Page 69 of Winning Her Duke

She wanted him to lose control again. She wanted to kiss him.

No. Kissing wouldn’t be enough.

When they’d kissed the last time, he’d started them down a path to something more. That was what she truly wanted.

More.

As if she’d wished it, the latch on the stall popped up and the door opened. There he was.

Chapter Twenty

His face was so close to hers. His eyes flared with surprise or desire, she wasn’t sure which it was.

“Yes, really,” he answered her earlier question. “I have thought of little else but kissing you since that day.”

His gaze dropped and it was then they both realized she wasn’t wearing anything but a thin lawn shirt. Her breeches hung on the other side of the stall.

Of course, she’d known she wasn’t wearing anything on the lower half of her body but had somehow forgotten when he’d first entered the stall. Now, seeing the need on his face, she was glad she’d waited to put them on.

He didn’t move anything but his eyes for maybe twenty beats of her thumping heart. Then it seemed everything moved at once. He stepped closer, latching the door behind him as his other hand reached for her. She lurched the short distance between them and their lips met, relentless and urgent.

She’d thought their first kiss had consumed her, but this was raw and desperate passion. She couldn’t get close enough.

“Gia,” he said in what she thought might be a question. She wasn’t certain what he was asking, but the answer was most definitely yes.

“Yes,” she said repeatedly until his hands moved along her body. When they dropped below the hem of her long shirt and came up under the fabric, her breath caught. He was touching her bare skin. Not just any bare skin but that of her thigh and her buttocks.

“We need to stop before we can’t,” he whispered. “Tell me to stop.”

“I don’t want to stop.” Stopping was the last thing she wanted. “Please.”

“I need you to be the strong one. I can’t. I’m too far gone,” he said, desperation clear in his voice.

“I hate to disappoint you, but… I am not very strong at the moment.”

She felt his smile against the skin of her throat as he placed kisses down her neck to her collarbone.

“It seems neither of us wants to stop.” He pulled away enough to look her in the eye then he moved again.

She answered with a sound, rather than words, as his lips enveloped her nipple. She tugged at his shirt, grateful he hadn’t bothered with a waist coat or cravat. He was so accessible. When the fabric pulled free of his trousers, she laid her hands against the warm skin of his back, feeling as if she had caught fire.

“Jeremy,” she whispered and felt his body shudder. “May I call you that?”

It seemed wrong to use his formal name when she had worked her fingers to his falls and was trying to get them open. Hale wasn’t his title, it was his family name, but still it wasn’t his name alone.

“No one ever has,” he said, pulling away enough to stare at her.

“It’s either Jeremy or Your Grace,” she teased. “You choose.” She noticed his body responded again—a brief shiver—when she’d said his name. He liked it. “Never mind. I already have my answer, Jeremy.”

“Christ. I never considered how much I would enjoy hearing my name on your lips. Especially when your hand is down my breeches.”

Except, her hand had not made it down his breeches, she was still struggling with the blasted falls. She wore breeches and knew how to go about undoing them, but it was much more difficult with her hands shaking the way they were.

He was probably used to experienced women who knew how to get a man out of his clothing. While she’d thought of this moment in many different ways, actually touching a man’s skin was making her clumsy.

She nearly cried in relief when the buttons gave way and then she paused. The next step would be to touch him. There.

She closed her eyes and gathered her courage.