Page 72 of A Virgin to Tempt the Duke

“Anna,” he growled.

“Tell me.” Her voice trailed off, less a demand than an entreaty.

“I can’t,” he said again, low enough that she felt it more than heard it.

Anna looked at him. She had been looking at him for a year, she supposed, with varying degrees of awareness regarding what exactly she was looking for. It had started when she was under his household, and even in the time that had passed, he was all she saw when she closed her eyes. That was the truth. She thought she recognized now, for the first time, what it was. Or moreover,whyit was.

It wasn’t his dry wit, not the composure, not even the warmth he kept so carefully rationed. It was whatever could not be labeled that stirred underneath, that pulsed between them. He had crossed a dark garden without hesitation to save her, as he had before. Now, he was sitting before her with everything he wouldn’t say crowded behind his jaw.

I want him. I want this. I must try.

“Frederick.”

He reached for her before she could say anything further, one hand finding the curve of her cheek. She knew in that moment he had been thinking about exactly that particular movement for longer than this evening. She knew he felt it too.

She did not pull away.

She did not have the slightest impulse to pull away. Her own hand came up instead, fisting in the front of his shirt. The same shirt she’d gripped in the garden when her legs had not been entirely reliable, when for one suspended instant they simplylooked at each other, close enough that she could see the exact moment the last of his composure gave way.

“Anna.”

“What?” She asked nervously.

“You are a statue etched out of fantasies I could not even dream of.”

When his mouth met hers, it was nothing like she’d imagined, and she had, she could admit to herself now, imagined it and often. It was more certain than imagination, and less careful, and it tasted faintly of the evening’s brandy. His lips were strong but soft, seeking her.

She slid her hand up to the back of his neck to hold him there because she was not remotely ready to be done. He slipped her tongue inside of her mouth, ever so slightly, a tremor running through his frame at the taste.

He continued to kiss her as though she were the answer to an argument he’d been losing for a long time. And she kissed him back and thought, distantly, that this was going to make everything considerably more complicated, and found she could not bring herself to care.

The carriage rattled on through the dark London streets around them, entirely forgotten as she took her leg and wrapped it around his, surprised at her daring.

He pushed her leg down quickly, and for a moment, bile rose hot in her throat. He stopped kissing her and looked at her, which caused Anna to look down at her lap.

What have I done wrong?

She gathered the strength to look up at him, but saw nothing that resembled disgust or disappointment. On the contrary, he looked at her as if she were the most delicate pastry in all of Paris, and he was going to devour her.

She inched herself back into the seat slightly, looking up at him as he leaned down over her. She felt her heart race, her blood pulse throughout her body and causing the sweet spot between her legs to ache with need.

Yet, she was so inexperienced. She had no idea what to do with a man in such a situation, for she had no mother to guide her.

She bit her lip.

“Oh, no, no, sweetheart,” he said as he brought his mouth to her ear and nipped her earlobe gently. “Do not bite that lip. That is my duty.”

“Oh?” Anna said, her cheeks hot and flushed. “I?—”

“You have no idea the restraint, the sheer control I have had to exercise since the moment you walked in my house in that muddy bridal gown.?”

“I… I had no idea I had such an effect on you.”

“Didn’t you? I think a part of you has known for a long time, oh how you have bewitched me.”

“Even if that could be true, I do not know what to do with all this?—”

“Let me worship you, Anna. You need do nothing.”