Page 59 of Duke of Pride

Stephen swallowed her moans, his kiss turning filthy, his tongue licking into her mouth as if he could taste the very moment she came undone. His fingers never stopped circling, thrusting shallowly, wringing every last bit of pleasure from her until she was gasping, oversensitive, trembling.

“Very good,” he murmured against her lips, his voice thick with satisfaction.

His voice sent another pulse of heat through her, even as the aftershocks still rippled through her limbs. Her hands, tangled in his hair, dragged him closer, her nails scoring his scalp as she clung to him, dazed and desperate. Stephen’s breathing was ragged as he watched her with a look of raw hunger. His fingers, still slick with her, traced idle, possessive patterns along her inner thigh.

For a long moment, they stayed like that, their foreheads pressed together, their breaths mingling. Then, Stephen withdrew his hand, bringing his glistening fingers to his mouth with a dark smirk.

“So sweet.”

Victoria blushed. But she was not ashamed. If anything, she wanted more, her body vibrating with want, with need. If she could, she would never leave this greenhouse. She would stay in here with him forever. Doing this, doing more.

He tucked a stray strand behind her ear, the look in his eyes a mix of surprise and desolation. She saw the war raging inside him, the same war that—she realized—had raged between them since the beginning.

“We need to go back,” he said.

No, we don’t.

“Wait here, I will bring you an overcoat.” He got up

“No, it’s…” Victoria was at a loss for words.

“It’s cold outside,” he said in a tone that was colder than the night air.

She bit the inside of her cheek to keep from screaming at the whiplash of emotions. He let one side win—the same he always let win. He looked down at her, fixing her with a hot look.

“I’d hate for you to get sick,” he added softly and then left her there.

The moment he left, Victoria was alone in the greenhouse.

Her first thought was that she had miscalculated the number of rooms in the house. She had forgotten to count the greenhouse. She chuckled in the silence. And how would she name this one? If the carriage incident was ‘ruin,’ then what was this? Greenhouse ‘devastation?’ The smile withered on her lips.

She didn’t want to name it. She didn’t want to file it away. She didn’t want the night to end and morning to come. Didn’t want to go down for breakfast and pretend, again, that nothing had happened.

She leaned back and looked up at the moon through the glass ceiling. Her skin still hummed where he had touched her. The warmth of his body slowly faded, leaving only the humid embrace of the greenhouse. She lamented the loss. Not only of his body so close to hers—though she missed the way he made her feel—but of something more.

The way he listened to her, the way he gave her time to open up. He had listened when she spoke of her fears, and understood her in a way no one else ever had. He had seenher, not just the rebellious bluestocking odd-one-out, not just his sister’s best stubborn friend. And she had seen him, too. The man beneath the title, the propriety.

Yes, they had shared a moment so hot, so intimate. He was so close, touched her most intimate parts, tasted her whole. He controlled her body in a way that made her tremble still. But what they had shared before that was deeper and harder to discard. Their bodies followed instinct. Their minds followed a different path that led them to each other. Her heart…

The realization struck her like lightning, sudden and undeniable.

I love him.

A hysterical laugh bubbled up her throat. Of course, she would fall in love with the most impossible man in England. The one who had just given her pleasure so intense it had shattered her, then walked away because he thought it was the proper thing to do. The one who matched her wit for wit. The one who was not intimidated by her, and instead allowed her to be herself in his own infuriating way.

Why does it have to be this way?

She was fighting to grasp at the revelation, rationalize it, deny it, shake it away when the door cracked again. First, Euclid ran to her and rested his head on her lap. Of all the things she needed to grip onto reality, this mutt was the best one. It was as if Stephen knew what she needed before she did.

“He insisted on following me,” Stephen explained. “And I thought it might make a good excuse if anyone saw us.”

He drew close, but she focused on Euclid’s stupidly happy face, holding back her tears. He wrapped a warm cardigan around her shoulders. His. She knew from the smell immediately.

“We can always claim that he ran away and got lost, and we were looking for him.”

She chuckled cruelly.

He sat across from her, watching her. She didn’t have to look up to feel his gaze drilling into her.

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