Page 43 of Loving a Beast of a Marquess
In short, she wanted everything she could never have, and her heart ached at the realization even as she resigned herself to her fate.
She would marry the Earl of Riffy, and everything between her and Zachary would be over.
* * *
The morning of the garden party dawned fresh and bright. Evangeline was up with the sun in part because there was much to do in preparation but also because she couldn’t sleep.
Today was the day she intended to tell the Earl that she would marry him, and the day she would tell Zachary their… well, whatever it was they had would have to end.
She was dreading both.
Zachary had not sought her out since the Earl’s visit which she was partly grateful for as it gave her time to assemble her thoughts, but which she also mourned. If she was to end things with him, she wished she could have had one last meeting. She wanted to savor the taste of him on her lips before she denied herself that pleasure for the rest of her life.
When she ventured downstairs, however, it was to find the Marquess already in the library, staring out across the lawn with his hands tucked behind his back.
Bizarrely, Evangeline felt a quiver of nervousness. Now was the moment to tell him, but she didn’t want to just yet. She wanted this last moment of free, unfettered affection, so she could commit it to memory and carry it with her.
When he turned at the sound of her arrival, the hardness on his face eliminated any hope she had of one last kiss.
“I gather I am to wish you joy,” he said stiffly.
“I—” Evangeline bit her lip. “I have not yet given my answer.”
“You have not.” He approached until he was close enough for them to touch though he made no effort to touch her. “What will your answer be, Evangeline? Or should I sayLadyEvangeline?”
“Zachary.” Her voice was more of a plea, and something shifted in his face. Pity, anger, frustration. “You speak to me as though I have a choice in the matter.”
“And you are powerless to do anything except that which your aunt dictates you do, of course.” This time he did touch her; he took her chin in his fingers, too hard to be gentle yet not hard enough to hurt. But she felt his strength, the power in his touch, the way he could hurt her if he wanted. He did not want to, she was certain, but his fingers trembled as though he was holding himself together by a mere thread.
“If I refuse him, what then?” she whispered. “My family are relying on me to make a good match, and he is the first gentleman to have offered for me.”
He released her as abruptly as he had taken hold of her. “Then by no means let me detain you.”
“I had come here in the hopes youmight,” she said, and this time she took hold of his face. With Zachary, she had become bold, and it was that boldness that led her to stand on her tiptoes and kiss him.
He kissed her back with such scalding passion she felt it right to her fingertips. He devoured her as though she was the only thing that existed in his world, with hard, angry lips that demanded and took.
Evangeline offered herself to him freely. He owned her, body and soul; she understood that now. Without knowing how she had done it, she had given him her heart, and now all they had left was this moment. If he wanted to own her in more ways than one, he could. She would let him, knowing the consequences. Knowing that once the Earl of Riffy had married her, there was little he could do about it without widespread scandal and discomfort.
He was not offering for her because he believed in her innocence; he was offering for her because she was a Duke’s daughter, and he was reaching the age he needed to marry.
And so, Evangeline sank her fingers into Zachary’s hair, opened her mouth to him, pressed her hips against his until she felt the evidence of his arousal, and let him consume her.
“Is this what you had hoped for?” he asked, hands gripping her forearms tightly enough she could not have escaped if she’d wanted to. He was breathing too hard, the desire in his eyes matched by the blazing anger. “Or were you perhaps hoping I might take you to my bedchamber and throw you on the bed?” He eased her back until she collided with the wall. “Perhaps you were hoping I would strip you of every article of clothing until I saw you in all your glory and beauty.”
Evangeline couldn’t breathe. All she knew was the hot, heavy desire at her core throbbed at the thought of him looking at her.
“I would take your breast,” Zachary said, cupping it now through her clothes, “and I would put my mouth to it.”
Lord, she might combust here and now.
“And I would pin you under my body as you writhed under me.” He nipped her neck, eliciting a sound from her she didn’t know she could make. “I would kiss you to quieten you, and I would explore every inch of your body with my hands, my tongue, myteeth.”
She wanted him. She wanted him more than she could articulate, more than she had ever wanted anything in her life, with a primal need that had her rolling her hips against his.
More, more, more, more—
He gave a dark chuckle and ground his hips against hers. “And finally, little mouse, I would give in and touch youthere.”
