“You think this is right?” She shook her head in denial. “I don’t want to be free of you. I want to be with you, idiot.”
“Maybe, once the dust is settled—”
“You are without a shadow of a doubt the most irritating man I have ever met. Once the dust is settled! Thedust. Issettled! How dare you!” She was all done with tact and diplomacy. “Who decided you get to dictate the terms? I do not answer to you, Giles Sinclair! You made me fall in love with you—”
“You love me?” That admission made him smile as if he couldn’t quite believe it.
She was too infuriated to pause and wagged her finger at him instead. “You made me throw all my plans of blessed spinsterhood out of the window, made me yearn for an eternity stuck with a vexing, flippant, annoying rogue like you, and now you rescind the offer and try to send me away?”
He was still smiling with awe and wonder. And stubborn regret. “Hopefully not forever. Just until I know you are safe from all Gervais’s twisted machinations. He can do his worst to me, but I would rather die than give him any opportunity to hurt you. And he will hurt you. Be in no doubt of that. I saw it in his eyes and so did you.” She had but Diana never cowed to bullies or threats. “He knew too much about you not to use it to get his twisted revenge.”
“But we are missing something. I know it. I still have so many unanswered questions. Turn yourself in if you have to, but let me stay here so I can keep digging on your behalf.”
He sighed. “Time has run out, Diana. I have to do this next part alone and I will find it all that much easier if I know you and your family are safe from harm. I need you to go, but if I could beg one final favor before we part company…” He did reach for her hand this time, not to hold but to caress reverently on the mattress for a moment before he tugged his away. “I would ask that the Sentinel writes the truth for me and that it goes to the presses the day you return to London whether the story has broken or not. Gervais can say what he wants about me and the duke—but I don’t want him to paint my mother a harlot.”
“I’ll write it.” She gave in to the urge to touch his face, brushing her fingers through his hair. “But I shall give it to Vee to deliver because I am not leaving you.”
“But, Diana—” It was her turn to press her finger to his outraged lips.
“Giles, when have I ever listened to any of your sensible advice? I shall do what I think is for the best no matter what you have to say on the subject. Would you desert me if the tables were turned?” Of course he wouldn’t. He was by her side irrespective of how ridiculous he thought her idea or how many times he gloated that he had told her so. He was steadfast and resolute. As reliable as he was vexing. An exceptional man in every sense.
“But the tables aren’t turned and I cannot, in all good conscience—” She silenced him with a kiss then prodded him in his distracting, noble chest.
“I am afraid my decision is made—and I will not be swayed.I love you and that is that. If it all goes to hell in a handcart, you can be assured that I know that you told me so and we shall honeymoon in Botany Bay together.”
She watched a complicated array of emotions play across his handsome face. Emotions that started with joy that she returned his affections, relief that she wouldn’t leave him alone, and then ran the gamut through gratefulness to guilt. Before the guilt got a foothold and he dug his heels in she kissed him again and kept on kissing him until he groaned against her mouth and kissed her back. “This discussion isn’t done, Diana.”
“It is for now, Giles.” She looped her arms around his stubborn neck. “So shut up and kiss me.”
Chapter Thirty
He tried to be noble—bless him.
Tried to be a gentleman. But Diana wouldn’t let him. Each time he pulled away to end their kiss, she nibbled his ear or nuzzled his neck until his lips found his way back to hers where they belonged. His glaring lack of willpower where she was concerned empowered her to be bolder as the seconds ticked to minutes and then time became irrelevant.
He did not resist when she pushed him back on the mattress and allowed his hands to smooth over her curves when hers explored his chest over the soft linen. When her fingers dipped beneath the hem of his shirt to touch skin, he sighed against her mouth, his eyelids fluttered closed as she lifted the fabric from his body to allow her lips and tongue to follow the same path as her fingertips.
She marveled in the flat, hard planes of his abdomen, tracing the dark dusting of hair that arrowed through his navel upward with her eyes first, and then her palms, to the muscles of his chest. Reveling in the way his nipples puckered as her breath whispered over them; the strangled groan that rolled deep in his chest whenher lips tasted them. Humbled by his trust as he lay passive beneath her curiosity. Intrigued by the impressive bulge in his straining breeches that seemed to grow bigger with every caress.
Needing more, Diana kissed him deeply. As their tongues tangled he dragged her body to lie atop his, his big hands splayed across her bottom, moaning his appreciation when she straddled his hips and their bodies touched as intimately as they could through the barrier of clothes.
Sensing he would do nothing without her express permission, she reached for his hand and guided it to the belt of her robe, then rolled, dragging him with her to give him the space to undo the knot.
He took his time untying it. Some of that, she realized, was to prolong the sweet agony, but the rest was due to his own nerves. His own clumsy fingers.
Because she overwhelmed him so.
The significance of what they were doing swirled alongside the desire in his eyes. The candlelit turning the few flecks in his irises molten when the belt finally gave and she wriggled her arms out of the sleeves and smiled up at him from the pillow.
In case he needed another blatant invitation, she pulled him down for another kiss, moaning her encouragement as his palms smoothed down her hip, down her thigh, and dipped beneath her nightgown to brush against the bare flesh of her leg. Then upward, with aching slowness, setting every nerve ending ablaze with nothing more than the single finger he traced over her skin.
Like a soft summer breeze he skimmed the curls at the apex of her thighs. Barely a touch but her body’s reaction was intense. Her womb clenched with need. Nerves she had no idea she possessedthrobbed, and her hips arched in protest as his fingers wandered to her stomach.
As if the wretch knew he was torturing her, his mouth found a different lazy trail to follow along her jaw, down her neck. It lingered far too long on her collarbone and she felt his smile against her breast before he kissed her aching nipple through the thin muslin.
Diana did not recognize the earthy, wanton sound which emanated from her throat. Never realized that she could make such a noise, until the hand that had ceased its exploration of her midriff slid beneath the fabric to cup her other breast and elicited an earthier, desperate, and scandalous response. One that caused her hips to grind shamelessly against his and the most feminine part of her body beg for them to be joined.
Her greedy fingers went to his waistband and fumbled with the buttons, and when they refused to comply with the speed she demanded, she brazenly learned the shape of him over his breeches while his mouth finally found her bare breast and she writhed against his sheets because she could barely stand the exquisite pain.
