We can lose our minds in a second embrace.
We can go even further. Further being her sprawled on the nearest wood table and jewels draped all over her.
He took a silent breath in through his nose. “What is it we can do?”
Fleur picked her head up. “We can be friends.”
That was the last thing they could be—especially after this. A fellow didn’t call any woman friend. It just wasn’t possible. The sheer nature of the differences between them ensured when it came to a man and the fairer sex, sex ultimately prevailed.
There was nothing friendly in the thoughts currently occupying every corner of his lust-crazed brain.
She moved a single finger along the buttons of his champagne waistcoat. From another woman, the move would have been practiced, meant to seduce, but she didn’t want marriage or sex. She wanted…friendship. He would havelaughed if he could manage amusement past a lust that wouldn’t quit.
Fleur tapped that same maddening finger where his heart beat at an embarrassingly quick speed.
“You even pointed out to Mr. Rundell that we are family,” she reminded him.
“No,” he said bluntly, staying her busy hand. “If you were listening, I pointed out to Rundell that you and I and your entire family are as far from family as we can get.” A point that needed greater emphasis, given his erection wouldn’t quit.
That lower lip of hers trembled.
Curse her. Curse him. Curse every bloody thing this day.
“Since when did you become a weepy female?” he demanded. “Never mind. I don’t care. Just stop.”
“I amnota weepy female.”
Her eyes glittered with tears. Ones he knew better then to point out, lest he send her into a full fit—of crying or rage.
And annoyed or bothered with the way her tears made him feel, he bloody conceded. “Fine. We are friends. Are you happy?”
And by the soft smile that brought her lips gently up, he had his answer.
Chapter 10
“Friendship is love without wings.”
~Lord Byron
And just like that, Fleur and Hart, the Duke of Hartwell—Henry—became friends.
Though they managed to turn the whole affair into a chaotic mess with astonishing speed.
Friends didn’t share an embrace like the one that had nearly set Fleur on fire.
She had been kissed with a furious passion, but never with both the tenderness and then rabid hunger of Henry’s.
As for Henry? One wouldn’t know either way. With a detachedness that stung more than it should, he currently set to work righting her disheveled curls. Removing her combs. Tucking strands into place.
The entire time Henry tended Fleur, she stood motionless, certain she would live forever, high above the clouds. The act he performed was achingly sweet and intimate, albeit tempered some by his ducal lecture on how to conduct herself with Mr. Rundell.
Fleur tried in vain to follow him. She heard enough snippets here and there to gather that he feared she’d make a fool of him.
She floated back to earth.
Fleur blinked away tears.
What else would he expect of a lady who he constantly found in scandalous situations and now surrendered herself to passion?
