Page 88 of The Captive Duke
Christian crossed his arms.
She rose and drew him forward by the wrist. “Whatever it is, say it.”
“I’d prefer you were bowed over my sated and prostrate form.” He pulled the door shut behind him and let her tug him into the room.
“We shall not be indiscreet here in the broad light of day,” she said, but she’d left a question in the words when she’d intended a stern admonition.
He smiled down at her. “Someday, Gillian, I will have you writhing and moaning in the broad light of day. Outdoors even.”
“You’d get leaves in my hair.” She could afford the humor, because he was behaving.
“Among other places, but then I’d help you remove them.”
“You are so naughty.”
“Do you mind?” He kissed her ear and rested his chin on her crown.
“You cannot spend your entire day seeing to my safety. I ought to leave,” she said, genuinely sorry to bring this up again when his mood was so winsome.
“Not without me. We’ve had no word of the girl who prepared your lunch basket with the poisoned tea, and inquiries at the Lion and Cock yield only the information that she began to work there last winter and hailed from the West Riding.”
“If she could get to my food, anybody can.” Or they could get to his.
“No, they can’t.” His eyes were very sober, his hands on her shoulders steady. “I’ve sent everybody from the house staff whom I can’t vouch for personally off to visit family, which is common enough between haying and harvest. Your footmen or I attend you wherever you go, and the entire staff has been warned to watch for strangers.”
“They’ve been…protective,” Gilly said. “Discreet, but protective.”
“You’re surprised?”
“I left my slippers in your bedroom that first night.”
“So?”
The great lout was genuinely perplexed. “Below stairs, they know.”
“That we share a bed? If you say so.”
“I don’t like that they know.” She hated that they knew, hated that they might think her guilty of every weak, wanton behavior Greendale had accused her of.
Christian’s gaze narrowed, more closely approximating the ducal sphinx Gilly had barged in on weeks ago in London. “Will you pretend you don’t like what we do?”
She would have moved out from under his hands, but he only let her turn, and wrapped his arms around her from behind. “The question is sincere, my lady. I would not for the world impose on you.”
The wretch, saying such things out loud.
“I like what we do.”
“Then is it me? Perhaps you’d rather disport with a different partner?”
And behind the arrogance of the question, Gilly heard a hint, a well-hidden, ducally disregarded hint of vulnerability. She turned in his arms and pressed her face against his chest. She had licked, kissed, and nuzzled her way over most of this chest and had found it delicious.
“I will never disport thus with another. I promise myself every morning I will not disport thus withyouagain, at least not until matters are settled between us.”
His hold on her loosened. “I do not understand your dilemma. I have determined you need time to sort it out yourself, and this sits ill with me, but as a measure of my regard for you, I do not force the matter.”
“Oh, no, you do not force the argument, you merely—”
“Yes?” He slipped his hands down and cupped her bottom, which meant she took notice of his male flesh growing hard between them.
