The words pushed a wave of doubt through her. He couldn’t mean that. Just exaggeration, surely.

“I could have found you broken or bleeding, or—” His voice broke. “Or worse. Don’t tell me I care about polished rocks on a chain. I want to believe you know me better than that.”

“I do.”

“And yet you believe I’d be so upset about a necklace that I’d send you away?”

She gestured uselessly. “You’d just said you didn’t want me at all.”

“I said no such thing. You ran off before I could finish.” He ran a hand down her body. “I said I didn’t need ‘someone.’ Because you’re not just someone to me. You’re remarkable and stubborn and lovely and too damn brave for your own good.” His hand fisted in the fabric of her gown. “You’re you. I want you. From the moment you stumbled through that tavern door, I wanted you.”

She pressed a hand to her mouth, stifling her emotion.

“Don’t.” He pulled her hand from her mouth. “Don’t hide. Don’t ever run from me again.”

He kissed her hungrily, desperately, and she opened herself to his sensual invasion, welcoming his tongue with her own and aching to hold him tight.

With labored breaths of effort, he pulled away. His eyes burned into hers. “If I asked you to stay with me . . .”

“I couldn’t.” Stunned, she went still in his arms. “You know I couldn’t. I must go home to Daniela. I promised her, and you gave us your word.”

“If I offered you a home. A house in the country, with everything you and your sister could ever need.”

“I couldn’t be a kept mistress. Not even yours. I’d lose respect for myself, and for you.”

His gaze clouded. “I can’t marry you.”

“I know.” Sadness pressed down on her heart. “There’s no way this can last beyond week’s end.”

He cupped her face with one hand and stroked his thumb over her cheek. “Well, know this. I am damned well going to make love to you tonight.”

Excitement jolted through her.

Yes.

“Yes, Griff. Please.”

He gathered her skirts, tugging them upward. His fingers curved around her thigh, stroking up and down. “Are you sure you’re well enough? You’re not too bruised or hurting under all this silk?”

His concern for her well-being touched her heart. “I promise. I’m fine.”

“I’ll judge for myself.” He turned her on her belly and began to tug at her hooks and laces. “Off with these things. I’ve been wild to see you naked again.”

Again? “When did you see me naked before?”

“That first night in the library.”

“But . . . I was wearing my shift the whole time.”

“I know.” He pulled the gown down over her hips, then set about untying her petticoats. “But your shift was gloriously thin. When you stepped in front of the lamp, the light shone right through it. I could see everything.”

“Everything?”

“Everything.”

Pauline didn’t know how to take that. She merely went limp as he unlaced her corset and flung it aside. Then, pulling her to a half-sitting position, he lifted the chemise up and over her head. She flopped back on the bed linens, completely nude except for her stockings.

He sat up and began to remove his own clothing. Waistcoat, cravat, shirt. She watched him as he stripped off layer after layer of elegance, down to the man beneath it all.

“Cor,” she breathed.

He was perfect. Broad in the shoulders, lean at the waist. Muscled everywhere. A sprinkling of dark hair on his chest.

He turned away, sitting on the edge of the bed to remove his boots and unbutton his breeches, giving her ample time to admire the sculpted planes of his bared back.

“There,” he said, tossing the last bit of clothing aside.

He stretched out beside her, and she suddenly felt abashed. He was so perfect, everywhere. The ideal form of a man. And she wasn’t the ideal form of woman. Not at all.

For the first time, she felt truly unequal to him.

His gaze swept her body first, but his caress soon followed suit. He cupped her breast in his hand. She began to hope, foolishly, that he might say he liked what he saw. She didn’t need to hear “Beautiful” or “Lovely” or “Perfect.” Something like his terse “Good” earlier that evening would do.

When his thumb found her hardened nipple, he did something much better. He gave a low growl of satisfaction, deep in his throat. The sound was so primal and unambiguous. So utterly male. It called to everything feminine in her, and the response that welled from deep inside was a faint, sighing moan of relief.

“Just as arousing as I remember,” he muttered. “More. You wouldn’t believe how hard you made me that first night. Every night since.”

A self-conscious laugh escaped her. “I’m built like a fourteen-year-old boy.”

“Bollocks. I’ve been a fourteen-year-old boy. I tell you, my breasts were nowhere near this enticing.” He traced her areola, then the curve beneath her breast.

She writhed, undone by the intense sensations. “So you’re one of those men who actually likes his women small-breasted?”

Her well-endowed friends had always consoled her with the promise that such men existed, but she’d yet to meet with one in the flesh. She’d grown to think of them as mythical beasts, in the same class as pixies and dragons.

“I never understood that way of thinking.” As he spoke, he kissed her breasts and swept bold touches over her belly and down her thighs. “It’s like those old men who come to the club for dinner every night and always take the same meal, sitting at the same table. What good is life if a man can’t appreciate variety?” He drew one nipple into his mouth, circling the taut peak with his tongue.

A sigh of pleasure eased from her throat. Beyond that, she didn’t know how to respond. She supposed a duke would have ample access to “variety,” if he wished it. After she returned to Spindle Cove, perhaps he’d find a buxom, fair-haired beauty for contrast.

As if he could sense her unease, his demeanor changed. “You’re an intensely attractive woman. You do know that, don’t you?” To her silence, he replied, “You’d believe me if you could see yourself.”

“I have seen myself. That’s the snag, you see.”

He shook his head. “No, no. Not in a mirror. I know how mirrors work. They’re all in league with the cosmetics trade. They tell a woman lies. Drawing her gaze from one imagined flaw to another, until all she sees is a constellation of imperfections. If you could get outside yourself, borrow my eyes for just an instant . . . There’s only beauty.” He pressed his hand to his heart. “I swear it on the seven Dukes of Halford before me.”

Several moments passed before she could speak. “Well. I’ve seen their portraits. I’ll concede that I’m prettier than they were.”

He chuckled. “Thank God for that.”

He wedged his hips between her thighs, spreading her wide. The hard curve of his erection pulsed hot and urgent against her core.

“Let it be now,” he said, burying his face in her neck. “Next time, I’ll go slowly. Kiss you everywhere, touch you for hours. But I can’t be patient any longer. I need . . . God, I need you. I need you.”

“Yes.” She kissed him, tilting her hips in invitation. She needed him, too. So desperately.

He positioned himself at her entrance and thrust.

When their bodies joined, she cried out—but not in pain. Despite the hurried foreplay, she was ready for him. She’d been ready for days, and waiting on this sensation for years. The size and heat of him were formidable, but she welcomed both feelings. The fullness. The searing pleasure.

At last, she was with Griff. Beneath him, around him, holding him, kissing him, stroking his hair and shoulders.

At last, this was how a man made love—not a fumbling youth, but a proper man. One who understood not only what he wanted, but what she wanted as well. He loved her in a smooth, powerful rhythm, delving a little deeper with every stroke. Just when she thought there couldn’t be more of him to take, he proved her wrong.

At last, his pelvis met hers. He was fully buried inside her. She was stretched to her limits. The tension burned like the sweetest fire.

He lowered his body to hers, and her breasts flattened beneath his chest. Their heartbeats sparred, punching back and forth like pugilists. He began a slow, steady roll of his hips. His firmness slid in and out of her in cautious increments, teasing whorls of pleasure from her center and spreading bliss throughout her body.

He stared into her eyes, looking strangely bewildered. “This is . . . This is good, Simms. I’m no stranger to pleasure, but this is . . . good.”

“You did say it’s been a long time for you.”

He nodded. “Months and months. And you?”

“Oh, ages. Years.”

He paused mid-stroke. “I suppose that must be it.”

He bent to kiss her, moaning against her lips as he eased forward. She clutched at his shoulders and back, trying to urge him faster. Deeper. Wilder. She felt sure he wasn’t the sort of man to make sweet, careful love.

“Griff,” she pleaded.

He paused. “I don’t want to hurt you. I’m trying to be gentle.”

She pushed against him just enough that she could meet his gaze. “Just be you. I want you.”

Something feral sparked in his eyes. He rose up on his arms and dug his knees into the mattress, thrusting hard.

“Yes,” she gasped, thrilled by his strength. “Again. More.”

He gave her again. He gave her more. He gave her stroke after stroke of pounding bliss, and she was utterly laid waste.

This was raw, primal sensuality, but the emotions were what made her ache. He could be teasing and nonchalant with words. But each pummeling thrust was a confession of just how much he desired her, how desperately he wanted this—with every muscle in his body, every pulse of his blood.

Oh, and the intensity in his dark, captivating eyes . . . it turned her inside out. She was exposed, vulnerable in the face of such bald determination. He would hold nothing back in pursuit of this pleasure. He would give her everything he had.

She lifted her arms overhead and braced her hands against the headboard, pushing back at him with everything she had.

“That’s right,” he grunted, never breaking pace. “Move with me.”

Her body arced off the bed as she strained to meet his thrusts. Their joining verged on painful, but she was beyond any such cares. She couldn’t take him deep enough, couldn’t stretch tautly enough around the smooth, hard curve of his cock.

The contrasts were exquisite. The two of them rutting like beasts amid all the embroidered pillows and clouds of discarded petticoats. The helplessness of her splayed posture beneath him only added to the surge of sensual power she felt. When she wrapped her stockinged leg over his hips, sliding the silk across his bare thigh, he gave a fierce, primitive growl.

He was so animal and so elegant . . . and so powerfully arousing, she couldn’t possibly last.

With every stroke, his body rubbed hers in just the right place. Her head rolled back and her eyes squeezed shut. She felt the pleasure building, drawing tight all through her body. Release was so close.

He groaned deep in his chest, and the sound sent worry shooting through her. Perhaps release was close for him, too.

They hadn’t discussed what would happen at the end. The anxiety was enough to drag her back from the edge.

“Let go,” he said.

She opened her eyes. He was looking down at her, his face a mask of resolve. His rhythm never faltered for an instant.

“I have you. Just let go.”