Page 75 of Five Nights with a Rakish Duke
“You keep it with you?” she said softly. He chose not to answer her and looked away, covering his face with his hands. Silence stretched between them for a minute as she read her own letter.
“Asher… I did not write this.” The words made him lower his hands from his face and look back around to her.
“Asher,” she repeated, circling the table and holding the letter up higher. “I did not write this.”
“What?” He didn’t understand. He took the letter from her hands, reading it again. “You did send me a letter though?”
“I did, and I did refuse to come to you for the fifth night, but none of this is my words,” she said, gesturing madly at the letter. “I told you I could not come to you for the fifth night because I am in love with you.” He stared at her, scarcely able to believe her. Yet her green eyes glistened over with tears. “You think I could come to spend a fifth night with you knowing that I love you, knowing that at the end, it was the last time I would ever see you? That it would have to be as if nothing was ever between us, and I would have to watch you marry Margaret?”
He was breathing deeply as he tossed the letter down, hardly caring where it landed.
“I couldn’t do it, Asher. I couldn’t face it after that.” Her tears suddenly came, gasping as she flung her hands to her face and tried to cover her eyes.
“You love me?” he asked, walking quickly toward her and wrapping his arms around her body. To his great relief, she fell into his arms, crying on his chest. “You said that you love me?” he whispered, needing to hear it again.
“I do,” she said, still gasping through her tears. “That was the letter I wrote to you.”
Then…what happened to her original letter? Who sent this one?Asher couldn’t answer the questions, so he sought to settle another matter instead. He lifted a hand and raised her chin, urging her to look at him. She lifted her chin but closed her eyes, refusing to look at him as tears slid from those lids down her cheeks.
“Penny… I was going to ask you on our fifth night to court me.” His words made those eyes shoot open.
“But you are courting Margaret?”
“I was going to end it,” he said hurriedly, brushing his hands up and down her arms, needing that connection with her. “I could never marry Margaret, Penny. How could I when the only person I can ever picture marrying is you?”
Her lips flickered into a smile, and she shook her head as if in disbelief. “This cannot be real,” she murmured. “This must be a dream.”
“Then I’ll prove it’s real.” He bent down and kissed her. It wasn’t like the kisses they had shared where it was full of need and passion. This one was gentle and sweet with a soft movement of lips as he reached up a hand and tangled it in her locks, urging her to turn her head to him. When they parted from each other, he rested their foreheads together. “Do you believe it is real now? I love you, Penny.”
“Then…” She paused and bit her lip, her green eyes still glistening. “You wanted to marry me?”
“I still do.” She reached up and kissed him again, this one much more animated than their last kiss.
“Is that a ‘yes?’” he said between kisses as he began to pepper them down her neck.
“Yes!” she said, her voice raspy with heavy breathing. He turned her body, angling her beneath him in his grasp as he returned his lips to hers and kissed her again. They were kissing for some time when Penny slid her hands up his jacket and began to pull at the lapels.
“Asher… do not stop.” The request was a clear one as she coupled it with pulling the jacket off his shoulders.
“Penny,” he sighed, feeling the desire ripple through his body. “Believe me, I do not want to stop, but here? Now?”
“What is more perfect?” she asked. “You have just asked me to marry you.” He kissed her again, knowing it was true. “Please, do not stop.”
“They could come back,” Asher whispered, glancing at the door.
“You heard them,” Penny said as she laid his jacket down beneath her on the stone floor. “They will be gone for an hour.”
It was the only persuasion he needed. He rested down to his knees clambered over her, needing her, pressing his body over hers and sealing his lips to hers again.
Penny wrapped her arms around Asher, pulling him further down to her. At this moment, she didn’t care about propriety or whether there had been a ceremony or not. The man she loved wanted to marry her, and all she wanted was to indulge in this moment to be with him.
“I would have wanted this to be in my bed back home. To adore you as you deserve to be adored,” Asher whispered to her, pulling at the skirt of her dress.
“I do not mind where we are, Asher,” she said, pulling at his waistcoat until the buttons popped open and pushing it off his shoulders. “As long as we are here together.”
He smiled down at her, holding her gaze as he bent toward her for another kiss. She slid her hands under his shirt, dying for a touch of skin. His chest was firm beneath her touch, and he growled into the kiss, clearly loving it. When she pulled the shirt free of his body, she was lost in admiring the definition of his muscle in the candlelight, but he was not so distracted. He was reaching for the skirt of her dress and chemise, pulling them up and bundling them around her hips.
She could feel a pool developing between her legs, reminding her of what they had shared on his rug in his sitting room. She lifted her knees higher, nestling them either side of his hips, urging him on.
