the clenched hands at her sides. A fury in men’s clothing.

His eyes narrowed in quick anger. So it wasn’t enough to frustrate him in the carriage by giving him a taste of what he could never have. She’d now come to taunt him some more in his own home.

“What are you doing here?” he demanded. The damned woman was pushing him right to the edge of his patience.

“Swallowing my pride,” she whispered, her enigmatic words as soft as the firelight playing its fading shadows across her face.

She reached up and removed the hat, and as she dropped it away, her hair tumbled down freely around her shoulders and back. His gut clenched as instant arousal pulsed through him.

Beneath the coverlet that hid the lower half of his naked body, his cock hardened at the memory of what they’d done in the carriage, so suddenly that he inhaled a pained breath through clenched teeth. He watched in sweet torment as she reached down to slip off her left shoe and let it drop away to the floor, then did the same with the other. With each piece of clothing she removed, desire coiled tighter inside him.

“You need to leave,” he ordered, his voice far huskier than he’d intended. And far from convincing.

“After I had to try all the bedroom doors before I found you? No.”

“If someone discovers you here—”

“I’m tired of your warnings, Sebastian.” She boldly held his gaze across the room. “From now on, I’m doing whatever I want.”

With trembling fingers, she unbuttoned the long coat. Each button she slid free revealed a stretch of flesh or thin gauzy material beneath, each one a punch to his gut. Unaware of how torturous it was for him to watch her undress, she pushed the coat off her shoulders and let it fall to the floor around her feet. Then she stood as still as a statue, as if daring him to look his fill of her, wearing the same dress she’d worn the night of his mother’s party. His mouth went dry.

God help him. Lady Rose had returned.

Knowing he had to get her out of the room so he wouldn’t repeat the mistake from the carriage, no matter how much he wanted to, he chastised, “You’re making a habit of stumbling into my bedchamber by accident.”

“No accident.” She shrugged a nearly bare shoulder beneath the satin ribbons that held the loosely fitted bodice in place. “I found exactly the right room this time.”

His cock ached for her, and his head swam with confusion. She was completely wrong…yet so perfectly right.

“What we did in the carriage,” she told him softly, “it isn’t over. You and I have unfinished business.”

His tolerance snapped. Biting out a curse, he leapt from the bed and charged across the room like a bull. She gasped when she realized he was completely naked and averted her eyes, then she retreated until her back hit the wall beside the door.

But Sebastian closed in on her, frustration and aggravation boiling inside him. He planted his hands on the wall on either side of her shoulders, not caring what she thought of having a naked man standing so close to her that he was almost touching her. And not only a naked man but a fully aroused one, too. But at that moment, with the temptation she presented only flaming his frustration until it tightened inside him like a spring, he didn’t give a damn.

“I won’t marry you just because I touched you,” he ground out through clenched teeth. “So if that’s why you’re here—”

“I’m not here to trap you into marriage.” Still not daring to look at him, she raised her chin in a flash of indignation.

He took her chin and forced her to look at him. Her eyes flared brightly in the dim shadows, mirroring the anger he was certain shone in his. “Then why are you here?”

“Because I like you,” she breathed, the confession tearing from her so softly that her words were barely a sound at all, “so much more than I should.”

His heart stuttered painfully as he stared at her, momentarily stunned. He didn’t dare let himself believe he’d heard her correctly. He simplycouldn’thave. Because if he had…Dear God.To be this close to having a chance at happiness, only to know that it could never be his—

“Miranda,” he rasped out, unable to say anything more as his voice caught in his throat. She had no idea of the temptation she presented for him, or the torture she was putting him through.

All of her trembled now as she whispered, “And I thought maybe…”