Page 44 of Good Duke Gone Far

To keep her hand from roaming all over Quinn’s body took all of Kat’s concentration. When they finally entered the carriage, the moment the door clicked shut, she threw herself at him. Finding his lips. Finding his neck. Pushing her breasts against him. She was aching for him. She needed him. She had good and gone fallen for the damn man. All of her plans were jumbled in her head. Only one plan was important right now.

“Quinn.”

“Kat,” he moaned her name, and it was the hottest thing she had ever heard. How could words make a person so warm? But the sound of words on his tongue, especially her name, made her want to melt into him.

“Quinn, you’re the calm to my chaos. How do you manage to do that?” She felt his tongue trailing down her chest, licking just below her decolletage, millimeters from her nipples. “And that. How do you do that?” she mewled in his ear.

“I want you to rip this dress off of me, Quinn. I want to bare myself to you. Body and soul.” The carriage was bouncing her on his lap, rubbing her in all the right places against his hard arousal. “I’ve never felt this way about anyone before. I don’t understand what’s happening to me. You’re changing me. I have no control over any of this. I…I love you.”

He pushed her back. She knew she shouldn’t have said it. But he was her rock. No matter how many times she struck, water poured out. And that water was love and now it had just welled up within her. There was no containing a natural spring of love. She wanted to hide her face in his chest. Pretend she hadn’t said anything. But no, that was not her. She always faced the consequences of her words. And now was the time for another consequence.

“I love you, too.” He said it. That was the consequence of love. To be loved in return or not. And this was her consequence. To be loved by him. But how? Why? When had that happened? He didn’t even sound too sure of it.

“You say it as if you’re surprised.”

“I am.” Quinn shook his head. “I’m surprised that you feel the same way. I already knew it for myself, but I thought it was too soon to say it.”

“You knew you loved me?”

“I knew. You’re captivating. Enthralling. Perhaps unhinged at times. But I’ll be your screw.”

“That’s quite possibly the weirdest thing you’ve ever said to me.” But she wanted him to be the screw. She wanted him to be the one she could count on to hold her and him together.

“It’s quite possibly the weirdest thing I’ve said, ever. To anyone. But there’s no one else I want to be a screw for.”

“I’ll take it,” Kat said. “Now, as a matter of fact.”

“I can’t do that to you here. Not in the carriage. Like this.” Quinn bit her neck lightly and chills fluttered down her spine. “Tonight. We have all night.”

“Promise?” She pressed her forehead against his neck, breathing in their combined strength, searing against what little fire she could find from his skin against hers.

“Nothing could stop me.”

Only, nothing turned into something.

Chapter 16

“THISENTIRETRIPHASbeen one thing after another,” Kat smoothed her hand over Quinn’s shoulder.

“To say the least.”

“I never expected all of this to happen.”

“Which part?”

“All of it,” Kat’s hand stilled on the strong pectoral muscles underneath her touch. It felt easier, safer, even more enjoyable, to have taken this journey with Quinn. “I would have never chosen this for myself, yet it somehow happened.”

“You keep saying that.” Quinn covered her hand and dropped them to her lap. “You don’t think you have a choice in all of this.”

“It doesn’t feel like it. Everything has happened so quickly, but it feels right.”

“I agree.” He brought her fingertips to his mouth and brushed them across his lips. “Mostly. We do have a choice. We always have a choice. Even when it feels as though we don’t.”

“What about that Bow Street Runner? His terrible choices are limiting the choices available to me.”

“Perhaps.”

She shook her head. She didn’t want to think about him and his dodgy choices. “To think that man doesn’t even have a smidgeon of remorse.” Kat shook her head. “I can’t understand him. EvenIcould do a better job than he did.”

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