Page 22 of Good Duke Gone Hard

Take off all your clothes.

“Ahem,” she coughed more to clear her mind than her throat. “I didn’t know you wore spectacles.”

“I don’t wear them often. Only when my eyes feel tired.” He crinkled his brow and his eyes held an expression that she couldn’t read. He took off his spectacles, and she moaned inwardly. “There’s a lot you don’t know about me, you know?”

“I wouldn’t say a lot.”

“I would.”

She cocked her head. When he didn’t continue, she began to tour the room, stalling to find the perfect place to sit. She chose the duchesse en bateau her father had imported from France as a wedding anniversary gift for his wife. Maybe if she kept her parents in mind, she could maintain her distance from him.

The silence had almost overstepped into discomfort when she said coyly, “You would, would you?”

“Yes, I would.” Placing his palms on the table, he stood and stalked over to her. In a fluid motion, he straddled the piece of furniture and sat down, leaving her toes inches from his groin.

Real or imagined, she felt heat emanating from his thighs, and she yearned to stroke him with the pads of her feet. Before the image fully formed in her mind, he proceeded.

“How can you know me if I don’t even know myself?”

“Because I’ve known you forever.”

“You knew me before. But who am I now?”

“You’re still Jonathan.”

“Am I?” He inclined his head and his eyes roved over her body sending shivers down her chest into her groin.

Breathily, she answered him, “Yes.”

“How do we know?”

“I know.”

“That’s not enough.” Before she could interrupt, he continued, “What would the old Jonathan do?”

“I’ve told you.”

“Some things.”

“Some things,” she repeated, staring into his eyes. “What more do you want to know?”

“I’m not sure what I want to know. I thought I wanted to know everything. Now, I’m not so sure. It’s a strange condition to have no working memory, yet feel some things are familiar.”

“Like what?”

“Like Chatsworth. Gregory. Riding horses. Pugilism.” He paused, “You.”

Margaret clung to the emotions rampaging out of her heart, full throttle toward Jonathan. She pressed one hand to her core, to hold herself together, as if with any sudden movement, or the perfect words out of his mouth, she might unravel and tie herself to Jonathan again. It was too easy to do so.

And then he was speaking again. “But,” he added gravely. “What do I have to offer you? I can’t give a self to you that I don’t even know. There’s no full self to give to you. You deserve a complete person, in their entirety, and absolute fullness.” He rubbed his hands up his face. “I’m a shell of a person.”

She couldn’t help herself. Maybe if she had more discipline, she could have refrained. Maybe if she could hear the small voice of reason over the deluge of lust, she would have resisted. Maybe if she was an utterly different woman, not one so entwined with Jonathan’s soul. But she wasn’t. She didn’t want to be. She couldn’t be.

So she extended her foot, an extra few inches and grazed his inner thigh.

SPARKS FLEW FROM THE point where Margaret’s foot touched his thigh all throughout his body. He knew he should hold back, but at the moment he couldn’t remember why. All he knew was that she was here, wanting him. And he was here, wanting her.

“I don’t even know the old Jonathan.” He said as he slid his hand down his thigh onto her toes to warm her cold foot.

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