Page 102 of Duke of Wickedness
“Yes,” he said, and some of the tension bled out of him. “Yes, I do. Of course I do. I just… I’m afraid, Ariadne. This might be the most selfish thing I’ve ever done—ever even considered.”
He was biting his lip, his anxiety palpable, and she reached up to cup his face this time. He leaned into the caress like it was a lifeline.
“Be selfish,” she said. “For once in your life, take what you want. Demand what you need.”
“I want all of you,” he said, his eyes drifting closed.
She tugged his face down.
“David,” she urged. “Look at me.”
He did, his eyes bright, tortured.
“I want all of you, too. If you will be mine, I will be yours.” The words held the weight of a vow, and she let them. She was making her own future. She was grasping what she wanted with both hands, and she wasnotletting go. “Body and soul. You and me. No regrets.”
He sucked in a gasping breath, and then he was kissing her, grasping at her, pulling her close with the same fervor that she offered him.
“I love you,” he told her between kisses. “I love you. God, how I love you.”
And then he started to laugh and she, understanding him perfectly, started to laugh, too, because it simply felt so good—so wonderful—soperfect.
“I adore you,” she told him. “Just the way you are.”
“I’m the luckiest bastard in London,” he told her, pressing his forehead to hers. “What did I ever do to deserve you?”
This question proved rhetorical, as he kissed her before she had any hope of answering.
They kissed and kissed, then kissed some more. She let her hands start to roam, feeling the slope of his shoulders and the muscles of his back. She made a mental note to ensure that he started eating more; the past month had left him looking and feeling thinner than he ought to have done.
Then she giggled into his kiss some more because she had the right to make sure he did such things, now. She got to have him—to keep him. She got to care for him. Love him.
In that moment, the luck felt as though it was all hers.
“If we keep going on like this,” David said when they had been kissing for a good long while—and yet, not nearly long enough for Ariadne’s tastes, “we are going to make a scene.”
Ariadne thought about the years she’d spent trying to be the perfect Society miss. And then she thought about the Duke of Wilds, the rake to end all rakes, here in her arms, all hers. To have and to hold.
“Good,” she said. “Let them talk.”
David gave her a look that was delighted and falsely scandalized. There were still dark circles under his eyes, and he still looked weary. The pains of the past month would not disappear in an instant, after all. But his happiness shone through. To her, he was as bright as the sun.
“I’m already in love with you, my darling,” he said chidingly. “You don’t need to be anymoreperfect.” He bent close to her, one hand at her waist, pulling her close enough to him that she could feel his hardness in his trousers.
“Besides,” he murmured in that way of his, the one that never failed to make her shiver, “I want to do things to you that are not properly done in a garden. Let me take you somewhere we can be really alone, won’t you?”
Ariadne had no objection to that. He scooped her under her knees, a display of athleticism that left her gasping with how alluring she found it, and carried her off through the gardens.
Her giggles echoed behind her as he carried her off toward the life they would build together.
EPILOGUE
David had been given very strict instructions.
“You are going to stay in bed until atleastnoon tomorrow,” Ariadne told him sternly as she did what she could to re-don her gown after he’d taken her home from the ball and made love to her thoroughly.
If he had thought that things were good between them previously, those experiences paled in comparison to how marvelously they came together after they’d admitted their feelings to one another. When David had finally allowed himself to take his own pleasure—after wringing as much from his little bird as he could—it had taken him so powerfully that his vision had gone dark for a moment.
“I do have things I need to do,” he protested half-heartedly. Hewasvery tired. And he was very excited to sleep in his own bed again, particularly now that it held hints of Ariadne’s light, floral scent. He would have liked it better if she was going to sleep there with him, but he supposed he could be patient. At least a little.
