Page 73 of A Problem Princess

She stopped in front of him and trembled when he took another slow rake of his gaze over her body. Surely the lamplight turned her thin cotton shift translucent and revealed every silhouetted inch of her to his eyes.Good.

When he made no move to touch her, she taunted softly, “Don’t you serve at the pleasure of the princess? I can think of no greater pleasure than sharing the night with you.”

She lifted her shift over her head and off. She stood completely naked in the shadows of the flickering lamp.

A loud gasp tore from him as his breath left his lungs. His gaze darted up to hers and fixed there.

“Stubborn man,” she chastised when he refused to allow himself a glimpse of her.

She would have laughed at his restraint if the air between them wasn’t crackling with electricity, if she couldn’t feel the tension radiating from him even from a foot away.

“You’re meant for a prince,” he told her, as much to convince himself as her. “You’re not meant for someone like me.”

“Someone brave and heroic, kind, intelligent?” she challenged quietly. “Someone who brings out the best in me?”

“A common soldier,” he fired back.

“A general.”

His dark laugh hitched in his throat when she placed her hand on his chest, right over his racing heart. “That was supposed to have been a joke,” he told her, “but your damned cousin took it seriously and made me one.”

“And a viscount.”

“Also a joke.”

“Far from it,” she countered and began to unbutton his waistcoat. His breath came more ragged with every button she slipped free, yet he made no move to stop her.

“The son of a murderer,” he rasped out.

She froze. No…that—that couldn’t be. The aunties had saidsmuggling, and when she’d asked him about it, he didn’t deny it… His father was a smuggler, that was all. He couldn’t have been—

But the grief that darkened his face told her the anguished truth.

“I can never be the man you deserve.” He shook his head. “No matter what military rank and titles I’m given, for my past alone I willneverbe good enough for you.”

How she wished he could see in himself the hero she knew him to be! “I don’t care what your father did or what rank you possess—or don’t. I care aboutyou, Clayton. You’re a much better man than you think.”

She rose up on tiptoe and brought her lips gently to his. It was a kiss of absolution, yet he groaned beneath it as if she were torturing him.

Moving his mouth away from hers, he covered her hands with his to stop her from undressing him, but he didn’t push her away. “You’re asking me to commit treason.”

“I’m asking you to make love to me.” Without any resistance from him, she slowly peeled his jacket over his shoulders, down his arms, and off. “If I weren’t a princess, if I were just an ordinary London lady, would you still refuse me?”

He squeezed his eyes shut as the confession tore from him. “No.”

“Then don’t refuse me tonight.” She gave a faint shrug of her bare shoulders. “Underneath, I’m only a woman. Can’t you see that?”

He raked a look over her so heated that a shiver swept up from her toes and straight out the top of her head. “I can see plenty.”

“Then let me have tonight, with you. Let me have the most special night of my life with a man who cares about me…who truly cares aboutme.” She paused. Although she wanted desperately to strip off his waistcoat, the brace of pistols he wore stopped her. “You’ve always protected me.”

He choked back a strangled laugh. “And if you get with child?”

“I trust you to protect me from that, too.” Summoning her courage, she unbuckled the holster with shaking fingers and gently lowered it to the floor. “I trust you, Clayton, more than I trust anyone else in my life.” She slipped her arms around his neck and pressed herself against him. “I trust you with tonight, too. You’re the only man I do.” She brushed his lips along his jaw. “Please, Clayton. Give me tonight.”

“Cordelia.” A low groan of surrender came from the back of his throat, and he captured her mouth beneath his.

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