Page 56

“No, because I cannot indulge in trysts. I have responsibilities and duties.”

He sucked her other nipple and then rested his hand on the curve of her belly. “I, too, have obligations. None of them preclude me from making love to you.”

She liked the weight of his hand on her, the wet heat of his mouth. She didn’t know how much longer she could resist him.

“You are a man,” she explained. “A duke. Responsibilities are different for you, as are expectations. I am a woman, a mother, a widow.”

His hand moved lower, his gorgeous face remaining perilously near to her breasts, his gaze locked on hers. “Yet you are the hostess of this house party.”

She couldn’t deny it. “Yes.”

“And you were willing to follow a masked stranger to his bedroom to fuck him.”

She inhaled sharply. “Only once. It was only meant to be once.”

That sounded worse than she had intended. Ophelia winced.

“Pretend I am him, then,” he suggested, his jaw going hard. “Think of me as the masked stranger you were so willing to allow to pleasure you. Shall I put the mask back on for you, Phee? Will that ease your conscience?”

“No,” she said softly.

She had hurt him, and she wasn’t entirely sure how such a thing was possible. But she hated that she had done it.

“It isn’t you that is the problem,” she explained. “It is me.”

“Ha! Where is my necklace? It feels as if you’re giving me the congé.”

Her cheeks flushed anew at his suggestion she was treating him as a man would a mistress. “I didn’t mean it in that way.”

“Then what did you mean?” He held her stare, his unwavering. “It is as simple as this. Do you want me, or do you not? Because I can assure you that I have watched you from afar and wanted you for years, Phee. Years.”

She stared at him, searching for a hint of subterfuge, for his rakish charm. But there was none. He was deadly serious. The vehemence in his voice was undeniable. He meant those words.

Years, he’d said.

He had wanted her for years.

Impossible, unbelievable, and yet, it was true.

“I want you,” she confessed.

He was upon her in a blink, his big body atop hers, and heaven help her, she loved the way they fit together, his hardness melting into her softness. He leveraged himself over her with one forearm, using his free hand to tenderly cup her cheek.

“Then you shall have me,” he said.

If only it were that easy.

“But—” she began to protest.

He silenced her with his lips, hot and firm and insistent and so very knowing over hers. She kissed him back, opening for his questing tongue. How astonishingly easy it was to forget her duties and fears when his mouth was working its sensual magic. She could kiss him for a lifetime and never grow weary of it; each time, there seemed something new and profound she took notice of.

Apollo broke the kiss and leaned on his forearm again. “I’m not asking for anything more than the duration of this house party.”

A scant few more days. That was all she had left here. And it would be good to return to London, to Catherine and Reggie. It would be welcomed, not just necessary. Could she do it? Could she surrender to this mad desire between them until the house party’s end?

Something occurred to her, making a knot of dread tighten in her stomach. “What about Mrs. Gilpin?”

“I don’t want her.”