Page 79 of The Lyon's Proxy Duke

“I prefer magnificent and ruthless with excellent taste in husbands,” Damien replied, his hands resuming their wandering exploration. “Speaking of which…”

“Already?” Eleanor asked with raised eyebrows as she felt his renewed interest.

“I told you I’d been thinking about you all evening,” he said with unrepentant desire. “Did you think I was finished?”

“I was hoping you might show some restraint.”

“Restraint is overrated,” Damien declared, rolling them over. “Besides, I have a reputation to maintain.”

“What reputation?”

“Insatiable libertine who corrupted a perfectly respectable duchess,” he replied with a smirk. “I can’t disappoint Society’s expectations.”

Eleanor’s laughter dissolved into soft sighs as he proceeded to live up to every scandalous rumor ever whispered about the Duke of Westmore and his thoroughly compromised wife.

Hours later, as London slept peacefully around them, Eleanor reflected on the strange turns that had brought them to this perfect moment. What had begun as desperate necessity had become the greatest adventure of her life.

“No regrets?” Damien asked softly, as though reading her thoughts.

“Only that it took us so long to stop being fools,” Eleanor replied, settling more comfortably against his warmth.

“Worth the wait though,” he said. “We make an excellent team.”

“The best,” she agreed. “London’s most dangerous married couple.”

“Dangerous? Duchess, we’re barely getting started,” Damien murmured, his voice already hinting at renewed interest.

Eleanor laughed, perfectly content to spend eternity exactly where she was—in the arms of the inconvenient husband who’d somehow become everything she’d never known she wanted.

The End