Page 56 of The Duke’s Defiant Love

He took another step. "I cannot hear you laugh without wanting to hear it again."

He stopped in front of her.

"I cannot speak to you without remembering the last time you looked at me. I cannot sit across from you without thinking about what it would feel like to have you beside me instead."

His breath came harder now.

"You proposed to me out of duty."

"I proposed because it was the right thing to do. But that is not why I wanted you to say yes.”

He reached for her hand, slowly, giving her every chance to pull away. She did not. "I wanted you before there was a scandal to repair. I wanted you before your father ever found us in that house. I simply did not understand until afterward that wanting you and choosing you were not different things. And I have been too great a coward these three days to say so plainly, until you stood in my doorway and forced the truth out of me."

"I want you." His hand rose to cradle her jaw, and this time neither of them stopped it. "I have wanted you since the moment you dismantled my argument at that ball and refused to give me your name. Every single day since. I am done pretending otherwise, to you or to myself."

She closed the last distance between them before he could, her hands finding his lapels, and this time there was nothing waiting to interrupt them. His mouth met hers, certain, unhurried, and when his hands slid to her waist and drew her flush against him, she felt the full, unguarded want in him, no longer restrained behind days of careful distance.

"Tell me to stop," he murmured against her mouth, "and I will."

"Do not stop." She was already working the buttons of his waistcoat, impatient, her breath already unsteady. "I do not want careful, Sebastian. I have had three days of careful."

He made a low sound against her throat and lifted her into his arms, carrying her from the study, up the stairs, past the blue room she had occupied alone for three empty nights, into his own bedchamber, and set her down only long enough to shut the door behind them both.

In the dim, amber glow of Sebastian’s bedchamber, the air felt thick, charged with a tension that had been stretching between them for three agonizing weeks.

When his hands returned to her, they weren't just touching her, they were claiming her. Every brush of his fingertips against her skin felt like a searing hot spark.

Amelia could hear both of them breathing.

Sebastian's hand remained at her waist, his thumb moving once, almost absently, against the fabric of her gown. His eyes searched her face as though asking for permission once more.

She nodded and turned and his breath left him slowly. Then he reached for the fastening at the back of her gown.

He worked slowly at first, giving her every opportunity to change her mind. She didn’t.

Amelia felt the fabric shift beneath his fingers and drew in a quiet breath. His fingers stilled, and when she glanced over her shoulder, she found him watching her with an expression that made her heart stumble.

He eased the fabric lower, slowly enough that she felt every small movement. Amelia's fingers tightened around the folds of her skirt.

She exhaled, her pulse loud in her ears. When the gown finally slipped from her shoulders, she instinctively drew her arms closer to herself.

Sebastian noticed. He did not reach for her immediately, giving her the space to decide whether she wished to remain where she was. Amelia's cheeks warmed, but after a moment she lowered her arms.

His fingers brushed her arm, almost reverently, and Amelia shivered. She reached for him then. Her hands found the buttons of his coat, growing bolder as she worked.

She felt a frantic sort of desperation, her fingers trembling as she worked at his clothes, wanting to erase every single barrier between them. When the last of their garments fell away, she felt a sudden, sharp spike of vulnerability. She had never been seen like this—completely exposed, not just in body, but in the raw, aching hunger in his eyes.

Sebastian paused, his gaze sweeping over her with a reverence that made her breath hitch. He looked at her as if she were the only thing in the world that mattered. That look—that absolute, unwavering devotion—was what finally broke the last of her defenses.

He lowered her onto the sheets, the fabric cool against her back. As he settled between her thighs, his weight was a grounding weight. He leaned down, his lips grazing the sensitive shell of her ear, his voice a rough, low vibration.

"You are so beautiful," he whispered, and the sincerity in his tone almost brought a sting of tears to her eyes. "I will be as gentle as you need me to be. Just tell me."

She didn't want gentle—not in the sense of hesitation. She wanted him. She arched her back, her heart hammering against her ribs like a trapped bird. "I trust you," she breathed.

She reached for him, pulling him down and he groaned, the sound vibrating deep in his chest. His lips found the sensitive hollow of her throat. He tasted her, his tongue swirling against her pulse point. Amelia let out a soft, shuddering moan, her legs winding around his waist to pull him closer, craving the weight of him once more.

He moved slowly, his hands roaming over her breasts, his thumbs brushing over her peaked nipples with a rhythmic pressure that made her toes curl into the sheets. Amelia looked at him, he was watching her, a captivated look on his face as her eyelids fluttered and her lips parted, drinking in every flicker of pleasure that crossed her features.