Page 64 of How Not to Marry a Duke

"I have imagined this." His voice was rough against her ear, his breath warm where it touched her neck. "Every night for eighteen months. The sounds you would make. The way you would taste."

"And does reality match imagination?"

His hands stilled on her stays. She felt him pull back, felt his gaze trace down her body—her bare shoulders, her chemise, the curves that were visible through the thin fabric.

"Reality," he said, his voice wrecked, "puts imagination to shame."

The stays fell. The chemise followed. And Florinda stood before him in the candlelight—for someone had lit candles, she did not remember when—with nothing but her golden hair and the seven freckles across her nose and the wild, desperate certainty that this was exactly where she was meant to be.

Frederick's gaze moved over her like a touch. She watched him catalogue her the way he catalogued everything—the curve of her waist, the swell of her breasts, the places where candlelight gilded her skin to gold.

Fourteen, twenty, a hundred—she could almost hear him counting, and the knowledge that he was memorising her, that he would remember this moment the way he remembered gold threads and freckles and stairs, made her breath catch in a way that had nothing to do with cold.

"Your turn." Her voice came out steadier than she felt. "I believe I am at a disadvantage."

He shed his remaining clothes with military efficiency, and then he was standing before her—naked, scarred, beautiful in a way that had nothing to do with the aesthetic and everything to do with the way he was looking at her.

She counted him.

Three scars she could see: one on his shoulder (Spain, she guessed), one across his ribs, one disappearing beneath the line of his hip. Strong arms. Broad shoulders. A body made for war that was, at this moment, wholly devoted to her.

"Come here," she breathed.

He came.

* * *

The settee was narrow, but they made it work.

Bodies tangled, skin against skin, Frederick's weight pressing Florinda into the ancient cushions as his mouth traced a path down her throat, her collarbone, the valley between her breasts. She arched into him, her hands finding purchase on his shoulders, his back, anywhere she could reach.

"I want—" she began, and did not know how to finish.

"Tell me." His mouth was at her breast now, his tongue tracing patterns that made coherent thought impossible. "Tell me what you want."

"You." The word emerged broken. "All of you. Now."

He raised his head. His eyes were dark, dilated, stripped of all the careful control she had seen in him before. "Are you certain? We can wait. I should court you properly—a year, at least⁠—"

"Nine years." She pulled him back down. "I have waited nine years. I do not wish to wait a moment longer."

He made a sound that might have been a laugh, might have been a groan. His hand slid down her body, found the heat between her thighs, and Florinda ceased to think in words.

There was only sensation. Only his fingers learning her rhythms, his mouth swallowing her gasps, his body pressing her into the cushions as she climbed toward a peak she had only ever reached alone, thinking of him, imagining this.

Reality was better. Reality was his breath ragged against her ear, his hands trembling with restraint, his voice asking permission even as he gave her everything she wanted.

"Now," she gasped. "Please. Frederick. Now."

He positioned himself. Pressed forward. And Florinda felt herself stretch to accommodate him, felt the brief flash of discomfort give way to fullness, felt her body welcome him the way her heart had welcomed him nine years ago in a dusty stable.

"Florinda." Her name emerged as a prayer. His forehead dropped to hers, his breath shuddering. "I have wanted—I have imagined—but this⁠—"

"I know." She wrapped her legs around him, pulled him deeper. "I know."

He began to move. She moved with him.

Outside, the rain hammered against the tower windows, drowning out the sounds they made—the gasps, the moans, the half-formed words that might have been names or pleas or promises. Inside, the candles guttered, sending shadows dancing across the walls, across her golden hair spread across the cushions, across his scarred back rising and falling above her.