“It was rather chaste, as if he feared offending me. I have the impression he’s not quite as passionate as you.”
“Perhaps he’s simply more gentlemanly, and the passion will come.”
She brushed the hair back from his brow. “Whatwould your father—” She stopped, shook her head. “How do you refer to him now?”
“On occasion,father. It’s the habit of a lifetime. More often by his title, when I can remember. Frequentlybastard, even though he’s not one and I am.”
“Are you bothered that your true parents were in fact not married and, technically, you are a bastard?”
“Initially, I did struggle with the circumstances of... my birth. I wasn’t who I’d always understood myself to be. I wasn’thisson. My life—I—had been a lie. Who was I really? What was I really? But during my darkest moments I would think of you, and from you I learned legitimacy does not define a person. So I looked to my achievements as a way to measure myself as a man.” He considered loving her and being lovedbyher his greatest success.
Her fingers lingered in his hair before trailing down to stroke his jaw. “I grew up knowing I wasn’t legitimate. For you, the suddenness of it must have been a blow.”
“The harder part was imagining Mother being unfaithful. She doesn’t seem the sort.”
“Do you have any idea who truly sired you?”
Slowly he shook his head.
“Have you asked your mother?”
“I haven’t even told her that I know the truth of things, and I most certainly haven’t revealed anything at all about the bargain. She wouldn’t take it well, would feel guilty, and that rather defeats the purpose of my rescuing her. She went through twenty years of hell. I want whatever time remains to her to be carefree and without worry.”
Her eyes were brown, fathomless depths into which he’d always fallen when given the chance to stare into them, as he was now. But after tonight there could be no more opportunities. He needed to attend to the task of prodding Chidding more quickly toward the altar and thwarting her brother’s attempts to prove she was Anonymous.
“What do you thinkthe dukewould do now if you were to marry?”
“I vowed I would not.”
Lifting herself up, she straddled him. “He is not an honorable man. Look what he did to your mother. What he did to you. He had years in which he could have told you the truth. He could have chosen to be gentle in the telling. He could have chosen to not let it matter. Instead at every turn he was deliberately cruel.”
“His actions would not excuse my being dishonorable. I swore on my mother’s life not to marry. In addition, he has demonstrated his cruelty knows no bounds. I can’t discount the retribution he might decide to take. Who he would hurt. What sort of torment he might inflict on those I love.”
“Why is his blood so damned important?”
“It has always been thus among royalty and the nobility.”
“But we are comprised of more than red fluid. Other aspects of us are so much more important.” Leaning down, she peppered kisses over his brow, his cheeks, his jaw. “Yet your determination to remain honorable and protect others are reasons I love you so.”
And one of the reasons he would spend the remainder of his life with regret for the pain he’d inflicted upon her.
“It nearly killed me that day not to make you my wife.” Was nearly killing him now to know he never could.
“If the Duke of Wyndstone were any sort of decent man, he’d be proud to call you son.”
Although he’d never be proud to call the man father. He gave her a cocky grin. “I think you’re somewhat biased.”
“Doesn’t mean I’m wrong.”
He needed to get her home soon. But not right now. He needed her one more time.
Cradling her hips, he raised her up and brought her down, thrusting into her as he did so, as her velvet heat surrounded his cock. She rode him with fire and determination.
She’d never been shy but neither had she been this confident, this controlling.
Their need for each other was like a tempest—all fury and force and destruction. Tearing down walls that would need to be rebuilt, taking possession and tossing them about with persistence, encompassing them fully until nothing existed outside of them.
Only hunger, pleasure, and need existed. Only this small world of touches, kisses, and strokes. Squeezing, pinching, and soothing. No troubles, no worries. No nightmares. Only dreams. Splendor and richness.
