Page 79 of Anything But a Duke
He knew precisely what he wanted to do with her. All the ways he wanted to touch and tempt and worship her. All of it would be easy. Every moment with her was easy. It was part of why she intoxicated him.
“Tell me,” he urged. “Whatever you need, I’ll give you.”
She drew in a deep breath. “I need you to refrain from thinking about the future.”
His breath tangled in his throat. He understood what she was asking and he knew precisely how difficult it would be, if not impossible. But rather than deter her, he nodded. He couldn’t deny her anything. Ever.
“We’ll only have tonight,” she said as she fitted her body against him, then lifted her hands to his shoulders. “Just promise me that for tonight we’ll only think of these hours. Not tomorrow. Not any other moment than here and now.”
He bent his head to kiss her.
She tasted of his whiskey and everything he’d ever wanted. When she moaned against his lips, he felt the echo of it reverberating through his body.
For some reason, she was offering him everything, and God how he wanted it. But a tiny voice in his head warned him to take care.
He knew with utter certainty that he didn’t deserve her, but he desired her with everything he was made of, and he was nothing if not a man who chased after what he wanted with relentless drive.
Still, he had to be sure. Not of his own desires, but of hers. Lifting his head, he asked, “Are you certain?”
“I only had two sips of whiskey. I promise I know what I’m about.” She reached up and slid her fingers through the hair above his forehead, trailing her fingers toward his neck and sending shivers all the way down the backs of his thighs. “I’ve wanted this for a while. Tonight I have no doubts.”
“Good,” he said, and couldn’t manage another breath before taking her mouth. He wasn’t gentlemanly or tender. His body had lit on fire. His mind was a spinning top. She wanted him and she’d come to him, and he refused to waste a single moment.
He kissed her again and again, hungrily, eagerly. She reached up to hold on to his shoulders. He lowered his hands to her backside, and pulled her tighter against where he was aching for her.
“Will you take me upstairs?” she managed on a breathless whisper between kisses.
Good grief, he was a brute. And her innocent and very practical question was precisely why he was dizzy with wanting her.
He had a primal urge to sweep her up into his arms and carry her up to his bedroom, but she’d probably tell him that sprinting side by side was far quicker.
He reached for her hand, and she threaded her fingers between his. The gesture was simple, instinctive, and yet it felt like a gift.
As they started up the stairs, side by side, hips and legs brushing each other’s, fingers entwined, Aidan found he could easily imagine doing this with her every night. He turned and smiled at her.
Her skin was flushed with color, her eyes glassy and eager. “Just this one night,” she whispered.
He nodded. He’d promised not to think of the future, but he couldn’t imagine not wanting more.
Chapter Twenty-Two
The bed was the most elegant, opulent piece of furniture Diana had ever seen.
Slipping out of her family’s house hadn’t given her a moment’s hesitation. Lifting her hand to grip the lion’s-head door knocker on Aidan’s front door had caused her only a moment’s hesitation. Saying she wanted to spend the evening with him was the easiest part of all. It was what she’d wanted for perhaps as long ago as the moment she’d first met him.
But the bed. The bed was the first part of her plan to give her pause.
Not because of its size and opulence, but because it was the intimate spot where he laid his head every night. She’d bid him not to think of the future and yet now it was the only thing she could imagine. Would he sleep here every coming evening and think of this single night they’d shared together?
When he married his noblewoman, would they sleep in this same bed? Would one of her friends marry him and lay her head on these pillows?
“You’re fretting.” Aidan approached her from behind and pressed a warm kiss to the nape of her neck. “Tell me what you’re thinking.”
Diana leaned back against him. It felt good to let him take her weight. “How long do you have? There’s never just one thought in my head. It’s like a kaleidoscope.”
“You offered tonight. We have until dawn. So tell me all of it.”
He couldn’t see her, but she smiled. How had she found the one man in England who truly wanted to know about the whirring thoughts in her head?
