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8
Iwant you.
The words seemed to echo in his skull and reverberate against his ribcage.
I want you.
He tried to clear his mind, to focus. She didn’t mean it like that. Of course she didn’t. His brows drawn low in concentration, he moved toward her until he was close enough to smell the scent of her soap and see the pulse that fluttered at the base of her neck.
So fragile and delicate, his Lillian. So small and precious.
So easily broken if she were in the arms of a brute.
The thought made him growl, and her eyes widened in alarm.
“You don’t mean that,” he said.
Her eyes were still wide, but her lips parted as she whispered, “I do.”
I want you.
His cock had been stirring from the moment he’d set eyes on her, and his blood seemed to boil at the sound of her voice.
I want you.
How was he supposed to resist? He couldn’t. She was offering him everything he’d ever wanted, everything he knew better than to wish for.
She was offering him everything he could never have.
And she offered up this devilish temptation with the lips and eyes of an angel. Despite her predicament, she was an innocent. She knew little of the world—she knew nothing ofhisworld.
“This is no place for you,” he said.
She reached for him, her hands fluttering slightly before landing on his chest as she moved in so close he couldn’t breathe. She was surrounding him with her heat and her scent and her proximity. She was so close that one little shift forward and her breasts would brush against his muscles. A dip of his head and his lips would be a breath away from hers.
He squeezed his eyes shut tight as he fought for control.
“You asked me what I want,” she whispered. “And I’ve told you. I wish to stay here with you.”
Desire and frustration exploded behind his temples, his pulse roaring in his ears. She didn’t mean it. She couldn’t.
“I-I understand if you do not wish to marry me,” she said. “I would never ask you to take on the burden of this child who is not yours.”
His eyes snapped open. She couldn’t be serious.
But her gaze was fixed on his and her jaw was set. “I am not trying to trap you, if that is what you’re worried about—”
“Worried,” he repeated in disbelief. She thought himworried? About being saddled with her as his wife and her babe as his child?
He gaped at her. Was she daft? Could she really not know that she was everything he’d ever wanted?
“But please believe me when I say that I know my own mind,” she continued. And for the first time since she’d arrived, the shadows in her eyes seemed to fade as determination took its place. “I want to stay here. With you.” Her throat worked as she swallowed. “However you would have me.”
However you would have me.
The word had all the blood in his body surging to his loins and his sudden hardness made his head spin.
However you would have me.
