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“The one where you defile me?” I kiss his bottom lip as his mouth pulls to a grin.
“Every inch of you.” He brings himself flush to me. “My Duchess to be.”
My heart stutters at his remark, and I’m incapable of saying anything when he kisses me with his tongue sweeping over mine. Our bodies are so close that I can feel the dips and grooves of his chest when I breathe him, and he drinks my hums.
We’re a loose tangle of limbs when his phone rings on the overbed table. It vibrates closer as we come up from our cuddle. The levity that was on his face before falls to a stern frown. This is the call.
“Sloane,” Henry answers curtly. There’s a beat of silence before he ends the call, and his eyes meet mine again. “It’s done.”
“Alfie? Clara?”
“They’re safe. Casper’s put them up in a cottage in Cornwall for now. I told you I wouldn’t hurt the boy or his mother.” He levels me with a straight face. “Unless he touches you again.”
“He’s my friend,” I tell him with a soft laugh as he lies down beside me again.
“I don’t care. No one gets to touch you but me,” he asserts, wrapping an arm lightly around my waist.
He’s ridiculous, but at the same time, no one has made me feel more cherished or loved. Henry may not be perfect in the grand scheme of things, but he is perfect for me.
“I love you.” The whisper rumbles from deep inside me. “I love you so much.”
“Never more than I love you, darling,” he replies, peppering ardent kisses over my face.
If I ever did die like this—in his arms and with his lips worshipping me—it would be the best way to go. But while we’re breathing, I’m not leaving his side ever again. No matter what happens. This man is my perfect villain. My beautiful killer. My once-in-a-lifetime miracle. He’s everything I never knew I wanted and all I’ll ever need.
EPILOGUE
EVE
One month later…
The howls are deafening as Henry leads me out of the ballroom at Lancaster House. The lights are dimmed to a gold glimmer, and there are candles dotted on every surface as we leisurely take the stairs down one at a time.
“Last time we were here, I was a bastard,” Henry says, lifting me off the bottom step and carrying me through the long corridor towards the back of the house.
“You’re always a bastard, but I guess you’re my bastard, so…” I shrug, looking around the large room he takes me into.
The most beautiful, almost black roses, calla lilies, and gold-dusted ivy arrangements are scattered on multiple surfaces, with black feathers and rich berries draping from them. The fires at each end of the room are flickering with the warmest glow that makes the place feel cosy.
“I am yours, Eve,” Henry tells me as we meander over to the large glass doors that make up the back wall of the room. “I’m always going to be yours, no matter what happens.”
The stutter of my heart causes me to choke on the quiet laugh that vibrates up my throat. The last month has been special. We’ve gone to bed together every night and woken up to each other every morning. He’s the first and last thing I see, and I don’t want it to be any other way.
Henry opens one of the double doors and guides me out to the porch overlooking the topiary maze set into the sunken garden. A trail of lampposts s the way to the centre, where a statue of two lovers peeks above the shrub walls.
“I never got to give you this,” he tells me, pulling a familiar black envelope from inside his dinner jacket. “I debated giving it to you the first night I took you back home, but it just seemed too soon after everything that happened.”
“It’s never too soon, Your Grace.” I smile, trying to lighten the sudden heaviness that enshrouds our escapade from Alastair’s Howl and Ryan’s swearing in.
“Perhaps not, but…” He sucks in a deep breath as we take the steps down to the maze. The music from the party upstairs echoes into the night as we follow the crowned lampposts. “I thought I lost you that night.”
“You didn’t.” The thrum of my heart picks up as he tears the envelope open for me with his finger and hands it to me. “I’m still here.”
“No, I didn’t, but I could have.” He guides me through a hidden gap in the maze wall that leads us to the statue in the middle. “Sit with me?” he asks, sitting down on the stone bench as his eyes rove over my star-embellished dress.
When I sit beside him, turned into him, his hand brushes lightly along my jaw. A gentle caress with a rough touch. It amazes me how the two can coexist and be something so incredible that I miss it the instant his hands clutch over his thighs.
“It occurred to me while I sat beside you, waiting for you to come back to me, that if I did lose you—” He pauses, shaking his head at the possibility. It’s then I notice the way his fingers are clawed into the back of his hands. “If I did lose you, Eve, I would never have a duchess of my own. There’ll never be anyone else for me. You’re it.”
